Disgruntalist Time

In this ep, I look at the weird ends of the spectrum telling us to either stay exactly as we are, or become who we are supposed to be by *gasp* "putting in effort"! What a revelation. Though neither side actually tells us how to do these things, so we're left with just lifestyle-quacks hoarding eyeballs for their own benefit while giving us nothing in return. Discuss :)

In this episode, I briefly introduce Internal Family Systems. It's about your "internal" family of characters that make up your personality, and how recognising and engaging these can lead to huge (mental health) benefits. I also discuss how it nicely integrates and overlaps with much of Buddhist psychology.

In this episode I look at the left's campaign strategy and why it seems to keep losing to a more digitially cunning right. I also look at how we sometimes fail those campaigns by being poor ambassadors of what we are meant to represent. Also... what's with white people making a lot of white noise during a campaign that's meant to be about centring Aboriginal Australians...?

In this episode, I reflect on the benefits of using a dumbphone for a year. That's not to say I've ditched my smartphone all together, so this is dumb phone "lite", but adding a dumb phone to the mix has been a huge benefit. Listen to find out why.

In this episode I look at how the reaction from Russell Brand's followers reveals that, despite the 'culture' of open-mindedness his channel and persona purport to foster, the reality is the exact opposite. I also look at how social media has created a bizarre situation where people now leap to conclusions before they know any of the facts: we're so fast to react now, this isn't just the age of Disinformation or Misinformation, but also the age of Pre-Information, where people are proud to have an opinion knowing they don't yet know enough.

In this episode I look at how ego can contribute to a certain calcifying of one's position on certain issues - in this case the referendum on the Voice to Parliament - which leads to a lack of engagement, humility, and a lacklustre search for, and appreciation of, the truth.

In this episode I discuss how ego contributes to climate change through the pleasure principle, social comparison, as well as through the well-meaning but ultimately pointless pasttime of fanning our digital peacock feathers.

In this episode, I discuss how we like to protect our sense of self by shutting down, or questioning, actions of those that go against the grain. If we've bought into a certain lifestyle / narrative / capitalist paradigm, then those who go against that can seem to be a threat to the "sense" of our own lives and our sense of self-narrative, and so it seems rational to question their decisions. But perhaps this is just an ego self-defence mechanism, and one that, ultimately, benefits the rich and powerful.

In this ep I discuss some overlap between cognitive behavioural therapy and insight meditation, and how both can help us have a healthier relationship, or attitude, towards our own thoughts. Also there's a wee rant at the start about the state of the TV industry in Australia.

In this ep, I discuss the reactions to the OceanGate disaster that occurred while the event was still unfolding, how we value (or devalue) human life, and how we're all complicit in various forms of suffering. I also reflect on how the push to be greedy and cut corners harms us and how this is one way in which we had a lot in common with the victims.

In this episode, I go through three cases of mental health diagnoses where the environment and lifestyle weren't taken into consideration. Changes to these resulted in huge benefits to the respective conditions and how they would have otherwise been diagnosed. Also, don't put milk in a car: it'll break down.

In this episode, I discuss in what ways AI might take a chunk out of psychotherapy and other mental health services, whether it *should* do this, and what the long-term consequences might be.

In this episode, I reflect on my recent stay at a silent retreat and the multiple benefical aspects they have that work together to generate a meaningful experience. Also some stuff on no-self, impermanence, and vipassana meditation.

In this episode, we look at whether medicinal advances will at some point untether us from a healthy, nourishing human experience to the benefit of capitalism but not ourselves, and whether AI's exponential "progress" will also lead to an emptier, less values-lead human experience.

In this episode, I discuss the pros and cons of AI, how it affects ego, the power (and value) of human endeavour, how it may subtract from the human experience, and why teleporting to the top of Mount Everest is not as impressive as climbing it :)

Warning: features awesome David Attenborough impression. In this ep, I chat about why it's no surprise that when we are conditioned by what makes money rather than what stimulates our bodies and minds that we end up depressed, achey, and adrift. Minus the pay, why would we sit down for eight hours a day and get a sore back and shit posture? The natural world, and (some) healthy bodily stress makes us happy and makes us feel "alive", which is what our bodies and minds want. Money isn't a part of the natural world, nor part of the evolutionary processes that created our bodies, so the fact it incentivises our behaviour is a faulty North Star.

In this episode I discuss our innate attraction to spectacle, which might explain the very public arguments and twitter firings as a form of entertainment. More importantly, I discuss why this is bad for us, and how we might avoid this instinctive impulse that's a hangover of our "Lizard Brain".

In this ep, I discuss how something as simple as popping a positive adjective in front of otherwise "negative" stimuli can help interrupt our sympathetic nervous system and stress response and instead create opportunities to be thankful, or joyful in the face of "annoyances". I also briefly discuss Robert Anton Wilson and the use of Eprime.

In Ep 24 I have a quick chat about Gabor Maté's book, "The Myth of Normal" and how it's an encouraging read for us all regarding mental health, and especially as I consider a future as a psychologist. I also reflect on how satire and psychology both necessarily involve social criticism.

In this episode we look at whether the movie Tar deserves its (or any) criticism for having an unlikeable, villainous female protagonist, and what state that leaves us in if there's an unspoken rule that women aren't allowed to be villains on screen. Do we need to see that power can corrupt all, or only men, and what does that do to our wariness of power itself? Villains in real life are often hard to spot. Shouldn't movies remind us of this?