The Existential Files

It is a little known fact that this blog, in its earlier incarnation as The Diary of a Spiritual Junkie, was at least partly inspired by the blog of my friend and colleague, Louie Savva. His blog was, and still is, the brilliantly titled Everything is Pointless (www.everythingispointless.com). 

I'm sure, as time progresses, I will say more about the ideas that Louie, now Dr Louie Savva (yay!), has shared on his blog, however for now I want to say just two things. First, after a 9 year hiatus I am pleased to note that Louie has resurrected his blog and is now blogging again (yay again!), and second, this recent acitivity has led to Louie and I joining forces, as it were, to begin work on what some are calling a 'podcast'. And so, I am proud to share here a link to an emerging playlist of said podcast that is going under the title of The Existential Files:

As will become apparent, if you choose to listen, we will use the conversations to explore a wide range of topics that might broadly fall under the heading of 'existential' in nature. These might include: the nature of existence; why we are here; how we decide what is 'worth' doing; evolution; science; philosophy; religion; and most importantly the artistic merit of if the TV sitcom Birds of a Feather. Anyway, it passes the time. :-)

I also feel the need to say please be aware that we are talking about topics that matter to us both dearly. This means at times we may find that we censor our language less than we might. I am aware that in at least some of the episodes there is swearing that, at the time of writing, we have not edited out. In fact, we do eventually record a conversation about the idea of 'offensiveness'. I'm not sure if that will become an episode in its own right or if it will simply be a conversation that has allowed Louie and I to openly explore this side of things.  Either way, please note that this is something that we are acutely aware of (or at least I am!). 

By the way, during this first episode you hear me mention I begin to jot down on a whiteboard some of the topics as we discuss them. This is what it looked like at the end of the recording: 

 

Are we awake?

My drive to and from work is this week more illuminating than usual. As I navigate the traffic on the M6 and M62 I've been listening to a series of lectures on Existentialism (as you do). I'm now on lecture 4 of a series of 20 lectures by Professor Robert Solomon that are entitled "No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life". Solomon was, until his sudden death of a heart attack last year, professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin and was by all accounts a very highly regarded scholar and speaker on this topic. And I can see (or rather hear) why. His delivery is rather downbeat and fairly matter-of-fact, but he makes the subject matter very accessible and relates the ideas he discusses to everyday life.

To give you an idea of his style, below is a short clip from YouTube that's taken from Richard Linklater's film Waking Life. It's actually a kind of animated version of Solomon as the film uses something called digital rotoscoping to create its unusual effect. I'd really like to see all of this film but it seems to be only available in NTSC format (still, there's plenty of excerpts from the film on YouTube). Anyway, the clip gives you an idea of Solomon's approach.