Do I love my country?

If I do, does that make me toxic?

If I don't, does that make me a traitor?

Is there even a right answer anymore?

And what does it really mean to be a patriot today?

In this weeks episode, I explore what it means to love your country in a genuine and authentic way, and how patriotism can be expressed through action rather than blind loyalty. With the help of thinkers like Jonathan Haidt and Timothy Snyder, we take an honest look at the difference between patriotism and nationalism, and how each can either strengthen or weaken the societies we hope to build.

We may discover that we have misunderstood patriotism on a massive scale, and that this misunderstanding is shaping far more of our world than we realize.

What does it mean to be liberal?

To follow liberal ideology?

To be left wing?

And what does it mean for me to call myself a liberal in the modern world, in the nation where I was born?

Surprisingly, that is a much more complicated question than it might seem.

In this weeks episode, I turn to several thinkers to try to understand what it actually means to be a liberal and whether it is an identity I want to claim for myself. With the help of philosophers like Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls, among others, we explore what liberalism was originally intended to be, what it has become, and whether it still reflects the values we hold today.

Perhaps the deeper and more frightening question is this: how do I know what my values and beliefs actually are if I don’t feel like I fit neatly anywhere?

Why am I so bored all the time?

Why is nothing entertaining enough for me anymore?

Am I boring?

Are other people boring?

Have I simply become too accustomed to having endless entertainment at my fingertips?

Or is something else going on?

In this weeks episode, we take a long, hard look at boredom and what it actually means to us. With the help of German philosopher Martin Heidegger, along with a brief appearance from Korean philosopher Byung Chul Han, we explore the different ways boredom can take hold of our lives and what, if anything, we can do about it.

Perhaps we will discover that boredom is not something we should be running from, but something we desperately need to pay attention to... before our world passes us by.

What does it mean to be healthy?

Really.

Not what the latest fad tells us. Not what we are constantly told we should be doing. And not even what the government says. What does it actually mean to live a healthy life?

In this episode, we stop and seriously ask how we know what is healthy for us in the first place. Is health really as straightforward and scientific as we tend to assume, or is there something deeper going on? With the help of voices from across history, including American journalist and author Michael Pollan, we take a closer look at what it means to pursue health and how we might actually achieve it.

And we might be surprised by just how far into the past we have to look for some of the answers.

Am I a bad parent?

Did I have bad parents?

Is there even such a thing as a good parent?

As a therapist, I am not sure there is a question I have heard more often or spent more time exploring. Throughout my career, clients have asked what it really means to be a bad parent, and whether anyone can truly be called a good one.

In this weeks episode, I dive into these questions with the help of British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott and his groundbreaking idea of the "good enough" parent. Together, we explore what it actually means to parent well, why we so often hold ourselves to impossible standards, and why the qualities that matter most may not be the ones we expect.

Perhaps being a good enough parent really is... good enough.

Should I have kids? Should you? Should anyone, for that matter?

Is anyone ever truly ready to become a parent? Do we really know why we want children? And if we do, how can we tell when we are actually ready?

In this weeks episode, I explore what it really means to have a child and the questions we should be asking before making one of the biggest decisions of our lives. With the help of thinkers like German psychoanalyst Erik Erikson and Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, we move beyond the practical concerns of parenting to ask what it truly means to welcome another human being into the world.

Perhaps being ready has less to do with having all the answers and more to do with understanding the responsibility of the question itself.

Do you ever wish aliens would just abduct you and take you on an adventure? A chance to leave behind the endless stress, conflict, and uncertainty of life on Earth? It sounds nice... but there is one small problem.

Would we even be able to communicate with them? Could they understand us, or we them? Is it possible that two intelligent beings could encounter one another and never truly know it? And what does any of this have to do with bats?

In this weeks episode, I explore the strange challenge of understanding minds that are fundamentally different from our own. With the help of philosopher Thomas Nagel and several other thinkers, we ask whether it is ever truly possible to know the inner world of another conscious being.

The answer may leave us feeling more isolated than we ever expected.

What are we, really?

We are told we are human. But what does that actually mean? It seems like such a simple question, yet philosophers have wrestled with it for centuries.

This week, we dive into the existential question of what it truly means to be human and whether our understanding of ourselves has missed something important. Guided by thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, and Ernest Becker we turn especially to ecologist and philosopher David Abram and his expansion of the work of French existential philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Together, we ask not only what it means to be human, but whether we have forgotten how to be one.

I exist. I am a human being who exists. I know this. I feel this. But how do I actually describe it? Do I list my traits? My personality? My qualities? Do these things really explain my existence, or am I something more than all of them?

In this weeks episode, I explore what it truly means to exist and how we might begin to understand ourselves beyond the labels we so often identify with. With the help of English existential psychotherapist Mick Cooper, alongside insights from Sartre, Jaspers, May, and others, we dive into the nature of human existence and discover that what we usually mean by "existence" is only the beginning.

Perhaps misunderstanding what it means to exist is also why we so often struggle to understand how to live.

There are many things we question on this podcast. We challenge assumptions, call out ideas we take for granted, and examine the concepts we think we understand. But surely there are some things so fundamental to our existence that they are beyond questioning...

Time, for example.

In this weeks episode, we turn to Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, who argues that time is far less straightforward than it appears. As we explore the many ways humans experience, understand, and attempt to measure time, we begin to see that even our most basic assumptions about reality may not be as certain as we once believed.

Perhaps the hardest things to define are the very things we think we already know.