Shankar Vedantam, host of Hidden Brain, introduces an excerpt from a conversation with Victor Strecher, a University of Michigan researcher who studies purpose. Strecher shares his personal experience with grief following the death of his daughter, Julia, at age 19. He recounts a period of isolation and numbness at a family cabin, where he read Rumi's poetry. This led to a vivid dream about Julia, prompting him to kayak into Lake Michigan at dawn. During this experience, he felt Julia's presence urging him to move past his grief and focus on something larger than himself. This moment inspired him to return to teaching, viewing his students as he would his own daughter, which he describes as a life-changing decision.
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