Standing Nowhere

Awareness is the greatest treasure in my life, and lately I've felt it getting covered up. In this episode, I talk honestly about the habits that have been dulling that clarity — caffeine, late-night routines, social media, comfort habits, and the constant pull to stay stimulated. This isn't a self-help episode, and it's not a grand declaration that I've fixed anything. It&apos...

There's a version of yourself you can see clearly — and then there's where you actually are right now. That gap can feel like failure. This episode begins with a story about a declined card on my wife's birthday, a Lord of the Rings book hidden at the bottom of a Target basket, and the quiet shame of walking back to the car with nothing. From there, it becomes a reflection on vairag...

Jacob thought the reason he hadn't done more interviews was scheduling. But one night it hit him — it wasn't really the schedule. It was fear. Not fear of talking to people, but fear of what they might bring with them. Grief. Pain. Loss. Truth. In this episode, he traces that fear back to a Lyft ride in Las Vegas he's never forgotten — a stranger gets in the car, bursts into tears,...

For most of my life, I never questioned it. I was Jacob. My thoughts, my experiences, my feelings — that was me. Then meditation started doing something I didn't ask it to do. In this episode I'm talking about self — or more precisely, the growing suspicion that the self you've spent your whole life protecting might not be what you think it is. I share the moment this cracked open f...

We act on what we perceive, not what's real. And we rarely know the difference. In this episode Jacob examines perception at every level — the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, the assumptions we make about strangers, the myths nations tell themselves about their own goodness, and the deepest illusion of all: the mind's projection of a divided reality onto what is fundamentally...

 Most of us spend our spiritual lives in the hearing and understanding phase — and never quite cross into direct experience. In this episode, Jacob opens in real time, frustrated after seven false starts, becoming the thesis of the episode before he even names it. From sitting on a cushion at 6:30am to waddling through a grocery store in compromised underwear, this is what direct experience actual...

What do you do when relief finally arrives — and you find yourself reaching for a new kind of misery? In this episode, Jacob explores the concept of the inamorata: the beloved we can't quit, whether that's financial stress, comfortable numbness, collective atrocity, or the systems we refuse to dismantle. From a little girl named Sara in Iran, to AI being used for mass surveillance, to An...

You don't need a retreat, a monastery, or a perfect morning routine to practice. In this episode, Jacob explores what it means to stop running — not from responsibility, but from the present moment itself. Through reflections on early mornings, financial stress, gig work, and parenting on tired legs, he unpacks the difference between surrender and avoidance, and why real practice happens righ...

What happens when you're a daily meditator and still choose petty revenge? After a brutal morning of delivery work and a no-tip pizza order to a 4th-floor apartment, I left the food outside—fully aware I was being petty, watching myself make the choice, unable to stop it. This episode explores the uncomfortable truth about spiritual practice: you don't become perfect, you just become awa...

Do you ever wake up feeling good, then suddenly remember all your financial stress and it drags you down? That's where I'm at. In this episode, I'm trying something new: the "open threads" recording method. No outline, no script—just hitting record and following where my mind goes when I'm stressed about money, work, and negative self-talk. I've been meditating d...

30 episodes in 7 months. I can't believe I pulled it off. In this episode, I reflect on what surprised me, what I've learned, and why I'm stepping back from weekly Thursday releases (for now). I also share a Zen story about a samurai and a monk—"the gates of heaven and hell"—that's been sticking with me, especially after recording Episode 30 with my dad. Afterparty bo...

My dad, Grant Buehler, joins me for his first podcast appearance to talk honestly about the anger he inherited, the moments it nearly destroyed him, and what finally began to change. We talk about growing up with a father shaped by World War II trauma, the patterns that get passed down in families, and a deathbed reconciliation that shifted everything. Grant also shares his own battles with rage—f...

I've been meditating daily for 3 years. I'm still broke, still grinding 60+ hours a week doing deliveries, still struggling financially. So... does meditation actually work? In this episode, I answer questions I've never seen before about spiritual materialism, whether meditation "fixes" your external life, how to reconcile spiritual surrender with survival responsibilitie...

