Send us a text Technology is taking on a mythic mantle as we look to our creations to supply us with a sense of belonging and purpose, but this is a category error because tech cannot honestly deliver on these promises. In this podcast Tom Chatfield explores some of the issues bound up with the ways we are thinking about technology. • Technology is not a bolt-on or optional extra, but has been integral to human existence since before our species evolved • The delusion of neutrality allows us to ...
Jul 02, 2025•56 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Send us a text Rosie Spinks Substack - https://rojospinks.substack.com/about Kenny Primrose Substack - https://positivelymaladjusted.substack.com/ Moby Gratis Music - https://mobygratis.com/ Writer and journalist Rosie Spinks joins us to explore her powerful question: "What do we do now that we're here?" Drawing from her journey from ambitious journalist to burnout victim to advocate for a different way of living, Rosie offers a surprisingly hopeful perspective on navigating a world where tradit...
Jun 17, 2025•53 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Send us a text Ruth Taylor explores how our cultural conditions shape our values and beliefs, revealing how we can build futures where humans and other life forms flourish together on our planet. She illuminates the often invisible narratives that guide our thinking and behavior, showing how these shape everything from our personal happiness to our collective response to global challenges. • The "values perception gap" - most people prioritize intrinsic values like community and equality, but be...
Jun 04, 2025•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 6
Send us a text What does it mean to live a purposeful life? Is the way you're spending your time truly reflective of your deepest values and aspirations? These questions stand at the heart of my enlightening conversation with William Damon, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a world-renowned expert on purpose and moral development. Damon brings decades of research to bear on understanding how purpose shapes our lives, offering a compelling definition that transcends simple person...
May 21, 2025•55 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Send us a text What shapes our children's future? Who are they becoming? And why aren't we talking about it more? Katharine Birbalsingh, known as "Britain's strictest headteacher," has a clear vision for the role of school's in shaping the future of Britain. "Children are the future and families and schools influence who they will become, and we seem to care about neither," she observes with passion that's impossible to ignore. While politicians debate net-zero targets and immigration policies, ...
May 15, 2025•53 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Send us a text If you’re a parent or a teacher, you’ve probably wondered about what the best conditions are for psychological development in children, and where we might have gone so wrong as a society. This week, we talk with psychologist Peter Gray about the developmental needs of children, and why long school days, risk free environments, and too much supervision are wreaking havoc with their psychological development. Other episodes on parenting/teaching: Michaeleen Doucleff on the universal...
May 07, 2025•56 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Send us a text Michael Sacasas writes about technology and human flourishing through his wildly popular newsletter T he Convivial Society. I have been reading his work for a number of years and find it both winsome and wise. It was delight to have the opportunity to speak to him about a question he thinks we should be asking ourselves. In this conversation we explore the question of what humans should still do for themselves even when technology can do it better or more efficiently. This convers...
Apr 30, 2025•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 2
Send us a text What if the Western approach to parenting is based on spurious cultural assumptions, not human nature? In this episode, science writer Michaeleen Doucleff takes us inside indigenous communities around the world to reveal what Western parenting gets backwards, as we explore her question - what are the universals of childhood? From the origins of modern parenting in orphanage manuals to the power of kids contributing to real family life, we explore what children actually need to thr...
Apr 23, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Send us a text In this summary episode, we take the theme of attention which runs through most of conversations in the second season. In the episode you'll hear fragments of conversation from Iain McGilchrist, Dacher Keltner, Dougald Hine, Phoebe Tickell, Alex Evans, Elizabeth Oldfield, Jill Bolte-Taylor, Eve Poole and Todd Kashdan. Over this short episode, you'll hear discussion of a wide range of topics, from religion, AI and smartphones, to the role of awe and imagination. Click here to acces...
Nov 29, 2024•28 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Send us a text This is a distilled version of last year's conversation with the writer Oliver Burkeman. In it, you'll hear Oliver talk about our troubled relationship with time and how to more fully inhabit it. Oliver believes our obsession with productivity and efficiency is no route to happiness, quite the opposite. In order to inhabit time more fully, we need to embrace our limitations. This will mean admitting that however many worthwhile ways there are to spend our time, we can't do them al...
Oct 02, 2024•21 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Send us a text Phoebe Tickell is a biologist, systems thinker, and 'imagination activist'. Phoebe works across multiple contexts applying a complexity and systems thinking lens and engaging people in how to think differently about the planet and its problems. In 2020 Phoebe created 'Moral Imaginations', which researches and implements collective imagination exercises and training to inspire change and find new solutions in an era of unprecedented disruption and potential for transformation. In t...
Sep 10, 2024•56 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Send us a text What do we lack when we lack religion? In this episode Alex Evans explores the role that religion has historically played in both collective and individual life, and the shape it leaves behind when it disappears. The stories that we locate ourselves within and the rituals they enshrine, are formative in the way we attend to the world. Religion has historically provided the structure for this work, and its absence leaves a vacuum. The conversation explores the various pretenders to...
Aug 08, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Send us a text Dr Jill Bolte-Taylor was a neuroanatomist at Harvard when she suffered a severe stroke on the left hemisphere of her brain. It was an experience which profoundly changed her life, and opened her up to the agency we all have in choosing our attention. She explores this in her TED talk back in 2008, which became one of the most popular TED talks ever. In this conversation we explore Jill's question 'who are we, and what are we doing here?', doing so through the lens of neuroanatomy,...
