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Mark Tully considers how we relish or dread the future. Is the anticipation of something worse than the actual event - or the prospect of a treat better than the treat itself?

Mark Tully looks at both sides of anticipation and how we can either relish or dread what is to come. He considers the problems of anticipating too much, or too little, with the help of Thomas Hardy, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Linda Pastan and Winnie the Pooh.

Can neuroscience explain why the anticipation of something bad is often worse than the actual event or the prospect of a treat sometimes better than the treat itself? And does the anticipation of the future, either good or bad, mean that we risk squandering the present? Or as Seneca said, "Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today."

Producer is Adam Fowler.
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4

28 minutes

Last on

Sun 27 Nov 202223:30
BBC Radio 4

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Music Played

  • Sixteens

    Gabriel’s Message

    • Traditional Christmas Carol Collection, Vol. 2.
    • Coro.

  • Rosemary Clooney

    Where Will the Dimple Be?

    • The Best of Rosemary Clooney.
    • Prism.

  • The Choir of Canterbury Cathedral

    I Waited For the Lord

    • Ceremony.
    • York Ambisonic.

  • Louis Armstrong, Decca Mixed Choir

    Going to Shout All Over God’s Heaven

    • Louis and the Good Book.
    • Verve.

  • Anna Ternheim And Dave Ferguson

    The Longer the Waiting (The Sweeter the Kiss)

    • The Night Visitor.
    • Downtown.

  • English String Orchestra

    Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis

    • Vaughan Williams: Works for String Orchestra. English String orchestra.
    • Nimbus Records.

  • The Trumpet-Major. Author: Thomas Hardy

    Publisher, MacMillan

  • ‘Waiting For My Life’ from Waiting For My Life. Author: Linda Pastan

    Publisher, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.

  • ‘Waiting for Christ’ from Parochial Plain Sermons Vol. 6. Author: John Henry Newman

    Publisher, Longmans, Green, and Co

  • from Doctor Faustus. Author: Christopher Marlowe

    Publisher, Longman

  • ‘Spring and Death’ from The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Author, Gerard Manley Hopkins.

    Publisher, Oxford Paperbacks

  • The House at Pooh Corner. Author: A.A. Milne

    Publisher, Egmont

  • The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, Author: Tali Sharot

    Publisher, Pantheon Books

Broadcasts

  • Sun 1 Dec 201306:05
    BBC Radio 4
  • Sun 1 Dec 201323:30
    BBC Radio 4
  • Sun 27 Nov 202206:05
    BBC Radio 4
  • Sun 27 Nov 202223:30
    BBC Radio 4