In episode 11 of House of Life, we explore begin with Tom's personal health journey — from post-viral fatigue to recovery through infrared light therapy. But what starts as a discussion about cellular energy quickly expands into a broader examination of how our efficiency improvements, from LED lights to modern medicine, may be creating invisible deficiencies we don't yet understand.

We find ourselves diving into the nature of viruses, challenging conventional understanding by exploring them not as living organisms but as "genetic pollution" — bits of code floating in our environment that occasionally find compatible systems to run on. This reframing connects to our view of personal and environmental health: not as a binary state but as a constant process of re-finding balance in an imbalanced world.

The conversation then pivots to examine abundance versus abstinence through both personal and systemic lenses. Travel choices become a case study in the complexity of sustainable abstinence in a world engineered for consumption. We explore how religious traditions understood the value of periodic abstinence for spiritual and physical health, contrasting this with modern consumer culture's manipulation of abundance and scarcity.

Once again though our conversation leads us to look at addiction as we wrestle with the central paradox of sustainability messaging: we ask people to abstain from things specifically designed to be addictive, while the systems creating those addictions remain largely unchallenged. The episode concludes by examining how inner abundance — a sense of spiritual and emotional fullness — might be the ultimate defence against manufactured dependencies.

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Share your thoughts

We love hearing your thoughts so please do leave a comment on Substack or tag us on Linked in (Tom Greenwood & Asim Hussain).

Here’s some things to think about:

* How might our optimisation for efficiency be creating invisible deficiencies in other areas of life?

* What might change in your consumption patterns if you viewed them through the lens of addiction?

* What approaches have you found to cultivate inner abundance in your own life?

What if the very efficiency improvements we champion in sustainability actually increase resource consumption? The Jevons Paradox suggests this troubling possibility. However, we dive deep into the historical evidence and find yet another paradox, that this increase in resource consumption seems to go hand in hand with genuine social progress.

In this episode our conversation spirals through economics, addiction, power dynamics, and the fundamental question: if resource consumption improves human lives, how do we balance that with protecting the environment?Through our exploration we find that there may be limits to the Jevons paradox that would allow us to transcend it, enabling social and environmental progress to go hand in hand, but first we must overcome the power of vested interests that benefit from ever growing consumption.

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Share your thoughts

We love hearing your thoughts so please do leave a comment on Substack or tag us on Linked in (Tom Greenwood & Asim Hussain).

Here’s some things to think about:

* Where do you see increased consumption actually helping improve human welfare?

* Have you noticed the difference between genuine needs and manufactured wants in your own consumption patterns?

* Can you see hidden addictions in society, or your own life, driving unnecessary consumption?

Thanks for listening!

In episode 9 of the House of Life podcast, Asim lead’s us into the high-stakes world of AI investment, exploring OpenAI's audacious $500 billion Stargate project and its implications. Together we unpack the "money moat" strategy, where vast wealth is used to dominate industries, questioning whether this reflects true capitalism or a modern feudalism. The conversation spans the societal impact of AI, the concentration of power in mega-corporations, the implications of unlimited money to dominate society, and the potential for smaller, AI-empowered organizations to reshape the future of work. We even get into the question of whether employment is an inherently unnatural relationship for humans to live in as well as whether some environmental initiatives are hijacked to benefit the consolidation of wealth and power. With candid insights into human ambition, trauma, and systemic inequality, we do what we always do and seek new insights on technology, sustainability, and life.As always, we would love to hear your perspectives so please do leave a comment or share the podcast with your thoughts on your favourite platform.

P.S. I’ve been trying out various different styles of these emails (show notes) to see what works best. I’d love to know how they land with you as listeners, so drop me a note. Thanks! Tom

Episode 8 of House of Life sees us diving into a dynamic exploration of AI-analyzed values, to the paradoxes of suffering, and the power of intuition, challenging conventional thinking and proposing a new vision for a spiritually grounded sustainability movement — Sustainability 2.0.

Key topics include:

* Shared Values: AI analysis reveals shared values like compassion, integrity, curiosity, holistic sustainability, and empathy, but interpreted and actioned differently by each of us through our unique personalities.

* Critique of Measurement: We question society’s obsession with metrics like carbon emissions, which oversimplify complex issues like pollution and poverty, often incentivizing behaviour over truth.

* Tribalism vs. Movement: We debate the dogma of tribalism in comparison to a purpose-driven movement, which could be enable collective action free from rigid thinking.

* Remote Viewing & Reality: Tom’s latest Monroe Institute experience with remote viewing sparks discussion on reality as an informational “database,” challenging physicalist views.

* Suffering & Purpose: We explore whether suffering is necessary for growth or should be minimized through compassion, finding a paradox in compassion that open’s questions regarding life’s deeper purpose.

* Sustainability 2.0: We call for a holistic, spiritually informed approach to sustainability, prioritizing pro-peace and intuitive decision-making — “heal yourself and follow your intuition”.

