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The stories we tell ourselves
Recorded today (15 December): Morning Tinto podcast, episode 18
Chris Musei-Sequeira
December 15, 2025
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What if there’s no one “right” way to understand the world? What if you had the power to choose your perspective?
Well guess what: you (probably) do have the power to choose your perspective… and gain new insights about the world that you never had access to before.
Morning Tinto Episode 18: The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Recorded today, my friend Heather Luna of keduzi and I discuss the stories we tell ourselves about the world, based on the work of Miki Kashtan. Heather discusses how the worldview we adopt can leave us feeling powerless in the face of events… or instead enable us to act. I connect modern-day worldviews with different cosmologies, contrasting the Bible’s origin story with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) origin story shown in Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass. Both Heather and I discuss what becomes possible when we release the idea of one “correct” perspective and begin choosing different perspectives at will.
Take a listen and tell us what you think!
Previous Morning Tinto recordings
Episode 1: The Trump Administration and DEI (23 minutes and 59 seconds)
Episode 2: Do not obey in advance. (21 minutes and 16 seconds)
Episode 3: An illiberal intervention (23 minutes and 7 seconds)
Episode 4: Who Are “We, the People”? (19 minutes and 22 seconds)
Episode 5: Off the spectrum? (32 minutes and 1 second)
Episode 6: The mask is off (28 minutes and 58 seconds)
Episode 7: Meeting each other’s needs (33 minutes and 18 seconds)
Episode 8: Survival and community (27 minutes and 6 seconds)
Episode 9: Being relational in resistance (31 minutes and 52 seconds)
Episode 10: Is hoping waiting? (32 minutes and 29 seconds)
Episode 11: Do Human Rights Matter? (30 minutes and 14 seconds)
Episode 12: Touching Grass (25 minutes and 33 seconds)
Episode 13: The F Word (41 minutes and 39 seconds)
Episode 14: Palestine Action (23 minutes and 55 seconds)
Episode 15: Does violence work? (33 minutes and 55 seconds)
Episode 16: Nonviolent use of force? (31 minutes and 45 seconds)
Episode 17: “I left the United States.” (28 minutes and 17 seconds)
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My position
My name is Chris Musei-Sequeira, and I use he/him pronouns. My mother was born in Trinidad and Tobago as a descendant of African slaves brought to the islands during the time of European colonization. She came to the United States of America (USA) at the age of 10. My father is Goan and was born in India, in Mumbai, and raised Catholic and English-speaking. He came to the USA for his graduate studies, where he met my mother.
My sister and I were born in the USA and lived a middle-class life in the suburbs of multiple American cities. I studied aeronautical engineering and technology policy in university, then worked at the Federal Aviation Administration and as an aviation consultant. I've lived in cities up and down the USA East Coast since the age of 18; I now reside in Queens, New York with my wife.
I thank Heather Luna and Lavinia Muth for showing me the importance of publicly expressing our positions. Because of our positions, all of us are very familiar with some aspects of the world while having no idea of other aspects. Positionality expresses how our individual positions affect our relationships with other people and with the world as a whole.
Image source: File:Socrates Looking in a Mirror MET DP836598.jpg - Wikimedia Commons. (n.d.). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Socrates_Looking_in_a_Mirror_MET_DP836598.jpg — This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.