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The Examined Life podcast explores the questions we should be asking ourselves with a range of leading thinkers. Each episode features a different interview, and appeals to those interested in wisdom, personal development, and what it might mean to live a good life. Topics vary from discussing the role of dopamine mining and status anxiety, to exploring the science of awe and attention.
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Michael Sacasas - when should we take the long way round?
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Send us a text Michael Sacasas writes about technology and human flourishing through his wildly popular newsletter The 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 conve…
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Michaeleen Doucleff - what are the universals of childhood?
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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…
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Season II summary: it's all about attention
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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…
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Oliver Burkeman - How can I more fully embrace my finitude?
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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 …
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Phoebe Tickell - Is the root of our problems found in the way we see the world?
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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 im…
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Alex Evans - What do we do about the religion shaped hole?
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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…
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Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor - Who are we, and what are we doing here?
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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…
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Todd Kashdan - What are the best ways to be influential when lacking power and status?
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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 unhea…
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Iain McGilchrist - What is my culture preventing me from seeing?
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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 an…
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Eve Poole - What is distinctive about being human?
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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…
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Dougald Hine - How do we make good ruins?
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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 clar…
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Elizabeth Oldfield - Who is it that I want to be becoming?
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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…
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Dacher Keltner - How can awe help us to find more meaning in life?
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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 re…
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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 Mil…
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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 perceptio…
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Sir Terry Waite - how do we rebuild trust and foster community?
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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 tr…
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Helena Norberg-Hodge - Why is life getting harder and faster?
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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 insig…
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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…
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Tim Ingold - How do we think differently about generations?
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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…
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Lisa Miller on spirituality and awakened awareness - when have I been both a point and a wave?
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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 bei…
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Anna Lembke - What does it look like to have a healthy relationship with pain and pleasure?
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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 bec…
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Oliver Burkeman - How do I more fully embrace my finitude?
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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 …
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