Everyone wants love, but no one can tell you exactly what love is. In this episode, we deep dive into seven philosophical perspectives on love, ranging from the Ancient Greeks to the existentialists. If you’re curious whether Plato thought soulmates were real or Kierkegaard would tell you to text your ex, this episode is for you. 

EPISODE OUTLINE 

00:00 Intro (the philosophy of love)

03:19 What even is love? (hypotheticals on love)

07:07 Ancient Greek philosophy on love 

07:35 Origins of the concept of soulmates (Plato’s The Symposium)

09:03 Socrates’ ladder of love 

13:03 Enlightenment thinkers on love 

13:15 Love as social performance (Rousseau)

13:58 Rousseau’s two types of self love 

15:22 How self love affects how you love others

17:31 The humanity formula (Kant)   

19:49 Practical vs. passionate love (Kant)

22:07 Love as a trick (Schopenhauer)

24:04 Why do opposites attract? (Schopenhauer)

24:28 Is love just biological encouragement to reproduce? (Schopenhauer)

26:06 Existentialists on love

26:14 The tension between love and freedom of choice (Sartre)

27:50 Love as an objectifying force (Sartre)

30:32 Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir’s non-monogamous love story 

31:40 The relationship between love and possession (de Beauvoir) 

33:06 How your fear of being seen impacts your ability to give and receive love (Sartre, Doestoevsky, de Beauvoir) 

36:54 Kierkegaard’s Works of Love 

37:22 Unreasonable standards in love (Kierkegaard)

42:24 Lightning round recap

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Plato, The Symposium (c. 385–370 BCE)
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762)
• Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
• Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals (1797)
• Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1818)
• Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (1847)
• Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (1864)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (1943)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit (1944)
• Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)
• Gordon Marino, The Existentialist’s Survival Guide (2018)

MY LINKS

• MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠⁠
• Get a signed copy of MAKE BELIEVE from Blue Willow Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (write “REQUEST FOR SIGNED COPY” in the order notes!)
• Join the waitlist for future retreats! ⁠
• Practice yoga with me at Shanti Yoga Houston on the last Sunday of every month!⁠
• Find me @thedailyvictorian on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Find me @thedailyvictorian on TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Ever wonder why some people seem to have endless creativity while you’re stuck with half-baked ideas that never make it out of your Notes app? In this episode, we explore the habits, tips and artistic processes of creative geniuses ranging from Plato and Picasso to Mary Oliver and Rick Rubin. I reveal the 7 secrets of creative geniuses that helped me stop chasing perfection, relight my creative spark, and actually enjoy the process of making art. If you’re ready to stop gatekeeping your own creativity, this one’s for you. 

EPISODE OUTLINE

00:00 Intro: Why creativity matters for everyone (not just artists)

03:58 1. Great creatives don’t let perfection be the enemy of creation (Plato’s Republic, perfection vs. forms, Ira Glass on “the gap”)

11:28 2. They separate creation, refinement, and critique (Rick Rubin, The Creative Act)

14:41 3. They focus on next possibilities, not ultimate goals (Stuart Kauffman’s adjacent possible, evolutionary biology, Bhagavad Gita, Rick Rubin on artistry vs. craftsmanship)

20:56 4. They embrace flow and anti-flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on flow state; Mary Oliver’s editing process; Stanley Kubrick’s many takes)

25:52 5. They thrive under constraints (Barry Schwartz’s paradox of choice; Mary Oliver writing Wild Geese as a constraint exercise; Parkinson’s Law)

30:35 6. They know that if they don’t create it, someone else will (Rick Rubin on how ideas move, Elizabeth Gilbert’s hand-off story with Ann Patchett)

34:01 7. They know that no one really knows (Socrates on knowing nothing, imposter feelings, why your contributions matter)

37:57 Lightning round recap

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• Plato, The Republic 

• Studies on the impact of perfectionism on performance and creativity (2022 and 2025)

• Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being 

• Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe 

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience 

• Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook; “Wild Geese”; On Being interview with Krista Tippett 

• Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice

• Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear 

MY LINKS

• ⁠MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠Get a signed copy of MAKE BELIEVE from Blue Willow Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (write “REQUEST FOR SIGNED COPY” in the order notes!)

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠Join the waitlist for future retreats! 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠Practice yoga with me at Shanti Yoga Houston on the last Sunday of every month!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Find me @thedailyvictorian on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠Find me @thedailyvictorian on TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

What happens when your faith collapses? In this episode, I share my story of spiritual deconstruction and how I learned to believe again—sort of. This isn’t a “how to get your faith back” story. It’s the story of tearing my faith down to the studs, sifting through the rubble, and deciding what was worth keeping. We’ll talk god shaped holes, Kierkegaard, Camus, Pascal’s wager, and the surprising peace of not needing all the answers. This episode if for anyone who is currently filling their god-shaped hole with TikTok marathons, self-help books and spiral-inducing questions. If you started at church camp and have landed in full-blown nihilism, press play. 

