The Laughing Philosopher's Podcast: Recent Episodes
thelaughingphilosopher
Life is complicated. It is afflicted with more big questions than big answers. As one is tested by the suffering and irrationality of life, the questions become more compelling and imperative, and the answers become more urgent and necessary in order to be a good person and to live a happy life. What does it mean to be a good person? What is a happy life? What is love? Who am I before I was told who I am? Why haven’t I found myself yet? Why do I have regrets? Is the world just? Everything seems to have been figured out, except how to live.
In this podcast, we will ask and answer the hard questions, and we will question the simple answers, the answers you’ve been told to believe almost from the moment of birth. Think for yourself. There is no feeling like it, and it really is the only good fight left. You may not be rewarded for your wisdom, but you will be rewarded by your wisdom.
“The Laughing Philosopher” is Robert M. Khoury, Ph.D., a scholar and writer with a lifetime of teaching and learning at the intersection of sociology and philosophy.
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all believed that what you are matters far more than what you have. Good character is your most precious possession. In this episode, we dig deep into the ten unmistakable qualities of a person with good character, guided by the timeless wisdom of philosophy’s greatest minds. Socrates teaches that an examined life is paramount as we reflect on the kind of person we are and aspire to be. Plato teaches that true happiness comes not from pleasure but from living in harmony with the soul’s virtues. And Aristotle? He teaches that we become what we repeatedly do. So excellence and moral greatness are built on ten virtues we can practice and good character is not an action, but a habit we can form. If you’ve ever wondered how to recognize real virtue in a world obsessed with image, or how to build a life that’s not just successful but the right path to becoming a good person, this episode is your blueprint.
The sky is falling. Do you feel there is no hope for the future? Does everything you hold dear feel like it’s about to blow up? Stoking apocalyptic fears and dystopian visions of the future is a whole industry of doom merchants. Calm down! Philosophy can explain why doomsday is unlikely, why you feel the end of the world is near, and why you should face the future with optimism and good cheer.
We live in terror of death. We cling to youth and claw at life, afraid to let go. Once we conquer the greater fear of death, our lesser fears lose their power over us, and every other adversity becomes so much easier to overcome. Ignorance is the cause of fear. Death is the other half of the bargain we make when we accept life. Death means returning to where we started and knowing it again for the first time. Death seems strange and unfamiliar only because we are born knowing only life. Death is nothing to fear. You’ll be just fine!
Smart people can be stupid and believe absurd, weird, and crazy things. We are remarkably poor at distinguishing truth from falsehood and even worse at detecting liars and deception. Truth has nothing to do with what we believe. A belief doesn’t need to be true to be believed. We believe as we do, not because we think our belief is true, but because it is consistent with the wider web of our other beliefs. If we wish it to be true, and if it fits neatly inside the web of beliefs, then we readily believe it, true or false.
People like us more than we think they do. Why are we so negative about ourselves? You didn’t develop that negative voice in your head all by yourself. We are socialized not to like ourselves and to strive for perfection. Perfection is a race with no finish line. What would a perfect life even look like? Be happy. Be perfectly imperfect. Be good. Be an individual. Don’t be afraid to love yourself!
Normal and abnormal people do not exist. Sane and insane people do not exist. Conformists and nonconformists do not exist. The labels exist, but not the behaviors! So, how useful and reliable are our judgments of who is good and bad, who is moral and immoral, and who is wise and stupid? Labeling is easy. Getting it right is hard. Seneca recommends delaying judgment to find the truth before attributing false labels that are destructive to the individual and society.
What does it mean to live your life as if nothing matters? Nihilism rejects conventional wisdom that everything matters. Nihilism means nothing matters. It doesn’t even matter that nothing matters. Life has no inherited, supernatural purpose or meaning. Life is pointless so our freedom is absolute. There is no one to ask for permission and no one to please but ourselves. Nothing matters in the grand scheme of things, because there isn’t one. You possess perfect freedom to choose how to live. You are the only architect of your fate in this world.
Do you want to feel happy right where you are, right now? Listening to your heartbeats will lead you to three philosophical insights and instant happiness: You got lucky. Your heartbeats are numbered. Some doors must close so others can open. Stop living your life piece by piece. Learn to live your life as a whole.
He was a French philosopher. His philosophy of life is simple yet profound. We would have been better off not being born. Life sucks. We are born for no reason. We exist to do nothing. No one matters. Nothing matters. It doesn’t even matter that nothing matters. What are we to do? Cioran argues that the meaninglessness of life is not only a reason to live, it’s the only one!
