Medication, Identity, and Misfit Experiences

Alex and Kate reflect on childhood overmedication, identity suppression, and institutional pressure to conform.

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Episode notes

Alex Rosenberg-Rigutto could not be defined by a single metric, maybe other than to say that her joy and zest for life are definitively contagious. In this incredible episode, Alex details the arc of her life and her journey to farming, stopping along the way to explore important aspects of what makes us human from our interaction with our environments to the importance of every day ritual. Kate and Alex explore the impacts of being medicated as children and how formative experiences shaped their idea of discipline, laying the ground work for a big conversation about the ‘Discipline/Pleasure’ axis. Alex shares about how her experiences with addiction led her to farming and teases out an important difference in how we seek to re-create various environments when, really, we are trying to find connection. Throughout the episode are themes of dissolving boundaries, finding a place outside of the small box society often puts on us, and building skills on the farm, in the kitchen, and beyond.

Timestamps:

00:01:33: Introducing Alex + A Note on Discipline

00:08:42: Home of Wool

00:11:53: Alex and Kate are obsessed with salt

00:18:23: Alex’s childhood environment and an exploration of overmedicating children

00:25:49: Recreating vs re-creating; drug use and the search for connection

00:32:31: Finding home in farming and being in service to land

00:50:24: On ritual: from the every day, to earth based Judaism, and beyond

00:59:11: Creating layers in the kitchen

01:22:13: Exploring the Discipline/Pleasure Axis

01:47:44: Building Skills and North Woods Farm and Skill

01:55:03: Kate + Alex Share a side story about teeth and oral health journeys