EPISODE OUTLINE

00:00 Intro: the story of how I lost my faith and got it back (sort of)

08:01 1. Why spiritual crises often happen at the worst possible time

10:35 How my own spiritual crisis began

18:07 Kierkegaard on despair and the self

19:47 2. Why spiritual health gets worse before it gets better

26:19 The delight of spiritual curiosity

27:43 3. Choosing how to fill the God shaped hole

29:42 Absurdism and optimistic nihilism (Camus)

30:57 Pascal’s Wager explained and what it gets wrong

32:51 Approaching belief pragmatically (belief as a choice)

33:53 What “god” means to me now 

35:33 Can you make yourself believe? Should you?

36:16 On stepping in the same river twice (Heraclitus)

36:49 Five reflection questions (Rainn Wilson)

38:14 Lightning round recap 

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death (1849)

Rhett McLaughlin’s Spiritual Deconstruction Story

Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1670)

St. Augustine, Confessions (c. 400 CE)

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)

Heraclitus, Fragment 49a (c. 500 BCE)

Rainn Wilson, Soul Boom (2023)

Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays (2016)

MY LINKS

• ⁠Listen to my episode of Soul Boom with Rainn Wilson on Spotify 

• ⁠Watch my episode of Soul Boom with Rainn Wilson on Youtube

• ⁠MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠Get a signed copy of MAKE BELIEVE from Blue Willow Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (write “REQUEST FOR SIGNED COPY” in the order notes!)

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠Join the waitlist for future retreats! 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Find me @thedailyvictorian on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠Find me @thedailyvictorian on TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

RESOURCES 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• Chat with a Trevor Project counselor now 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ANAD helpline 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• 988 lifeline

Confrontation is hard. But avoiding it is harder—on your peace, your relationships, and your self-respect. In this episode, explore how to get better at having tough conversations. We’ll look to Aristotle, Joan Didion, and the Gottman institute’s world-renowned research on conflict to create a roadmap for navigating confrontation without abandoning yourself or bulldozing anyone else. If you spiral after hitting send, avoid awkward conversations for weeks while playing out fake arguments in the shower, or disassociate every time someone says “we need to talk,” this one's for you.

EPISODE OUTLINE 

00:00 Intro 

05:19 1. The correlation between confrontation and respect 

06:27 Joan Didion On Self Respect 

08:47 The trolley problem (Foote)

14:33 2. Approaching confrontation practically 

16:33 Phronesis (Aristotle) 

18:35 Kant’s categorical imperative

20:50 Thich Nhat Hanh’s three gates 

23:27 3. Confrontation dos and don’ts

23:49 the Gottman institute 

24:44 Confrontation don’ts

26:14 Confrontation dos

26:17 The magic ratio for healthy relationships

26:53 Bids for attention

27:59 Soft startups 

29:08 Repair attempts

32:09 Lightning round recap

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 

• ​ ⁠Joan Didion, On Self Respect (Vogue, 1961)
• ​ ⁠Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (c. 350 BCE)
• ​ ⁠Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
• ​ ⁠Thích Nhất Hạnh, The Art of Communicating (2013)
• ​ ⁠Drs. John & Julie Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (1999)

MY LINKS

• ​ ⁠MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠
• ​⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Get a signed copy of MAKE BELIEVE from Blue Willow Bookshop
• ​⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠​ ⁠Join the waitlist for future retreats! 
• ​⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠​ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Find me @thedailyvictorian on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ​⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠​ ⁠⁠Find me @thedailyvictorian on TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Want to become a better conversationalist? You should! Good conversations can open doors, build friendships, and even change your life. But in an age of goldfish attention spans, hot takes, and chronic fear of being seen, real connection is harder than ever. The good news? Conversation is an art, but it’s also a science. In this episode, we walk through 5 things great conversationalists do differently, according to philosophy and psychology. If you want to feel less robotic on dates, network without cringing, vibe better with your friends, or just not panic when someone says “tell me about yourself,” this one’s for you. 

EPISODE OUTLINE:

00:00 Intro

04:07 1. Seeing conversation as a skill

11:03 2. Starting lots of conversations

18:30 3. Asking more questions

25:06 4. Leaving room for the unexpected

29:08 5. Expecting reality, not hyperreality 

33:27 Lightning round recap 

36:19 Challenge 

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Simulacra and Simulation, Jean Baudrillard (1981)

TALK: The Science of Conversation and The Art of Being Ourselves, Alison Wood Brooks (2025)

Feeling stuck, numb, or overwhelmed? Crashing out for the third time this week? Good news! Philosophy, the sad girl discipline of academia, has lots of advice for you. This episode breaks down 5 reasons why we get stuck according to philosophical greats like Franz Kafka, Soren Kierkegaard, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and more. We’ll talk about practical strategies to climb out of your spiral and start feeling like yourself again. If your search history includes ‘why am I like this’ and ‘how to feel okay again,’ press play.

