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‘Just like the bad things, the beautiful things are temporary too.’
Roberto Olivera was raised in poverty in southern California, where he worked the tomato fields alongside his mother and abusive stepfather, migrant workers from Mexico. Now in his 60s, financially successful and with a family of his own, Olivera has grown to understand the meaning behind his mother’s frequent refrain: ‘La vida es sufrir’ (‘Life is suffering’). With an understated melancholy, Field Song pairs Olivera’s poignant reflections with views of southern California’s agricultural landscapes, presenting hardship as both temporary and timeless.
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Gender
A catchy tune explains the world’s ‘isms’ – according to your mum doing the laundry
5 minutes
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Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
7 minutes
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Consciousness and altered states
‘I want me back’ – after a head injury, Nick struggles with his altered reality
7 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
29 minutes
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Virtues and vices
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later
16 minutes
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Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
14 minutes
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Food and drink
The passage of time is a peculiar thing in a 24-hour diner
14 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
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Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes