This week on SOI: - Matt’s mom Jeanenne joins the Shores - Jeanenne’s journal that Mike read, and then named her “Poetgirl.” - We are each an I, not a we. Gollam is a we. - Poetgirl, poema - We are either a male soul or a female soul - We are each a poem written by God - What has caused the revolt against sexuality - What makes your life force increase, and what makes it decrease Find us here: Jeanenne McCloskey - https://www.rivendellcounseling.com / https://merefemininity.substack.com/p/poetgi...
Jul 03, 2025•1 hr 55 min
This week on SOI: - AI can’t do what humans do because humans aren’t reasonable (Rick Rubin) - https://www.instagram.com/p/DK4isVTz93G/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== - AI turns data into a conversation. - Storytelling is our native language. - Hollow vs. Hallow - What does it mean to feel good or bad - T.S. Eliot, Hemingway, Fitzgerald - We are a collection of identities, responsibilities, and titles - Fatherhood as an act Find us here: x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelva...
Jun 26, 2025•1 hr 9 min
This week on SOI: - Is this WWIII? - How does the death of God effect the news and reporting of what’s true? - Iran, Israel, Covid, etc - how do you know what’s true? Who can we trust to tell us the truth? - Without God, narrative allegiances become rigid - A functional story requires honesty - Being who we are is relational - How does tolerance become intolerant? Find us here: x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://...
Jun 19, 2025•1 hr 11 min
This week on SOI: - The voice of failure - Love vs. death - The unifying spirit - The LA riots - The spirit of Love helps you see clearly - The spirit of evil is self extinguishing - Can you negotiate with evil? Find us here: x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://solo.to/michaelvaclav Sovereign Goods - www.etsy.com/shop/SovereignThreadGoods Cafe Medici - mediciroasting.com/?srsltid=AfmBOo…9eDe2OliQmjTc2A
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr 33 min
This week on SOI: - The trouble of belief - Is reality a fact or a story? - How can we tell what’s true in the age of AI - The paradox of the information age - Truth requires faith - AI religions - Transhumanism - How we use pronouns - Respect for what is external vs what is internal - Redefining words to control the world Bill Maher’s Monologue on Trump dinner - https://youtu.be/RxlopbcfXpQ?si=kCWxR2LtjC_a9GJF The Abolition of Man - https://www.amazon.com/Abolition-Man-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652942 F...
Jun 05, 2025•1 hr 52 min
* Two movies one screen (Scott Adams) * Our perceptions are faulty * What do you sacrifice to? * The only way to move forward is to admit you’re wrong * You “grasp” ideas the same way you “grasp” objects with your hand * To be ultimately permissive turns to totalitarian exclusion * Work will set you free * Are you worshiping life or worshiping death? Find us here: x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://solo.to/michae...
May 22, 2025•1 hr 18 min
“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.” - C.G. Jung MSTR True North - https://www.mstrtruenorth.com Peter Thiel interview - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000704801264 Find us here: x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://solo.to/michaelvaclav Sovereign Goods - www.etsy.com/shop/SovereignThreadGoods Cafe Medici - mediciroasting.com/?srsltid=AfmBO...
May 01, 2025•1 hr 2 min
"Here then is my plea to my fellow Americans. Do not take the bait. Do not feel it necessary to come to a conclusion. Do not even feel that it is your job to follow all the news. Many who think that they follow all the news follow only one slant, and so are more misinformed than those who intentionally look away from the entire circus. Try to observe without interpretation, avoid certainty, and as you return to your senses quite literally, remind yourself that what you think you know may not, in...
Apr 24, 2025•1 hr 14 min
Can we be in relationship with things, ideas, people, politics, and still stand outside someone else’s unique relationship with those very same things? - Dropping the lens of perception - Finding the gold in people - Bill Maher meets Trump - What is good art? - Identity is a co-residence of heart - Gandolf not coming to a conclusion - Accepting and extending invitations Matt’s forthcoming book - https://mattmccloskey.substack.com/p/introducing-good-morning Matt’s dad’s eulogy - https://mattmcclo...
Apr 17, 2025•1 hr 19 min
Trials, tribulations, temptations, tension. These are the X that marks the spot for where our understanding is limited and we don’t see clearly. If we forthrightly explore that space, we find that what we considered trials, were really invitations. The Cutting Edge - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104040/ Weights and wings - https://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/desert/streams-in-the-desert-april-9th.html Streams in the Desert - https://www.amazon.com/Streams-Desert-L-B-Cowman/dp/0310210062 Verit...
