Sam and Joe kick off the new year by discussing a quote from Joseph Campbell:

People say they believe in God. God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all human categories of thought.
Even the categories of being and nonbeing.
Those are categories of thought. I mean it's as simple as that. It depends on how much you want to think about it. Whether it's putting you in touch with the mystery that is the ground of your own being. If it isn't, well, it's a lie.

Sam and Joe discuss Verse 4 of the Tao Te Ching:

The Way is empty, yet inexhaustible,

Like an abyss!

It seems to be the origin of all things.

It dulls the sharpness,

Unties the knots,

Dims the light,

Becomes one with the dust.

Deeply hidden, as if it only might exist.

I do not know whose child it is.

It seems to precede the ancestor of all.

Sam and Joe discuss some of Adam Phillips' ideas about extending therapy outside the therapists office. This leads to discussion of using Chat GPT for mental health and a dive into the hosts own experiences of therapy.

Sam and Joe discuss a School of Life Quote:

"But two truths would help:

1. There aren't that many people we genuinely like.

2. There aren't that many people who deeply like us back. The sooner we accept this, the gentler the experience becomes."

Sam and Joe discuss an Eckhart Tolle quote which launches them into a broader discussion of loneliness vs solitude. Also discussed is the latest post from Alain de Botton, you can find a link here: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxIxHSMpzz1Lc45g-e3W8bt_PMO3oFVYU4

Is this episode Joe and Sam get into attraction. Capricious, fleeting, hard to pin down. More than just boobs and bums and 90's pin ups? We seem to think so.

Sam and Joe discuss listener Kate's question about "radical honesty". They also get into rigorous honesty, brutal honesty and kind honesty.

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_honesty

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a26792/honesty0707/

Image: Giorgio Trovato

Sam and Joe discuss this quote:

Behind the sometimes seemingly random or even chaotic succession of events in our lives as well as in the world lies concealed the unfolding of a higher order and purpose.

This is beautifully expressed in the Zen saying "The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place." We can never understand this higher order through thinking about it because whatever we think about is content; whereas, the higher order emanates from the formless realm of consciousness, from universal intelligence. But we can glimpse it, and more than that, align ourselves with it, which means be conscious participants in the unfolding of that higher purpose.

Eckhart Tolle - A New Earth

This episode includes a personal reference to AA. I fully respect the tradition of anonymity and am speaking only from my own experience, not on behalf of AA. - Joe

Image: Kirill Pershin