What does "resolution" actually mean at its root? Not forcing—loosening. In the final episode of 2025, I reflect on a year of struggle, growth, and showing up anyway. Honest thoughts on time constraints, mental health, sobriety, and trusting when you can't see the path forward. With wisdom from Lao Tzu, Meister Eckhart, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Rilke. Want to share a thought? Support th...

What does compassion look like in action? In this Christmas Day special, I share two powerful true stories that changed how I think about seeing people differently. The first is "A Soft Answer" by Terry Dobson—an American aikido student in 1960s Japan who learns what his martial art really means when an elderly man transforms a violent encounter on a Tokyo train with nothing but kind wor...

At 19, I climbed Reaper Mountain in Marine Corps boot camp with hairline fractures in both feet. At 42, I'm trying to get back in shape after three years of failure. This episode is about what it means to keep showing up when you know you might fail. I tell three stories about broken feet: Story 1: The Crucible, 2003. Sleep-deprived, starving, both metatarsal bones fractured. Looking up at an...

What does it actually look like to stay present when you're driving 10–12 hours a day, feeling lonely in your car, grieving lost friends, and still trying to create? For this milestone episode, I tried something different—I asked Claude to generate 6 spontaneous topics about my life that I'd never seen before, then hit record and responded from the heart with zero preparation. What emerg...

This week, I couldn't lock in a guest—and honestly, I've been struggling to lock in much of anything lately. Backsliding on habits, drowning in self-blame, stuck in the gap between where I am and where I want to be. Then, while decorating the Christmas tree, I realized I'd completely forgotten one of my son's ornaments. The one he made at five years old. The one with his tiny h...

This one is more raw, intense, and emotionally unfiltered than usual — because real healing rarely looks clean.  A late-night conversation between two brothers doing their best to stay present in the middle of real life. It wasn’t planned. It started as a late-night hangout with my younger brother Jeremy and turned into one of the most honest conversations we’ve ever recorded. Jeremy has lived thr...

What do we do with grief, synchronicity, and the strange ways love keeps showing up? In this episode, I sit down with one of my oldest and closest friends, Raphael “Rafi” Rozenberg . We met in 1997 and have lived through almost everything together—high-school chaos, fatherhood, marriages, losses, and all the weird twists of life in between. Rafi opens up about growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home...

You've been defending this "you" your whole life—getting offended when criticized, proud when praised, anxious about what others think. But what if the self you're protecting doesn't actually exist? This episode explores ego and the illusion of the separate self. Not as abstract philosophy, but as something you can observe right now. Watch your thoughts arise. Did you deci...

I can't afford to take time off. But I also can't afford not to take time off. That's the bind I've been in—and maybe you're there too. This week, I hit rock bottom. Burnt out, behind on bills, working 50-60 hours a week and still sinking. My body finally said: Stop. Now. So I took an unscheduled week of rest, even though I couldn't afford it. And that forced pause re...

In your twenties, it’s easy to feel like you’ll always belong somewhere — a friend group, a workplace, a Saturday night ritual that feels like home. But what happens when those circles fade, and you suddenly find yourself everywhere in the city… yet belonging nowhere? In this deeply personal episode, Jacob shares the story of poker nights and found-family friendships, the sudden loss of someone wh...

Three years ago I was broke, sharing an apartment with scorpions, and couldn't see a way forward. Then I discovered that laughter—the real, spontaneous kind—can be a powerful spiritual practice. In this episode we explore why ego and humor can't coexist, and how laughing at yourself transforms everything from meditation to life's hardest moments. What we cover: The scorpion story an...

Fear doesn't want to destroy you. It wants to wake you up. In this episode Jacob gets unusually honest — three failed recording attempts, 63-hour work weeks, bills backed up, air conditioning out, and a podcast he's terrified isn't good enough. This is what fear actually looks like from the inside. And this is how he's dealing with it. Drawing from C.S. Lewis's Screwtape L...