Apr 10, 2025•1 hr 14 min
This week on SOI: - The co-opting and devaluing of words - Does emotional intelligence exist? - Not knowing a words definition doesn’t indicate that you don’t know what it means - Reduction of meaning as a way to avoid life - Depression, anxiety, racism - Black Lives Matter - The coining of new terms like “lived experience” - Making implicit things explicit again - Finding yourself unable to defend obvious things like protecting women - The simultaneous desire to avoid and also rewrite history -...
Mar 26, 2025•1 hr 23 min
Matt and Michael break their three day fast with whiskey and a podcast. This week on SOI: - Michael’s brain is working differently - Fasting - Routines - Turn down inputs and find God - Perceptions vs reality. Guilt vs using perception as an excuse - Resentment - Job, the leviathan - The biological drives of men and women - Chess, to win or to live with people who like playing chess - Parenting after divorce - Spaghetti Driers Find us here: x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Link...
Mar 19, 2025•1 hr 18 min
“We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he ‘wants a woman’. Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want. He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. How much he cares about the woman as such may be gauged by his attitude to her five minutes after fruition (one does not keep the carton after one has smoked the cigarettes). Now Eros makes a man really want, not a woman, but one particular woman...
Mar 12, 2025•1 hr 17 min
This week on SOI: - Midlife crises - Wrestling with the question of “Who am I?” - The end of the enlightenment - Cultural lack of curiosity - Protecting the structures of identity - Identity becomes aesthetic and absurd when it lacks a center - The Fifth Element https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGfYLRCJZ1c - 22 Senators all read the same script - https://x.com/yalligatorgar/status/1896975161062253017 - The Abolition of Man - https://www.amazon.com/Abolition-Man-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652942 - Speak wha...
Mar 05, 2025•1 hr 25 min
This week on SOI: - Matt’s experience cleaning his windows - Engaging the world vs receding from it - The feeling of failure - The allure of counterfactuals - The human need to tend to life - Resentment and the story of Cain and Abel - The Kingdom of Heaven is here and now - Discovering who you are, and what you’re capable of - Falling short is how we discover who we are Find us here: x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - h...
Feb 26, 2025•1 hr 13 min
The age of tolerance has given way to the primacy of the in group. Principles, friendship, even family, matter less than allegiances. This week we grapple with how our culture got here, and what we might do about it. - The spiritual nature of division in the West - You’re included in my circle, but I’m not included in yours - The disturbing social division of politics - How do we tolerate our neighbors in the age of tolerance - If relationships aren’t foremost, what is? - The hierarchy of belief...
Feb 19, 2025•1 hr 31 min
This week on SOI: - Do we see reality? Or are we in the Truman Show? - How to conceive of ideas like good, evil, honor, and righteousness - Believing children are worthy of their full potential, without evidence - The 1619 Project, and the suicidal direction of acting as if we are bad - USAID, and the man behind the curtain - What is the value of “acting as if” something is true? - Why did Gen X and the Millennials never take office? - Hope for those who have hope Mike Benz - https://open.spotif...
Feb 12, 2025•1 hr 8 min
This week on SOI: * Elon, DOGE, and USAID - https://x.com/rapidresponse47/status/1887151291895267553?s=42 * Trump and Gaza (King Solomon: “Cut the baby in half.”) * “If we are not being pulled by a promise, we are being driven by fear “ - Bill Johnson / (Clip) https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFOCPVXP0AM/?igsh=MXd3bW1sZ3RlbWU0dA== * The coddling of the American mind - https://www.thecoddling.com * Getting better at anything requires suffering * Being decisive * What is the relationship between wis...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr 26 min
Our podcast friend, Matt’s dog Lukah, passed away last weekend. We pay our respects and reflect on grief and a man’s bond with his dog. Then we talk about Elon Musk, George Orwell’s 1984, and the difficulty of morality. Find us here: x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://solo.to/michaelvaclav Sovereign Goods - www.etsy.com/shop/SovereignThreadGoods Cafe Medici - mediciroasting.com/?srsltid=AfmBOo…9eDe2OliQmjTc2A
Jan 29, 2025•1 hr 21 min
Elon salutes Hitler? The Left has become “the boy who cried wolf,” and Americans seem to be over it. The problem is that there’s a danger in that - we don’t want the boy who cried wolf to die all alone when the wolf actually comes. We consider possible solutions to this danger, and contend that the only solution is spiritual, not legislative. After You’ve Loved Someone (Boy cried wolf lyrics) - https://youtu.be/8VuelSN0kug?si=HqJRqPycp794oE1H Malcolm Gladwell Episode - https://open.spotify.com/e...
