Happiness isn’t the goal
Children live with a beginner’s mind. Every day is full of new discoveries, powerful emotions, and often unrealistically positive assumptions about the future. As adults, beginner’s mind gives way to ...
30 Sep 202453min
A message from Sean
Sean Illing has a special message for all you listeners: Look at me! We’ve made our first-ever video episode. See Sean in conversation with Yuval Noah Harari. Watch it with your friends and family and...
27 Sep 20241min
What if we get climate change right?
Climate change has become synonymous with doomsday, as though everyone is waiting for the worst to happen. But what is this mindset doing to us? Is climate anxiety keeping us from confronting the chal...
23 Sep 202448min
Yuval Noah Harari on the eclipsing of human intelligence
Humans are good learners and teachers, constantly gathering information, archiving, and sharing knowledge. So why, after building the most sophisticated information technology in history, are we on th...
16 Sep 20241h 24min
Why cynicism is bad for you
There’s a certain glamor to cynicism. As a culture, we’ve turned cynicism into a symbol of hard-earned wisdom, assuming that those who are cynical are the only ones with the courage to tell us the tru...
9 Sep 202458min
Poetry as religion
Sean Illing speaks with poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, whose book The Wonder Paradox asks: If we don't have God or religion, what — if anything — do we lose? They discuss how religion acce...
2 Sep 202455min
The jazz musician’s guide to the universe
How is the origin of our universe like an improvised saxophone solo? This week, Sean Illing talks to Stephon Alexander, a theoretical physicist and world-class jazz musician. Alexander is the author o...
26 Aug 202453min
Revisiting the "father of capitalism"
Sean Illing talks with Glory Liu, the author of Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher became an Icon of American Capitalism. Smith is most well-known for being the “father of capitalism,” b...
19 Aug 202451min