We hope you enjoy listening. Share your thoughts about this episode in the comments below or on your favourite platform.

Hello, it’s Tom and Asim,

In episode 7 of House of Life, just gone live, Asim starts us off by sharing his somewhat brutal method of controlling aphids in his garden, illustrating his idea that if suffering is an inevitable part of life then “the suffering has got to be worth it”. This moral dilemma somehow leads to a question mark over the authenticity of the modern sustainability community. What does it really stand for?

We go on to discuss tribal identity, the myth of the left and right, and our bewilderment that atrocities such as those in Gaza are not high on the sustainability movement’s agenda.

From here we move on to discuss the dilemmas of AI in the sustainability space and what their potential opportunities and pitfalls might be — not in terms of environmental impact — but human life and societal progress. Will AI help us achieve peace or will it rot our minds and accelerate our decline? Perhaps the choice is ours to make.

If you’ve made it this far with us, we’d love to hear from you, so do drop us a message to let us know what’s on your mind.

And if you’re on a similar journey and feeling alone, let us know if you’d benefit from joining us in a Signal group (or similar) to explore open minded thinking about life, the universe and our home planet — uncensored.

Lastly, if you enjoy this podcast, please do like, subscribe and share it. Big thanks!

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Episode 6 begins with Tom’s composting toilet being the great teacher of circular economics, leading us to share gardening tales — “s**t tomatoes”, invasive food, and a mysterious driveway pumpkin — revealing how chaos in nature can be a key ally in sustainable living. The conversation shifts to the seasonal appearance of crop circles in England’s countryside, provoking though on art, mystery, and societal dismissal of the unexplained.

Then we dive into the main focus of this episode. Tom proposes veganism as a first principle of sustainability, and Asim nearly falls off his chair laughing. It leads to a deep discussion of exploitation versus compassion as key factors in sustainability. We get into the edges of the vegan discussion — bees, processed foods, hunting and pets — leading us to contemplate a “suffering cycle” that, like the carbon cycle, must be balanced to foster growth not destruction.

Dive in and see where it leads your thinking…

If you enjoyed the episode, here are a few ideas to explore the ideas further:

* Embrace nature’s chaos

See if you can find an example of plants that are food or medicine growing spontaneously in your garden or neighbourhood. Take a photo and share it with us.

* Do the suffering mathsYou can’t literally do the maths, but see if you can find something in your life that creates tension because it adds value to the world but also creates some harm. Contemplate how you weigh up this balance.

* Embrace voluntary sufferingTry a small discomfort (e.g. a cold shower, or skipping a meal). Note how it sparks growth or clarity, if any. Share your perspective — does purposeful suffering play a role in making your life better?

Thanks for reading House of Life Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Hey guys,

Episode 5 of House of Life is now live. We begin with a conversation about the complexities of social media engagement in the sustainability sector before diving in to Tom’s recent attendance at the Breaking Convention conference on psychedelics at Exeter University. This leads us into contemplating the Web of Wyrd — a 1,000-year-old pagan concept of a cosmic web where every node (people, thoughts, objects) ripple with free will and fate.

What other ancient knowledge might we have lost, mundane, technical or esoteric, and what might still be here for us to see if we open our eyes? This frames our exploration of lost knowledge: from India’s Kailasa Temple to Egypt’s micron-accurate vases, suggesting knowledge that we have lost. Why do we resist admitting that the ancients knew things that we don’t?

Our conversation then pivots to today’s distractions, triggered by Asim’s Tesla heckler. Is our focus on public personalities like Elon Musk distracting us from bigger patterns in our systems, or even other key people in the shadows? And if we project hate toward those we see as villains, are we bringing the wrong energy into the world?

Have a listen and let us know what you think…

If you enjoyed the episode, here are a few ideas to explore the ideas further:

* Explore a lost story

Research an ancient myth or a piece of folklore, perhaps local to where you live. Is it just a story or does it contain useful wisdom or even practical knowledge?

* Wobble the webExplore the boundaries of your own free will in the web of wyrd, maybe trying to affect change in a way that you normally wouldn’t. Do you see your actions rippling outward?

* Spot a distraction

Observe one thing that you’ve been riled up about recently and trace it back to the source. Is your anger best serving your own wellbeing or that of wider society? If you liberated yourself from outside influence, where would you place your attention?

Thanks for listening to House of Life. We’d be grateful if you share it with a friend or leave us a comment below.

Good morning!

Episode 4 of House of Life has just gone live on Substack and on all your favourite podcast platforms.

After the last episode, we both found our heads spinning regarding the nature of responsibility, so we begin this latest episode by diving back in their to explore it further. What really is responsibility and who really has it? We unpack the illusion of corporate personhood and wrestle with how powerless we can sometimes feel as individuals. This leads us to dive into some of the hidden power dynamics in government and the monetary system that fundamentally shape the game.

From there we shift upwards to continue our earlier exploration of consciousness. Is it a field rather than a by-product of the brain? If so, what does this mean for the nature of reality and how we interact with the world? Could believing in a better world actually be key to creating it? We end hopeful: maybe painting a vivid, collective vision could be sustainability’s secret sauce.

