Philosophy has shaped how we understand ourselves, our relationships, and our world. It has challenged our stories about reality and pushed us to question what we take for granted. But sometimes thinking isn’t enough. Sometimes philosophy must move us toward direct action, especially when the world we live in becomes unlivable.
In this week’s episode, we explore what it means to use philosophy as a catalyst for real change. Drawing from Simone Weil and Henry David Thoreau, and building on Episodes 21 and 31, we examine the ingredients needed to enact meaningful transformation in our lives and the world around us.
It might require us to become a little... disobedient.
When we think of the unconscious mind, we imagine mystery, depth, and vast uncharted territory. It can feel unsettling to consider what might surface when we stop keeping everything neatly tucked away. But what if the unconscious isn’t just chaos? What if it can be mapped?
In this final episode of our series on the unconscious, we turn to Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung to explore what it might mean to truly encounter the parts of ourselves we don’t consciously claim. As we descend into the psyche, we may discover that what shapes us isn’t entirely personal at all, but something far older, symbolic, and mythological, quietly living beneath the surface.
Since the beginning of this podcast, I’ve been asking the question: “Who am I?” As if finding ourselves would unlock endless possibilities.
But what if the answer to that question is far more unsettling than we ever imagined?
What if the “you” you think you know… isn’t the real you at all?
In this week’s episode, we continue our series on the unconscious mind by diving into the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan—his theories on fantasies, mirrors, and the ever-mysterious, ever-unnerving Real.
Prepare to confront the possibility that the self you’ve always known… might just be an act.
What’s going on in your mind? What’s going on in mine?
Sure, we know the surface-level stuff—the things we say, think, and do every day… but what’s deeper than that? What’s hiding in the dim, weird corridors of my psyche?
This week kicks off a three-part series exploring and mapping the interior of the unconscious mind. We start with the general structure Sigmund Freud laid out and build from there.
I just hope I don’t uncover anything sinister lurking in the recesses of my mind. Like a desire to kill or—worse—a deeply ingrained impulse to start awkwardly singing in public even though absolutely no one asked for it…
I’ve got a podcast where I talk about ethics, morals, human rights, solidarity, and why we should be fighting for each other instead of against each other. A lot of you care about the same causes. Many of you take action every day because you believe it’s the right thing to do. But… what if some of the “good” we do isn’t actually good? What if, even without realizing it, we’re doing something much more insidious?
In this week’s episode, we take a hard look at virtue signaling: the act of performing morality instead of living it. Through the lens of Albert Camus, we explore what it really means to call ourselves out, confront our motives, and step toward genuine ethical action.
Gender norms. What a topic. People argue about it. Fight, scream, and yell. Your uncle won’t stop bringing it up at every family gathering, whether he’s talking about bathrooms, sports, or… well… everything else. Why does it feel like such a hot-button issue today, yet remain wildly misunderstood by those shouting the loudest?
In this week’s episode, we unpack what gender and its norms really are. With insights from Simone de Beauvoir, Bell Hooks, and Martha Nussbaum, we explore why gender carries so much emotional weight in our culture, and why it matters for all of us.
Hopefully, by the end, we’ll all walk away having learned something new.
Sex. It’s woven through society, adulthood, and relationships. We’re told it should be one of the most important parts of a healthy, loving partnership, but what do we actually think about it? Do we place way too much weight on something we all seem to understand differently? Or barely understand at all?
In this episode we get down and dirty with one of the biggest topics in modern life. With the help of Simone de Beauvoir, Bell Hooks, and Rollo May, we explore the impact sex has on society and daily experience, the ways we approach it, and whether it’s doing something far more complex, and maybe even a little unsettling, than we tend to admit.
Emotions, what are they, really? Why do we have them? Why do we struggle to express them? And for some of us… why is it so hard to feel them at all?
In this week’s episode, I take a deep look at emotions, why they exist, the roles they play in our daily lives, and why so many of us find ourselves disconnected from them. With help from Bell Hooks, Brené Brown, and Rollo May, we’ll also explore how social expectations can pressure entire groups of people to stay numb just to fit in... or even survive.
Maybe, just beneath the surface, something far more insidious is at work.
It’s almost Halloween!
And to celebrate, we’re digging into one of the most chilling topics of all — Existential Horror.
Through film and literature, we’ll descend into the strange, the unsettling, and the deeply human fears of ambiguity, helplessness, and loss of control.
Spoiler alert for the following works:
Enemy
Foe
I Who Have Never Known Men
A Collapse of Horses
The Empty Man
Roadside Picnic
Annihilation
All Tomorrows
Throughout my career as a psychotherapist, I’ve worked closely with people healing from trauma. It’s been one of the main focuses of my practice, and in this week’s episode, we’re diving deep into that very topic, asking the question: how much can trauma be treated philosophically?
With insights from thinkers like Judith Herman, Peter Levine, Robert Jackman, and David Spiegel, we’ll peel back the many layers of what trauma really is, from its definitions and neuroscience, to its social roots and the ways it reshapes our inner philosophy at its core.
Maybe together, we can begin to understand what healing truly looks like after such a world-shattering experience.
After 31 episodes of exploring what it means to be human, we’ve finally arrived at one of the most difficult questions of all: why do we suffer? And maybe even harder, does anything good actually come out of it?
