The Hiking Humanitarian
January 8, 2013
Hosted by Jonathan J. Brower, Ph.D.
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Episode Description
Dr. Kirk Sinclair is The Hiking Humanitarian. As the leading expert on long distance backpacking expeditions Kirk learned that under the natural conditions of small groups we have empathy and are kind to each other. On their most recent journey Kirk and his wife Cindy became the first people to hike the American Discovery Trail continuously from west to east. This journey made Kirk one of very few 20,000 milers in the world, and served as the venue for his kindness and community mission and pilgrimage. As a humanitarian Kirk serves with a variety of organizations that would be nice to list on a resume, but as he points out in his next book in development, Kindness across America, what really matters is the involvement of people belonging to each other in community. Along this vein Kirk has been involved in community, church, schools and scouts throughout his life. He now speaks to community organizations, schools and faith-based groups about the virtues of kindness and community.
Human Behavior – What A Trip
Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Health and Wellness Channel
Our show is all about human behavior. Most people are interested, to some degree, about human beings - themselves and others. Our topics run a large gamut and will cover anything and everything about humans and their behavior.
We will have guests on some of our shows, while some shows will involve people who call in and interact with me. Some shows will be a combination of both. We’ll hunker down and talk about human behavior.
Jonathan J. Brower, Ph.D.
Early in my childhood I experienced important people in my life being “nervous.” Not having the word "anxiety" in my vocabulary, what I experienced was very real and disturbing. In addition to the nervousness, some of these people also had low energy and were somewhat withdrawn from others.
As a ten year old I became a voracious reader of biographies and some novels that had to do with the struggles people attempted to overcome. I wanted to know about other people so that I could make sense of those in my personal sphere.
By the age of sixteen I was reading books by, and about, Sigmund Freud. I was utterly fascinated with the inner-working of the unconscious and how people suffer when they put up walls to avoid being conscious of their real feelings and impulses.
In college I was a psychology major, disliking many of the courses that were not about the human struggle toward optimal mental health. I changed my major to sociology where I began to understand the social psychology of emotions and relationships. This became my focus in graduate school as I earned my Ph.D. in sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Human behavior is a wondrous and sprawling phenomenon. There are limitless boundaries to the way human beings can behave. For sure, people cannot not be doing behavior. On the contrary, people are always involved with behavior, whether sleeping or awake. Let's embrace the huge diversity of peoples' ways of behaving.