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

Sam and Joe answer listener Lou's question which is:

"How do you talk about mental health or neurodiversity with people who don’t get it?"

Image: Noah Buscher

Sam and Joe take on listener Liv’s topic about reaction, reactivity and being “triggered”. This leads to personal reflections on responses to geopolitical events and other things in life that lead them to react strongly. Some big world problems get a thorough going over and some interpersonal beefs get ironed out.

Image: Johannes Plenio

Sam and Joe reunite to tackle Verse Two of the Tao Te Ching:

Everybody on earth knowing
that beauty is beautiful
makes ugliness.

Everybody knowing
that goodness is good
makes wickedness.

For being and nonbeing
arise together;
hard and easy
complete each other;
long and short
shape each other;
note and voice
make the music together;
before and after
follow each other.

That’s why the wise soul
does without doing,
teaches without talking.
The things of this world
exist, they are;
you can’t refuse them.

To bear and not to own;
to act and not lay claim;
to do the work and let it go:
for just letting it go
is what makes it stay.

Sam and Joe discuss Verse One of the Tao Te Ching and how it relates to their own experience of reality.

TAO called TAO is not TAO.

Names can name no lasting name.

Nameless: the origin of heaven and earth.

Naming: the mother of ten thousand things.

Empty of desire, perceive mystery.

Filled with desire, perceive manifestations.

These have the same source, but different names.

Call them both deep-

Deep and deep again deep:

The gateway to all mystery.

76 translations of Chapter 1 - https://www.taoistic.com/taoteching/taoteching-chapter1-versions.htm
Thank you to Kate for asking about a refeeence, which reminded me to add this! You are an inspiration as a listener and correspondent.

Characters: https://www.taoistic.com/images/taoteching-verse1.png

Creators & Guests

• Joe Loh - Host
• Sam Ellis - Host

Sam and Joe discuss the poem Desiderata and how it relates to their experience of life on earth.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

by Max Ehrmann ©1927