For a lot of people, 2025 was a rough year — and 2026 isn’t proving much better. So amid difficulty and despair, “Pacific Standard Time” hosts Emily Dreyfuss and Jesse Alejandro Cottrell wanted to discover the ways people are embracing joy.

At the first live taping of “Pacific Standard Time,” Dreyfuss and Cottrell talked about the big and small ways San Franciscans are finding joy this year. They interviewed The Standard’s Zara Stone about the way techy self-optimizers are tracking and tweaking their way toward joy and Bonobo Network founder William Winters about what the city’s robust orgy community can teach us about building community.

Background reading:

• Silicon Valley is done watching you sleep. Now it’s getting handsy in the bedroom

• Everyone has a Chinese peptide dealer now

• The new laboratory for happiness science: A Silicon Valley rave

• What do you eat at a San Francisco orgy? Caterers describe the spread

For more information and episode transcripts, visit ⁠sfstandard.com/pacific-standard-time⁠.
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