Bonus Sample: Leo and Restless Hearts in Algeria
In April 2026, Pope Leo XIV, deep in a public feud with President Trump over the Iran war, made his first trip to Africa. He chose Algeria: the birthplace of Augustine, the spiritual founder of his or...
27 Apr 5min
Brief: Well Enough (Book Excerpt)
Derek reads two chapters from his recently published memoir, Well Enough: Finding Health Despite the Wellness Industry. In Chapters 3 & 4, he discusses his work as a patient monitor looking after suic...
25 Apr 22min
305: AI’s Cultish Leader
Ronan Farrow is at it again. The reporter has a new feature in The New Yorker, written alongside staff writer Andrew Marantz, about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In many ways, the 16,000-word investigation i...
23 Apr 1h 21min
Bonus Sample: How the Self is Made...and Unmade
Derek looks into behavioral economics to better understand the fluidity of the "self," finding that recent research aligns with a very old Buddhist concept. Show Notes What Does Extreme Wealth Do To...
20 Apr 5min
Brief: Pope Leo vs AI Slop Jesus Trump
Donald Trump's shitpost attack on Pope Leo XIV, followed within the hour by an AI slop icon of himself as Jesus, has cracked open the evangelical-Catholic coalition that has anchored American conserva...
18 Apr 28min
304: Twisted Tantric Yogi
Consider the bright-eyed students who signed up for tantric yoga and sacred sexuality courses through their local yoga studios, only to eventually find they were sending the guru photos of themselves ...
16 Apr 1h 11min
Bonus Sample: The Philosopher, The King, & The Holy Man
When the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini received Western media in a small French village in 1978, he sat cross-legged in his robes and black turban under an apple tree in the garden. They described him as ...
13 Apr 8min
Brief: Is There a "Deep Self"
Billionaire tech bro Marc Andreessen recently claimed introspection is a pathology. Derek and Julian discuss the Trump advisor's claims while the investor continues making bank from defense technology...
11 Apr 39min