Jan 22, 2025•1 hr 31 min
“It is sometimes so bitterly cold in the winter that one says, 'The cold is too awful for me to care whether summer is coming or not; the harm outdoes the good. But with or without our approval, the severe weather does come to an end eventually and one fine morning the wind changes and there is a thaw. When I compare the state of the weather to our state of mind and our circumstances, subject to change and fluctuation like the weather, then I still have some hope that things may get better.” - V...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 28 min
From the Pharisees to Jesus, from the cable channels to podcasts, from the Oscars to Instagram, the arbiters of fact, truth, and celebrity seem always to loose their grasp as the world rejuvenates around them. Show Notes: Wesley Huff on Joe Rogan: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0alzUZNnXcEL9MJzE9KD9P?si=qqE2YbplQDeuEsynf7ONeg C.S. Lewis Quote: https://x.com/tillwehvfaces/status/1876961046486823178 Jordan Peterson Lecture (“They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work”): https://youtu.be/dt-Be...
Jan 08, 2025•1 hr 18 min
"The beauty of doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly. Only when you do something is it almost impossible to do it without mistakes. Therefore people who are contributing nothing to society, except their constant criticisms, can feel both intellectually and morally superior." -THOMAS SOWELL- x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://solo.to/michaelvaclav Sovereign Goods - www.etsy.com/shop/SovereignThreadGoods Ca...
Jan 01, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Our last episode of 2024! We look back on the year, and the super-cycle that was 2020-2024, and talk about the possible renaissance that 2025 may bring. Stick around til the end for an unexpected heated debate about whether love languages exist. x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://solo.to/michaelvaclav Sovereign Goods - www.etsy.com/shop/SovereignThreadGoods Cafe Medici - mediciroasting.com/?srsltid=AfmBOo…9eDe2Ol...
Dec 18, 2024•1 hr 38 min
Tonight we apply the philosopher’s thought experiment of The Ship of Theseus to the issues of meaning, and Matt tells the story of rebuilding his father’s table. Plutarch in his Life of Theseus: The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and strong timber in their places, insomuch that this ship became a stan...
Dec 10, 2024•1 hr 17 min
We discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky’s advice about lying, Matt’s desire to be a good father, sourdough bread, and turtles all the way down. “Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleas...
Dec 05, 2024•1 hr 23 min
How do you have productive conversations with people who disagree with you? How do you discuss things that are hard? Good question. We appeal to grace and humility. Elizabeth Gilbert TED Talk - https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_your_elusive_creative_genius?subtitle=en The History of Glass - https://youtu.be/2oDXbFcHliM?si=shDdxQjAU2zgsh95 x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://solo.to/michaelvaclav Sovereig...
Nov 19, 2024•1 hr 35 min
We discuss the reactions to the 2024 election results over the last week, and the way women’s rights were handled by the two campaigns, the media, and on social media. x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://solo.to/michaelvaclav Sovereign Goods - www.etsy.com/shop/SovereignThreadGoods Cafe Medici - mediciroasting.com/?srsltid=AfmBOo…9eDe2OliQmjTc2A
Nov 12, 2024•1 hr 26 min
Americans have spoken in a stunning referendum. We try to understand what this 2024 election result says about our country, and discuss what it means to be an American. Show Notes: Bureaucracy swapped with Democracy: https://x.com/Banned_Bill/status/1853842945767592429 Konstantin Kisin’s 10 Reasons: https://x.com/KonstantinKisin/status/1854151133385613690 x.com/mattmccloskey x.com/michaelvaclav All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://solo.to/michaelvaclav S...
Nov 07, 2024•1 hr 24 min
We’re under a week away from one of the wildest elections of our lifetimes. We make some predictions, and talk about how we see the race. Two years ago we had a rule that we wouldn’t talk about politics on SOI - and yet, here we are. Show References: Darkhorse podcast - https://open.spotify.com/episode/6z2NBMHmqbIJeUDJuYmSSH?si=89e24d2c141b407c Heather’s article - https://naturalselections.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web Trump on Rogan - https://youtu.be/hBMoPUAeLnY?si=EOGdPLok...
Oct 31, 2024•1 hr 14 min