Jul 25, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Send us a text Show links: Todd's website - https://toddkashdan.com/ Todd's Substack - https://toddkashdan.substack.com/ Kenny's Substack - https://positivelymaladjusted.substack.com/ Examined Life youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpKC6L_IJ2zvL6E6M8Ly1AA What if the most influential voices in our society are those often left unheard? In this episode, I sit down with Todd Kashdan, a psychology professor at George Mason University and the mind behind "The Art of Insubordination,"...
Jul 09, 2024•55 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Send us a text Iain McGilchrist is a rare polymath who draws on his background in literature, philosophy, medicine and the sciences to make a profound argument that the kind of attention we pay to the world determines not only the kind of people we become, but also the world we create. He argues that the brains left hemisphere has a disenchanted and mechanical view of the world, and it is this that has come to dominate the Western World. A consequence of this is that we've lost a sense of the sa...
Jun 21, 2024•57 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Send us a text As AI evolves and replaces different human functions, it raises questions about what it is that makes us distinctively human, and whether that distinctiveness can and should be programmed into AI. This is a question that Dr Eve Poole has thought and written a great deal about. Her recent book Robot Souls takes this question seriously, and explores possible trajectories for our future with AI. In this episode we discuss the necessity of human 'junk code', the increasing importance ...
Jun 06, 2024•57 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Send us a text Are you optimistic about the future? Do you think we're heading in the right direction as a species? If not, you're in good company. In this episode the writer and speaker Dougald Hine explores what's gone wrong with 'modernity', and what it might mean to think generative thoughts about the future. Dougald speaks with wisdom and clarity about our current predicament, and what kind of thinking and acting we are being called to in this moment. Support the show...
May 22, 2024•59 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Send us a text In this episode the writer and podcaster Elizabeth Oldfield explores the question ‘who is it that I want to be becoming?’ We discuss the pernicious forces that are shaping us, and what it means to be intentional about structuring our time attention around those practices that can deepen and shape our character. Support the show
May 06, 2024•55 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Send us a text How can we find meaning in life? In this episode we are joined by the celebrated psychologist Dacher Keltner where we explore where meaning comes from, and how the emotion of awe can help us find it. Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at UCLA Berkley, where he teaches and researches in the area of positive psychology, and researches the emotion of awe. Dacher is a wonderful communicator and offers much that is fascinating, helpful and uplifting for anyone who craves a gre...
Apr 21, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Send us a text This is a special summary episode with reflection points from 2023 to take forward into the year ahead. The episode pulls together one key idea from each conversation, accompanied by some thoughts on why I found it particularly helpful and interesting. In this episode you will hear extracts from Oliver Burkeman, Anna Lembke, Lisa Miller, Tim Ingold, Will Storr, Helena Norberg Hodge, Sir Terry Waite, and Madeleine Bunting. Each of these people has a perspective which is worth atten...
Dec 30, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Send us a text Ever found yourself pondering what truly constitutes a sense of 'home'? Join me as I, alongside award-winning author and journalist, Madeline Bunting, explore the multifaceted concept of home and the profound emotions associated with it. From reminiscing about our childhood homes, to discussing how our upbringing shaped our perceptions about home, we explore the essence of home, and the different meanings it takes. Support the show...
Jul 18, 2023•50 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Send us a text Sir Terry Waite spent almost five years in solitary confinement as a hostage in Beirut. After being released he founded Emmaus UK for the homeless and Hostage International, both of which he is president of. He has recently been knighted as recognition for his work. In this conversation we explore the damage done by the erosion of trust, how to rebuild it, and how suffering can be turned to creative ends. There are few people today who manage to combine the humility and courage th...
Jun 26, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Send us a text Why does life seem to be getting harder and faster day by day? How can we shift the paradigm towards a more sustainable and harmonious existence? Join us as we tackle these questions with Helena Norberg-Hodge, an influential thinker, writer, award-winning filmmaker, and founder of the non-profit Local Futures. Helena shares her insights on the broken economic system and its devastating impact on our mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. Drawing from her experience living wit...
Jun 10, 2023•58 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Send us a text How do you keep score in the game of life? Journalist and author Will Storr explores the evolutionary roots of our need to play games for status and connection, and why it is valuable to become consciously aware of the games we are playing, and what the different games are that we play across the lifespan. Support the show
May 29, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Send us a text Tim Ingold is a professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He is a fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and is one of the most influential anthropologists in the field today. This conversation explores the way we have come to think about the passage of human generations, and why there is a need to think differently in order to live sustainably. Support the show...
May 14, 2023•48 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Send us a text Dr Lisa Miller is a professor of psychology at Columbia University in New York. Her books The Spiritual Child and The Awakened Brain focus on the psychology of spirituality, and why it is so important to pay attention to our innate spirituality. Dr Miller's work is fascinating, profound, and practical at illuminating an aspect of being that is rarely given scientific attention but is crucial to human flourishing. Support the show...
Apr 29, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Send us a text Anna Lembke is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, and a world leading expert on addiction. Her influential book Dopamine Nation describes the ways our culture is primed to make us into addicts. Dr Lembke's work is compelling, and provides a raft of practical advice for navigating a culture where so much of life has become 'drugified' to make us into addicts. Support the show...
Apr 17, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Send us a text The writer and journalist Oliver Burkeman has spent the last few decades studying and writing about different self-help and productivity strategies. One of the conclusions Oliver has come to, is that there is liberation in realising our limitations. In this first episode of the series, Oliver explores the question of how we can more fully embrace our finitude. Support the show...
Apr 04, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 1
