Becoming Human

Famed reclusive novelist JD Salinger, author of the required reading classic Catcher in the Rye, once wrote that "Happiness is a solid and joy a liquid." In this episode, Jarad McHugh parses out the nuances of what this quote means. What is joy, what is happiness ? Not to mention, if happiness is a solid, and joy a liquid, then what's a gas? Drawing on excerpts from Christina Rosetti...

Great art often feels as though its pointing to something just out of reach, something that can't quite be seen but is perhaps just over the hill out there. Sharing excerpts from Mitra-Roshi Bishop's upcoming book, Deepening Zen: The Long Maturation Book II (edited by Jarad McHugh), John Keats' Fall of Hyperion, and Plato's Symposium, Jarad McHugh calls attention to the overlap of...

Most known for his 1973 film The Holy Mountain, Alejandro Jodorowsky's surrealist, mind-expansive art helped turn on art and film goers of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In this episode, Jarad McHugh submerges listeners in Jodorowsky's topsy-turvy world, which culminates in his artistic healing and therapeutic project, Psicomagia - a creative tool for self discovery that introduces the sy...

Join Jarad McHugh for an interview with Roshi Mitra Bishop, Zen Roshi and founder of Mountain Gate Zen Center in Northern New Mexico. For Roshi Mitra, Zen is a lifelong practice we can use to take off the mask of societal and psychological conditioning in order to find out who we truly are. She proposes the "long maturation", which includes in addition to Zen meditation working with a me...

The lessons in Plato's Allegory of the Cave parallels the teachings of Zen Buddhism. How do we liberate ourselves from the mind-states that an inherently repressive society engenders? How do we achieve spiritual insight and freedom? These are the kinds of questions most important to both Plato's Cave and Zen. Join Jarad McHugh in a unique reading of the Allegory of the Cave that asks you t...

Dystopian narratives permeate our cultural and media landscape while utopian narratives get lost in the brush. Everyone knows Dante's Inferno, but who's come in contact with Dante's Paradiso? We've all read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, yet what about his much more optimistic book Island? Have you watched any happy sci-fi movies lately? That we absorb much, much more dystopi...

Becoming Human shifts gears for this episode with a conversation between Jarad McHugh and film/literature scholar Jared Valdez about . Jarad and Jared chat about the film Being John Malkovich in the context of Becoming Human themes like the meaning of art as a career versus as a passion. This episode is re-posted from the Jared to Jarad podcast which you can get anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Is artificial intelligence becoming human? Dive into the deep end with Jarad McHugh to question what AI means for art, specifically for using art as a tool for self-discovery. With an exploration of various historical contexts, cultural critiques, and unique creative perspectives, this episode asks you to challenge status quo beliefs around 21st-century technologies and consider whether your own h...

Jarad McHugh uses the lens of viviphilia - love of life as opposed to necrophilia or love of death - to reflect on the life and (some of) the work of Genesis P-Orridge. Genesis P-Orridge was a prolific artist, musician, occultist, and philosopher whose work spans the second half of the 20th century into the early 21st. Constantly pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human, Genesis used th...

Jarad McHugh monologues on the Greek myth of Narcissus. Rather than a story about self-obsession, the Narcissus myth actually presents a process of developing self-knowledge and self-awareness -- a process of Becoming Human. Narcissus, Jarad argues, can provide direction for artists who are learning how to see themselves reflected back to themselves in the art they make.

"This conversation of being human, it's never going to be answered... because it's a journey." Dr. Patrik Nkouaga is an educator and farmer as well as a friend and mentor of mine. Our conversations have helped me develop my ideas on what it means to be human and how to contribute to the world in an authentic way. Dr. Nkouaga joins the podcast to discuss Becoming Human, Paulo Frei...

In this episode Jarad McHugh interviews painter and tattoo artist Gilbert White. Jarad and Gilbert consider how art can be used to see oneself, how art is fundamental to identity, and how to approach tattooing as a spiritual process.  Follow up with Gilbert's work on his website GilbertWhiteArt.com and his instagram pages @psychesurrealism and @phantom.flesh.

In this episode, Jarad McHugh discusses fear of death and emptiness and how opening to this fear can help us to develop our art practices. He looks through the lens of Ernest Becker's 1973 book the Denial of Death to develop ideas on the root of culture and how to overcome our creative blockages.

In this episode, Jarad McHugh covers the what and why of the Becoming Human podcast and project.