Suffering is something everyone experiences, yet most of us spend our lives trying to avoid it, numb it, or make sense of it. But what if, as painful as it is, suffering might hold a kind of strange wisdom? What if, instead of just something to escape, it’s something that reveals what we value, what we love, or even who we really are?
With the help of thinkers like Viktor Frankl, who survived the horrors of the Holocaust and still found meaning in the midst of despair, I explore how pain might actually shape us into more authentic versions of ourselves, and when it simply just… sucks for no reason at all.
What actually are human rights?
Do they come naturally, or are they something we invented? Do they exist to define what it means to be human, or to control how humans behave? Are they legal, moral, or something cosmic? And most importantly… do they even work?
In this week’s episode, I explore what a “human right” really is, how we’re meant to use them, and whether they actually serve the people they claim to protect. With the help of thinkers like Camus, Weil, Arendt, and Giorgio Agamben, we might just discover a better way forward... though it may demand something we’ve all grown a little uneasy with: trust.
Technology. From hammers and shovels to smartphones and the AI best friend I beg for validation from (because asking a real human is apparently harder than rocket science). It’s shaped our lives for basically forever. But does it really free us to build the world we want, or quietly trap us in a cage we’ve built ourselves?
With the help of thinkers Paulo Freire and Martin Heidegger, I explore whether leaning on technology is liberation or self-sabotage… and if it’s the latter, what on earth we’re supposed to do about it.
Do I have a problem? Am I too dependent on this? Am I an addict? These are questions I hear often in my work, and questions that rarely come with simple answers. Even when they do, there aren’t always easy fixes, because dependency isn’t just about chemicals, it’s also about who we are.
In this episode, we dive into addiction from an existential perspective: what it means when your very sense of self becomes entangled with something outside of you. With insight from thinkers like Kierkegaard, and grounded in the raw reality of human suffering, we explore the deeper meaning of addiction.
And maybe, just maybe, we’ll begin to question the way we see “addicts” altogether.
Grief — the ache we’re left with after a loss, the pit we fear we’ll never climb out of, and one of the hardest existential challenges we can face.
In the third and final episode of our mini-series on death, we examine this painful aspect of mortality: what it means to be the one left behind. Joined by thinkers like Andrew Solomon, Kierkegaard, Rollo May, and Viktor Frankl, we try to make sense of grief and search for ways to find peace.
One question hangs over the whole episode: Will grief ever stop — and if so, when? If not, how do we keep going?
Suicide — the topic we avoid. The conversation new therapists are trained to face despite discomfort and fear. The nightmare for families and loved ones. Yet it’s something that has weighed heavily on humanity’s mind since the beginning of time. How do we confront it? How do we talk about it? And perhaps most importantly, should it be considered a human right?
In this episode, I wade into the dark and murky waters of suicidality with the help of Albert Camus, Emil Cioran, Viktor Frankl, and the Stoics. Together, we ask: where does autonomy end, and where does protection from ourselves begin?
Maybe, once again, we’ll find that no answer is black and white — and it’s in the absurd complexity of it all that we begin to glimpse something like clarity.
Death — the thing so many of us fear most. Hardwired into nearly every living creature is the instinct to fight against it, yet it remains the one certainty we cannot escape. The opposite of survival, and still, the end awaiting us all. What kind of cruel joke is that? And why does it terrify us so deeply?
In this episode, I open a new mini-series on death by asking: why do we fear it so much? And is there any way to escape such a horrid truth... or must we learn to accept it?
With the help of a strange cast of characters, we’ll explore whether death truly is the end, and whether that’s really as terrifying as we think. Or... are there even stranger possibilities waiting for us?
Oh money. The thing that buys us what we want and what we need. The thing that seems to do everything for us. People love to say, “money can’t buy happiness”—yet most of us can’t even imagine happiness without it somehow being involved. Sometimes, having money feels just as essential as food and water. Maybe even more. But what is it, really?
In this episode, I get a little help from one of modern philosophy’s favorite chaotic uncles, Slavoj Žižek, as I dig into what money truly is, what it does to us, and whether life without it is even possible.
And ask yourself this: do you actually believe you could be happy without money? Or is that just a story we tell ourselves so we never have to find out?
What are labels, really? Are they made by us, or are they something bigger than us? Do they help define who we are, or just confuse us about the truth? Should we fear them, reject them, fight them—or embrace them and make peace with them?
In this episode, I dig into what labels actually mean, how they function, and whether we truly embrace the ones we carry—or if they never really fit us at all. With thoughts from Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and even the ever-confusing Hegel, I ask: is life simple enough for labels to be useful, or do they only hold us back?
Oh, and I also talk about being a potato… (trigger warning for you Irish out there).
What is art? How do we make it? What does it mean to see it, hear it, experience it? And who does it really belong to—the artist, the audience, or something else entirely?
In this particularly pretentious and confusing episode (your words, not mine), I turn to existentialists of the past—like Martin Heidegger and Rollo May—to help untangle what art is supposed to mean, why it matters, and how it impacts those who encounter it.
Along the way, we’ll also wrestle with the question of who gets to interpret art, and how to protect ourselves from the more dangerous traps of biased meaning-making.