EPISODE OUTLINE

00:00 Intro 

04:53 You’re stuck because…

05:00 1. You’re free 

05:18 The dizziness of freedom (Kierkegaard)

06:04 We’re condemned to be free (Sartre)

07:13 The fig tree allegory (Sylvia Plath)

13:21 2. You’re choosing information over experience 

13:35 Mary’s Room hypothetical (Jackson)

22:49 3. You’ve outgrown a version of yourself

23:02 The Metamorphosis (Kafka) 

26:54 4. You’re expecting sense in senseless places

27:04 The Trial (Kafka)

35:14 5. You think nothing matters 

35:24 Mechanical life (Camus)

36:34 The moment of the absurd (Camus)

37:13 The myth of Sisyphus (Camus) 

40:08 Lightning round recap 

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: 

On Anxiety, Soren Kierkegaard (1844)

Being and Nothingness, Jean Paul Sartre (1943)

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath (1963)

The Big Secret, Deepak Chopra (2008)

Epiphenomenal Qualia, Frank Jackson (1982) 

The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka (1915)

The Trial, Franz Kafka (1925)

The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus (1942)

19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed every transformation followed a sacred three-step pattern. In this episode, we walk through the three metamorphoses of the soul from Nietzsche’s 1883 work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. We’ll talk about why a chapter of chaos might be necessary to become your fullest, truest self, and how Nietzsche’s stages apply to modern life. This episode is for you if you're experiencing or anticipating a big shift, no matter whether it relates to your career, relationships, creativity, spirituality, identity, or everything at once. If you’re feeling lost, restless, or ready for reinvention, this one’s for you.

EPISODE OUTLINE 

00:00 Intro

06:34 The camel spirit 

11:32 The lion spirit 

17:25 The child spirit 

25:40 Lightning round recap 

26:43 Challenge

MY LINKS

• ⁠MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠Get a signed copy of MAKE BELIEVE from Blue Willow Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠Join the waitlist for future retreats! 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Find me @thedailyvictorian on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠Find me @thedailyvictorian on TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Thought daughters, this one’s for you. This episode is your guide to keeping your mind fed all summer long. In it, I share the note-taking system that’s changing my life, a 10 minute morning routine that primes your brain for creative work, recs for intellectually stimulating podcasts, books, and newsletters, and more. 

EPISODE OUTLINE 

00:00 Intro

02:14 1. Take notes  

06:57 2. Write by hand

08:42 3. Get out of your echo chamber

11:01 4. Remember the Zeigarnik effect 

14:54 5. Change your conversation norms

18:08 6. Practice hard attention

21:11 7. 10 minute morning rule

22:33 8. Chew your brain food

23:54 9. Show what you don’t know

26:20 Newsletter recs 

27:41 Philosophy podcast recs

28:08 Poetry recs

29:40 Lightning round recap 

So your life just changed. Maybe you moved, your relationship ended, or you quit a job. You've found yourself in new territory without your usual routines, roles, or scripts. You're Googling “who even am I?” every night.

Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s wrong. In this episode, I’m sharing 8 things I wish I knew during past seasons of change in my life. The in-between is uncomfortable, but it's also full of possibility. If you’re in a messy middle right now, this one’s for you.

EPISODE OUTLINE 

03:35 How to follow your intuition 

06:38 How to know the right choice

10:50 The effect of your ego

14:10 The impact of who you keep close 

19:27 The importance of confrontation

23:21 The impact of tiny choices 

26:40 How to shift into the next chapter 

28:59 Hard versus wrong 

SOURCES

Smoke filled room study 

Balloon study 

bell hooks, all about love 

Audre Lorde essay: The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action

Churning of the ocean story from the Mahabharata 

How you spend your weeks is how you spend your life. In this episode, I walk through five powerful philosophical, psychological and spiritual concepts—including Nietzsche’s eternal return, Aristotle’s golden mean, the planning fallacy, and Parkinson’s Law—that will help you create a weekly routine you love. I also let you in on my own weekly routine, including a Sunday night ritual to rewire your brain and my top tips for planning weeks that change your life. 

EPISODE OUTLINE

04:21 Nietzsche’s eternal return

12:27 Aristotle’s golden mean 

19:04 The jar principle & Parkinson’s law

23:16 “I don’t have time” vs. “it’s not a priority”

25:28 The planning fallacy (Kahneman) 

31:59 Dharma

37:22 My weekly routine

MY LINKS

• ⁠MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠Get a signed copy of MAKE BELIEVE from Blue Willow Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠Join the waitlist for future retreats! 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Find me @thedailyvictorian on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠Find me @thedailyvictorian on TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