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?

In this episode, I chat about whether or not New Year's Resolutions are a bit of an own goal because it allows us to compartmentalise the need to reflect on and improve this global shitshow to one single day, and gets us to think about improving ourselves rather than improving things for others. I also mention the slightly odd route I've taken from satire to wanting to become a psychologist (as well, not instead of!).

In this episode, we discuss a common sense intepretation of Karma and how it's actually just science by another name, and how we can maybe, slowly, make social media better. Also there's a reality show where animals are judged on which one is best to be reincarnated as.

In this episode, I ask whether a more self-centred culture, and one that incentivises and rewards complaining about and identifying with our suffering, is generating a broad cultural intolerance to adversity. Have we developed an entitled attitude that presumes we have a right to get from birth to death with nothing inconveniencing us in between? Are we starting to see a pain / inconvenience-free life as a norm, rather than seeing suffering as all "part of it"? Discuss :)

In this episode, we chat about whether or not the often-sexualised visual language of TikTok (and Instagram) means that the way mindfulness memes etc are presented on there are counterintuitive to the outcomes they purport to promote. Discuss :)

In this episode, we look at getting rid of your smartphone, the lengthy process involved in convincing people you actually mean it, the benefits of getting a "dumb phone", plus one or two of the negatives (but they were surprisingly few and low impact. Finally, there's a reflection on how beneficial, freeing, and paradigm-shifting it is to suddenly confine the internet to a physical space and turn its access into a finite resource.

In this episode, we discuss how trying to tactfully navigate someone's delusions (due to dementia) requires similar strategies to how we might engage someone online whose beliefs are vastly different, or totally opposite, to our own.

In this episode, Jazz reflects on how a lack of discussion around death and its absence from the spotlight in daily mainstream culture might have led him to be ill-prepared in handling his father passing away. Should we introduce courses, or structured daily reflections, on death and grieving? It's not pleasant to be discovering how to navigate these frontiers when you're "in" the moment; it's not reassuring to learn how to grieve "on the job".

After returning from a trip to the UK to help look after my mum, suddenly my father passed away. It's been a real shock. What was already taxing now feels nearly impossible, and this episode documents the physicality of immediate grief in the first few days, and how mindfulness has helped me weather multiple waves of agonising emotions.

After a month in the UK looking after my mum, who has dementia, this episode reflects firstly on how mindfulness techniques were useful in confronting traumatic situations. It also discusses how expanded, non-judgemental awareness allows competing, or contradictory, feelings to co-exist and how this might be useful in developing a constructive response to the Queen's death.

In this (bonus) episode we discuss how reading fiction may increase our capacity for empathy and why, therefore, it's so important as a form of workout that will help us overcome our differences and make the world a better place.

**BONUS EP** I'm still on a break :) In Ep 12 we chat about how attachment leads to a worse kind of fandom, one that's either so attached that it's completely uncritical, or so attached that it's easily too critical because a certain aspect of a show isn't exactly how they wanted it. Either way, the best kind of fan is an unnatached one. We also talk about how "fan" mentality seems to pervade other walks of life, like celebrity trials and medicine, not just pop culture.

We chat about the implications of the election, and how any feelings of catharsis, victory, or "Job done!" have to be temporary, instead steeling ourselves for continous hard work and finding better ways to be the winners. It's easy firing pot shots when you're not in power: well now (if you support Labor, Greens, Independents) you're in power! So now you / we have to live up to all the criticism we've been firing at the other side. The easy bit's over. Now the hard work begins. Also, Pete Lawler (stalwart fan) wanted me to plug the Discord here, so... support the podcast and get access to the Discord! :)

We chat about NFTs, how they magnify, rather than replace or disrupt, the worst aspects of capitalism by whittling it down to its purest, almost algebraic form. What would real "disruption" look like? We also chat about how this technology is emerging with the worst possible timing, right when we need more connection to the natural world, we're focusing on acquiring digital assets with disproportionate worth. PS If a Bored Ape thingy is worth $400,000 (or whatever) then a single tree should be worth Nine hundred billion dollars

In this episode, we talk about some handy metaphors for conceptualising "oneness", our place in the ecosystem, and how pain, negative experiences, and suffering in general should be a vehicle for us to connect to others rather than worn as a badge of uniqueness or a barrier that no one else can get through.

In this ep, we talk about how our obsession with hypocrisy isn't such a great thing, and that what we often label hypocrisy is actually evolution and improvement by any other name. Also, we dig into an audience question about how frustration around meditation is also part of, and can help, meditation.

In this episode we look at trying to separate wellness culture from spirituality and the harm that comes from the association between the two. We look at why wellness influencers appeal to us, how they shortcircuit our brains, and how self-improvement isn't something that comes with products you can sell or be sponsored by. Exercise and meditation aren't products that can be sold. Also we look at a certain prominent online "guru" and cultural commentator and debunk a few of the techniques used to simultanously garner views while being seemingly innocent of stoking controversy.

In this episode, we chat about how fasting as an attitude, rather than just a food-related practice, can bring all sorts of benefits to all sorts of contexts: not just eating. We chat about how creating distance between yourself and your impulses, feelings, and needs, is necessary for resilience, and how the internet has created a culture of constantly needing to be sated all the time, to the extent that "bingeing" has gone from a vice to a praiseworthy virtue.

In this episode we talk about Ukraine and how consuming so much news that you become exhausted, and then *tell* people about the exhaustion, is a form of self-centredness that distracts from those that need our support and compassion. We also quesion the notion that "staying informed" is an act of service, or shows that you care. Finally, we talk about how loving kindness, rather than becoming news junkies, may be the best course of action for the time being.

Don't worry: "you don't exist" doesn't actually mean the scary thing you think it means. It just means the way we think of ourselves as existing might need a little rejigging. In this episode, we dip our toes into the first little ways we can overcome that knee jerk reaction when you're told there is no self, as well as discuss some of the early problems and frustrations of insight meditation.

Ep 3 explores why social media doesn't just incidentally nurture ego, but is purposefully built to do so, which flies in the face of contemporary and ancient advice on how to live a content, happy life. We look at the totally contrasting impact of meditation versus social media on the default mode network, the region in the brain responsible for our sense of self and the passage of time, and thus also, partly responsible for depressive and anxious thoughts. Yay social media! We also get stuck into an awesome metphor involving Elk. Your ego is like an elk.

Episode two looks at the news and how its format, aesthetics, content, frequency, and disproportionate focus on the negative increase fear, anxiety, and thus individuality, ego, and separateness. We also chat about the "nocebo" effect of the news, how it generates negatives karma, how it's become a source of affirmation (of our identity) rather than information, and finally offer a (fun) meditation to counter the effects of the news.

Episode one looks at how ego both can affect, and be the product of, satire. Maybe satire isn't meant to make the world better, but it definitely shouldn't (knowingly) contribute to forces that make it worse. Here's a chat about that :)

Jazz dissects Abbott's Margaret Thatcher Lecture, ponders the purpose of an award for "Best Coal Mine" and wonders if George Brandis is perhaps not the best person to launch Australia's bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.

Jazz reflects on the bizarre and mandatory inclusion of traditional values in non-religious wedding ceremonies, recounts a gig performing for atheists, and looks at the satire-breaking behaviour of Eric Abetz.

Tech disruptions see Jazz recording most of this while walking his dog, juggling the reasonings behind why we should read the news less often with wrestling landborne squid from his puppy's (Jeff's) mouth.

After a hideous few weeks tackling visa issues, Jazz is back to tell you that none of us are electronically safe, and to confirm that, yes, compared to the Sistine Chapel, windfarms don't look that great.