The Absurd World Podcast

As humans, we possess a rare capacity: the ability to reflect on ourselves, to question our existence, to create meaning, and to build entire belief systems around a single question: why? But what if this gift is also a burden? After several heavy episodes, I step back to ask whether we might be too self-aware for our own good. Drawing on the bleak and provocative reflections of Portuguese writer...

Over the past few episodes, we’ve explored the flaws, struggles, and misguided judgments that have shaped our society into something many people find difficult to live within, let alone find happiness, dignity, or peace. So what now? In this episode, we explore another possibility: anarchism. From David Graeber to Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman to Henry David Thoreau, we encounter voices that have...

The current way of doing things isn’t working for a lot of people anymore. People are angry. People are demanding lives that feel worth living—less alienated from the things that matter most. It may be why democratic socialism is gaining traction in the U.S. But what does it actually mean? And what are the trade-offs? In this week’s episode, we explore why so many people want change, where that ch...

We work, constantly. For many of us, it consumes most of our waking hours, and we do it simply to survive, often just barely. We’re told we should feel grateful to have a job at all, lucky to be paid to do something many don’t enjoy. Gratitude and loyalty are expected… but when did work become something we owe? In this episode, we trace the history of work and examine how capitalism has shaped mod...

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...

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...

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 psyc...

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 ther...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 th...

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 whet...

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 s...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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. W...

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 i...

Am I crazy? Would I even know if I were? Should I rely on others to tell me? Could that be dangerous? Who could I really trust to decide what’s wrong with me? In this episode, I get to the heart of something many of us fear, misunderstand, or even go to therapy to wrestle with: the feeling that something must be wrong with me. That there’s something that sets me apart from everyone else... in a ba...