Preconceived

Do you ever feel like you are simply going through the motions? Many of our paths adhere to traditional societal expectations: a typical classroom education in our younger years, a subsequent college or work experience, a string of monogamous relationships until we find 'the one' and get married, a stable career often entailing nine-to-five work hours, becoming a parent and raising our kids, and eventually retiring in our older years and spending time with our grandkids. While there is nothing wrong with such a path, perhaps the critical point is that each of these steps should be a conscious choice, not a foregone conclusion.

Beyond the choices we make, do you ever wonder if your general opinions and viewpoints are overly influenced by society at large? From a young age, we are exposed both to practices we take for granted as normal, and social and political opinions that become so ingrained in us that they are tough to ever shake. It can feel almost impossible to form pure and uninfluenced opinions later in our lives, when certain perspectives and belief systems have so strongly taken hold in our psyches for so long. Is being a sex worker actually immoral, or have we just grown up being told that anything sex-related is taboo? Is circumcision just an innocent cultural ritual, or is it a potentially harmful form of genital mutilation? Is veganism really so extreme, or is it the routine practice of processing and eating animals that is actually the extreme?

Preconceived is a collection of stories, thoughts, and beliefs of over fifty of the guests who have been featured on the award-winning podcast of the same name. Spanning topics such as sex, crime, parenthood, history, mental illness, and more, this anthology challenges the preconceptions that shape how we view the world and the paradigms by which we live our lives.
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Zale Mednick is the creator and host of the award-winning podcast, Preconceived. He practices as an ophthalmologist in Toronto, Canada