The Deeper Thinking Podcast

When Enough Is Enough – The Deeper Thinking Podcast


Listen Later

When Enough Is Enough – The Deeper Thinking Podcast

The Deeper Thinking Podcast

A meditation on burnout, worth, and the quiet rebellion of stopping.

What if burnout isn’t a failure of energy, but a clarity of vision? In this episode, we trace the contours of exhaustion—not as collapse, but as quiet refusal. Drawing from the work of Byung-Chul Han, Lauren Berlant, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Virginia Woolf, we explore how the ethic of constant optimisation fractures our sense of time, identity, and rest. This is an episode for anyone who has confused stillness with failure—and is beginning to suspect otherwise.

Instead of solutions, we offer attention. A new rhythm of presence. A permission to belong in your life without performing it. Through the philosophical lens of phenomenology, the emotional textures of burnout are re-read as signals of misalignment—not of ambition, but of inherited narratives about value, time, and selfhood.

Reflections

Here are some reflections that surfaced along the way:

  • Exhaustion isn’t weakness. Sometimes it’s the body's dissent.
  • You are not behind. You are bound to a rhythm that was never yours.
  • Stillness is not failure. It is refusal to be rendered.
  • Attention, not effort, is the ground of meaning.
  • Burnout is not just depletion—it’s the misrecognition of self as function.
  • Rest is not a reward. It is a right.
  • Why Listen?

    • Explore the quiet ontology of burnout without pathologising it
    • Reflect on phenomenological time and the violence of optimisation culture
    • Reclaim presence through stillness, not productivity
    • Reframe rest as an epistemic and ethical act
    • Listen On:

      • YouTube
      • Spotify
      • Apple Podcasts
      • Support This Work

        If you’d like to support the ongoing work, you can visit buymeacoffee.com/thedeeperthinkingpodcast or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you.

        Bibliography

        • Han, Byung-Chul. The Burnout Society. Stanford University Press, 2015.
        • Berlant, Lauren. Cruel Optimism. Duke University Press, 2011.
        • Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge, 2012.
        • Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. Hogarth Press, 1929.
        • Bibliography Relevance

          • Byung-Chul Han: Frames burnout as a pathology of hyperachievement and the disappearance of “the other.”
          • Lauren Berlant: Offers a lens into the emotional infrastructures that bind us to unsustainable forms of life.
          • Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Provides the phenomenological grounding for embodied presence and lived time.
          • Virginia Woolf: Captures the quiet ethics of autonomy, rest, and the politics of refusal through spatial metaphor.
          • To stop isn’t to disappear. It’s to reappear on your own terms.

            #Burnout #ByungChulHan #LaurenBerlant #Phenomenology #MerleauPonty #VirginiaWoolf #TheDeeperThinkingPodcast #RestIsRadical #AttentionOverEffort #QuietRebellion #EthicsOfEnough

            ...more
            View all episodesView all episodes
            Download on the App Store

            The Deeper Thinking PodcastBy The Deeper Thinking Podcast

            • 4
            • 4
            • 4
            • 4
            • 4

            4

            88 ratings


            More shows like The Deeper Thinking Podcast

            View all
            Hidden Brain by Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam

            Hidden Brain

            43,580 Listeners

            Philosophize This! by Stephen West

            Philosophize This!

            15,242 Listeners

            The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

            The Gray Area with Sean Illing

            10,728 Listeners

            The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast by Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Casey

            The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

            2,104 Listeners

            THIRD EYE DROPS by SpectreVision Radio

            THIRD EYE DROPS

            1,286 Listeners

            10% Happier with Dan Harris by 10% Happier

            10% Happier with Dan Harris

            12,710 Listeners

            Philosophy For Our Times by IAI

            Philosophy For Our Times

            323 Listeners

            Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff

            Team Human

            369 Listeners

            Living Myth by Michael Meade

            Living Myth

            1,015 Listeners

            People Who Read People: A Behavior and Psychology Podcast by Zachary Elwood

            People Who Read People: A Behavior and Psychology Podcast

            291 Listeners

            Overthink by Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D.

            Overthink

            445 Listeners

            The Paranormal UFO Consciousness Podcast by Grant Cameron

            The Paranormal UFO Consciousness Podcast

            111 Listeners

            Alan Watts Being in the Way by Be Here Now Network / Love Serve Remember Foundation

            Alan Watts Being in the Way

            792 Listeners

            Cosmosis [Formerly The UFO Rabbit Hole] by Kelly Chase & Jay Christopher King

            Cosmosis [Formerly The UFO Rabbit Hole]

            1,005 Listeners

            The Telepathy Tapes by Ky Dickens

            The Telepathy Tapes

            8,597 Listeners