Sohbet Punx Podcast

In an interruption to our usual programming we take a brief break from the Noble Eightfold Path for this episode to describe our rediciculous weekend of great majesty which included a Manowar gig, a Hare Krsna street festival and a discussion on William Blake's imagination. Did we stay in a magical hotel? Did more than two great things happen in 1980? Is it OK to be entirely unironic about silly things in order to make life worthwhile? How important is community to heavy metal warrior brothers? How can you comprehend the Hindu juggernaut?! Are we just cultural voyeurs? Is psychological transference just magic in disguise? Have we lost our enchantment so much that we can no longer see? Oh, and we make a classic Fugazi/William Blake comparison.

Are we punks or are we Devo? Crossfit competitions with show offs, old men's knees, the Adam Curtis documentary "Shifty" and its propensity to make you want to slit your wrists, doing things and not doing things, we're just animals with rules, mindfulness is more than your app, faith is important, we are just fertilizer, loads of people turn their caps backwards before dropping some truth bombs, wishing death on people is only making your life sad, slow gains beat instant gains.

Scandinavian travel stories, Midsommer without any of the deaths the movie promised, Siobhan's wallet goes in a poo-ey toilet bin, Dave gets in a tree, meditation helps with stressful situations, vapid expanses of nothing, pub culture vs "getting in the water" culture (whatever that is), a Pee Wee Herman documentary goes all meta, Satre is a pillock, the perpetuating machine of misery, nightmare plane journeys, silence is better than racket, circular behavioural patterns and some surprisingly hard takes on psychology.

We ate bad cake before this episode so it gets pretty trippy as the sugar kicks in. Gaia theory, Caitlin Moran and the problem of men and boys, life is absurd, if you’re grumpy about where your band is on the bill then you're both an idiot and we love you, what or who is "the one", the Matrix is just a nerds everyday life, more mindfulness and meditation talk, lots of semantics about the meaning of words, discipline and compulsivity, intelligence has nothing to do with whether you're an idiot or not, we should aim for more than just not harming others, we meet the angel of calmness and wishing death on people is bad, yeah?

The beauties and tragedies of little foxes. Joy loves company. Don't Forget We're Here Forever. Finding our way out of bullshit via Buddhism. More meditation talk. Don't be a massive fascist. Acknowledge and learn from other people's views, particularly if you disagree with them. Knowing what you don't know and that you don’t know.

More friendship, more bullshit, more boredom, more bashing technology. We talk about the joys of sobriety, how to anchor your life to force development and we bad mouth the Dalai Lama. We imagine what it would be like if someone presented us with a surprise pizza. We discuss some self help nonsense and a stupid man talks about biohacking but doesn't think people know what a vagina is. Plus, YOU don't know what a good time feels like!

Nothing to do with this episode but go suck a caribou's ass.

Meditation practice (again), savouring the old instead of looking for the shiny new, learning through repetition, mayonnaise flavoured crisps would be shit, Shelter have been wonderful for many decades, Noisy Mothers was an excellent telly programme, creating a healthy salience landscape, but mostly this episode is, and I mean this in the most technical of ways, bullshit.

Nothing to do with this episode but listen to Rocket From The Crypt.

Dreams about Ray Cappo, racist Slade tribute acts, Herman Hesse, country and western, experiencing opinions that are different from your own, 60% of people are idiots, 80% of people are idiots, 20% of people are idiots, social egotism, meditation is hard, meditation is worth it, everything in life changes, failure doesn't exist, we're not sponsored by anyone and get your mum to listen to this episode and see if she calls you a cunt.

Nothing to do with this episode but watch Broken Flowers.

This episode, we return again to our experiences on our recent silent retreat but this time with an emphasis on the subject of renunciation. What can we get from going without unimportant things in order to get all the stuff that might lead us to finding meaning in a meaningless world?! And that's not all, of course, because we go off piste a lot... Going for a walk is special! Music is special! Not doing the things you want is special! You, the listener, are special! FOMO is a death cult! Enjoy.

Nothing to do with the episode but go and listen to Morphine.

Fresh from finishing a 10 day silent meditation retreat, your trusty Sohbet Punx are back to share their experiences! I'm not going to write anything silly about it like I usually do in these descriptions, it was a very profound experience and we have quite a story to tell (or maybe start telling). Enjoy.

Nothing to do with the episode but go and listen to Sense Field.