Note that if you tuned in to the previous episode you’ll know that we ended episode 3 saying that we each wanted to craft a set of first principles of sustainability to discuss in episode 4. We’ve been thinking a lot about this but haven’t got there yet. If that’s on your mind, do feel free to share your current thinking in the comments and we hope to loop back to it at a later date.

If you enjoyed the episode, here are a few ideas to take it further:

* Make a ripple

* Push one boundary this week (e.g., speak up in a meeting) and see how it feels. Do it with positivity and see what effect it has. How did it make you feel? And how did others respond?

* Question the model

* Tune in to one thing about the model of our society that has never made sense to you. Ask yourself, who are the real beneficiaries and who is paying the price? Share your take in the comments.

* Daydream together

* Chat with a friend and dare to dream of a shared future you’d love to create? Talk about it, sketch it, sing it—whatever feels good. Really feel into it and send a positive signal to the universe.

Thanks for listening to House of Life! We’d be really grateful if you shared this post.

Hi, it’s Tom and Asim

Thanks so much for subscribing to our House of Life podcast. We really appreciate you tuning in and exploring new perspectives with us.

We’re back for Episode 3 and this time we kick off with Tom recounting his recent time at the Monroe Institute, a consciousness research hub infamous for its CIA-linked out-of-body experiments. Expecting a chilled meditation retreat, Tom found himself in an intense, tech-assisted dive into altered states that was exhausting yet also fun and fascinating. This leads into a conversation about subconscious layers, collective consciousness, and whether we’re all one entity playing a cosmic game. From near-death tales to the paradox of birth, we wrestle with life’s big mysteries: Are we eternal souls on a joyride or students in Earth’s soul school?

Oh, but isn’t this supposed to be a sustainability podcast? Fear not, as somehow our journey through human consciousness leads us back to sustainability, where we explore personal responsibility versus systemic blame and land on the need for first principles—core values like unity and agency—to help us navigate a noisy and polarised world without losing ourselves.

It’s another rollercoaster ride to stretch our thinking outside of our habitual patterns and we hope it provides you with a new sense of possibility and wonder.

If you enjoyed the episode, here are a few ideas to take it further:

* Explore your subconscious

* Try a free meditation on the Monroe Institute’s ‘Expand’ app. See if anything bubbles up from your subconscious? Share your experience in the Substack comments.

* Craft your first principles

* Pick one value (e.g., unity, honesty) as a personal sustainability lens. Test it: How does it shape your perception of a news story or a friend’s rant? Let us know.

* Listen to other perspectives

* Have a calm, respectful chat with someone you disagree with. Ask them for their perspective on an issue that matters to you and listen. Ask question to understand them better, without pushing your own views. How does it feel? Does it bring any new insights?

* Ponder the One

* Imagine you’re a single consciousness living every life—a worm, a sparrow, yourself. How would that change your priorities in life?

We’d love to hear from you so please do leave us comments with your thoughts, or Substack or maybe share your thoughts on LinkedIn and tag us in. Thanks again!

Thanks for reading House of Life Podcast! This post is public so feel free to share it.

In Episode 2 of House of Life, Asim Hussain and Tom Greenwood continue their exploration of sustainability by exploring what it really means to live in harmony and whether humanity and the Earth have a hierarchy of needs that mirrors our needs as individuals. This leads down a rabbit hole into staged alien invasions, the high stakes of nuclear war, the need for sustainability to be pro-peace, media propaganda and the role of advertising in fragmenting our minds, our society and fuelling mindless consumption. Expect more unexpected detours in the quest to gain deeper insights into what it means to create a better world and how we might get there.

Chapters

00:00 - Defining Sustainability: A Personal Journey

02:52 - Unity and Separation: The Spiritual Perspective

06:28 - Chakras and Societal Balance

10:12 - The Earth as a Living System

13:53 - Creation and Destruction: The Cycle of Life

19:02 - The Nature of Life and Machines

21:38 - Tribalism and Alien Encounters

23:33 - The Conspiracy of Unity: A Fake Alien Invasion?

24:32 - UFOs and the Unexplained

27:56 - Theories of Time Travel and Future Beings

32:39 - Philosophical Connections: Sustainability and Existence

36:19 - The Casualty of War: Nuclear Threats and Apathy

39:01 - The Intersection of Peace and Sustainability

43:01 - The Consequences of War on Society

46:18 - The Ethics of War and Governance

50:39 - Media's Role in War Perception

59:35 - The Attention Economy and Polarization

01:03:41 - The Role of Social Media in Society

01:06:02 - Advertising: The Double-Edged Sword

01:08:46 - The Impact of Algorithms on Content Consumption

01:10:33 - The Nature of Advertising and Its Effects

01:16:02 - Rethinking Advertising: A Necessary Evil?

01:19:43 - Defining Sustainability and Its Broader Implications

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