The Wisdom Of

In this brief episode, I talk about the importance of thinking as a form of deep attention. 

In this brief episode, I discuss the Problem of Evil in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain which was first published in 1884. The story is about Huck, who runs away from his abusive father and, with his friend, the runaway slave Jim, makes a long and frequently interrupted voyage down the Mississippi River on a raft. In this episode, we discuss Huck and Jim's relationship, and then we talk about what it mea...

In this brief episode, I discuss the Cynic Diogenes and his view on freedom.  

Yahweh is the god of ancient Israel, who chooses a certain people, the Israelites, as his own. He’s viewed as the creator of the universe. In this episode, we discuss Yahweh's supposed moral perfection, and His distance from us. 

In this brief episode, I discuss Aristotle's view on the development of character or virtue, especially as it concerns the importance of habit. 

Thor was the Norse god of thunder and lightning. And he was probably the most worshipped of any of the Heathen gods throughout pre-Christian Northern Europe. In this episode, we discuss his role as protector and his magical hammer. 

Stoicism is a school of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. In this episode, I discuss the Stoics view on fate and on emotions. 

Siddhartha Gautama, popularly known as the Buddha, was a teacher and religious leader who lived in Ancient India. His teachings form the basis of the Buddhist religion. In this episode, we discuss his notion of no-self, and we look at some later thinkers that were influenced by Buddhism. 

Jesus of Nazareth is the core figure of one of the world’s largest religions, Christianity.  He’s regarded by most Christians as the incarnation or the son of God. In this episode, we discuss the importance he places on being like children. We also discuss Dostoevsky and Nietzsche within this context. 

The god Gaia, in Greek mythology, is the personification of the earth. In this episode, we explore her significance in the creation myth. We also discuss the concept Gaia in today's context.  

Albert Camus’ Lyrical Essays are a collection of essays Camus wrote between 1937 and 1958. They include his very earliest writings and some of his very last. In this episode we  focus on those early ones, which mostly take the form of prose-poetry, and which are overflowing with a lyrical and rhapsodic love of the earth. 

The Song of Songs is one of the shortest books of the Bible.  It's basically a collection of love poems spoken to each other by a young man and a young woman. The Song of Songs is undoubtably one of the greatest and most beautiful love poems ever written.  In this episode, we try to tackle the meaning of this poem and we take a look at the beauty of the language used.      

In this episode, we discuss the artistry and beauty of sports. 

Charles Baudelaire was a french poet and art critic who was born in 1821. His most famous work, published in 1857, was The Flowers of Evil.  The Flowers of Evil, explores, among other things, the good, the bad and the ugly of modern city life. In this episode, we explore themes like the connection between beauty and morality, and beauty as the commonplace. 

A little something to get you going on those sluggish mornings! 

The 1955 novel Lolita was written by the Russian American writer Vladimir Nabokov. The story’s about a European middle aged professor, Humbert, who’s obsessed with a 12 year old American girl, Dolores, whom he nicknames Lolita. In this episode we explore themes like beauty, desire and youth. 

The Dispossessed is a science fiction novel written by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. It was published in 1974. The story is about radically different societies on two twin planets, Urras  and Annares. Urras is in part a capitalist economy, while Annares is without a government and anarchistic. In this episode, we explore the themes of promise-keeping, beauty, and environmental degradation...

Brave New World was written by the English writer Aldous Huxley. It’s a dystopian novel and it was published in 1932. The story is set in a London six hundred years in the future. In this episode, we explore the themes of consumerism, pleasure and happiness. 

The Next Generation is a TV series created by Gene Roddenberry, which first aired in 1987. The show follows the adventures of the ship the USS Enterprise, as it explores the Milky Way galaxy, with captain Jean Luc Picard at the helm. In this episode, we discuss how it is Star Trek tries to make us aware of the shortcomings of the values we hold today, specifically, values centered around work and...

Friedrich Nietzsche  was a German philosopher born in 1844.  His most famous and probably greatest work is Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In this episode, we take a look at some of the things he has to say about science and truth. 

Notes from the Underground is a novella, written by the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was published in 1864. The novella presents itself as an excerpt from the meandering thoughts and memories of a stewing, secluded and unnamed narrator who’s a retired government bureaucrat living in St. Petersburg.

The Handmaid’s Tale was written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, published in 1985. It’s a dystopian novel, set in a patriarchal, religious totalitarian state known as the Gilead Republic. The protagonist is a woman named Offred, who’s belongs to the group of handmaids, a group of women who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the ruling class of men.