Religion is the accidental force behind why we chase endless productivity, why working harder feels morally right and hardly working feels morally wrong, and why our self-worth and self-esteem revolve around our productivity and usefulness. Don’t you feel guilty and ashamed whenever you could have been more productive but chose not to? Wouldn’t you rather chose to fail as a spouse, fail as a parent, or fail as a friend than to fail at work? Why don’t happiness, relationships, or fun count as being productive? We are so bored with our lives and so indifferent to our fate that we’ve become apathetic to our own apathy!
Our first experience of the world is our true self. Concealed behind our outward appearance, a bag of skin, inside ourselves, our unique, subjective consciousness is who we really are. And so, we look for absolute truth behind the natural world of appearances in Plato’s Forms, Schopenhauer’s Will, and Spinoza’s God. You are the blueprint of the gods and the key to unlock the secrets of the universe.
What is a perfect day? Perfection is within our grasp each and every day. One must choose today to be a perfect day by choosing wisely to do three easy and simple things. And to be a perfect day, one must choose wisely not to do three other simple things one would normally do in an ordinary, boring day.
Let us unpack Kierkegaard’s insight that today can only be known by living forwards, but only be understood by looking backwards. Life, at any given moment, is unknowable. When something happens, you instantly experience it as either good or bad. You experience yourself as either happy or sad. You experience your fate as either lucky or unlucky. And yet, what’s happening cannot be understood as you experience it. Moment by moment, why is life a mystery, and how does something really good come out of something really bad?
Aristotle’s wisdom can make you a more likable person with more and better friends. For Aristotle, without friends, no one would want to live. Friendship is the chief cornerstone of living well and doing well. To be more likable and have more friends, don’t do three things: Don’t prove you have nothing of value to say by speaking. Don’t judge the imperfections of others. Don’t believe everything you think.
Romantic relationships are difficult and perilous and no soft affair. They seem to fail as often as they succeed. Five hidden triggers can sabotage even the best relationship. Communication, trust, togetherness, predictability, and submissiveness are beneficial in moderation, but toxic in excess. We suspect it’s true, but are afraid to admit to ourselves, that too much positive behavior will kill a good relationship.
It’s not easy to ruin your life. To get to the wrong place, you must do the right things. The Laughing Philosopher’s guide presents six foolproof steps to a boring, miserable life: Think only about yourself. Empty yourself of humility and gratitude. Sacrifice everyone as a means to an end. Be perfectly imperfect. Don’t think for yourself. Drown yourself in the world’s sea of troubles.
Unjustly imprisoned and awaiting execution, Boethius, Roman philosopher and statesman, would write his most famous work, “The Consolation of Philosophy”. Boethius explores the problem of evil, the certainty of pain and suffering, and the unpredictability of good and bad fortune, but shows how, through wisdom and virtue, happiness and serenity are still attainable. In the Middle Ages, for 400 years, “The Consolation” was one of two books considered so important they were expected to be in everyone’s personal library. The other book was The Holy Bible.
The person you will talk to the most in your life is you. The most important conversations you will ever have are with yourself. Whether it is chatting with yourself in your inner voice, or verbalizing your thoughts and reflections out loud, you will engage in some form of self-talk on a daily basis. But, is it normal to talk to yourself?
"Know yourself” is Socrates’ imperative. Why? There is no perfect life. No one is infallible. Everyone makes mistakes because some of our beliefs and assumptions are false. Just because we think it or believe it doesn’t mean it is true. Yet, beliefs are neither proof nor evidence, but only claims. So, we can’t trust everything we believe to be true. But, still we do. False certainties lead us away from truth and virtue. Which path leads us to wisdom?
What are the secrets of beauty? How does each of six major schools of philosophy interpret the beauty of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” the 1972 film, “The Godfather,” and the 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue? As we strive to appreciate what we see, beauty is beautiful because of the lenses we wear. Duchamp’s urinal is as beautiful as Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”.
Life is too complicated. So, we use shortcuts to safely navigate life’s risks and dangers unharmed. And the more we take shortcuts, the more established and permanent they become. Bad shortcuts result in bad habits and repeat the same bad behaviors again and again. Our mistakes feel automatic. The cure is inside a coffee machine.
The illusion of selfhood is holding you back. You are more than who you think you are. Selflessness will free you to try new paths to self-improvement. You will be less obsessed with other people’s acceptance and approval. You will be more humble and compassionate. You won’t need to choose between your well-being and the well-being of others. The self is an empty costume, and it’s time to undress it, and live better!
Carl Jung describes the Shadow as the repressed half of yourself assembled from features of your personality judged to be unacceptable. The Shadow is the other self you must hide from others to achieve their approval because it does not conform to their expectations of who you ought to be. To reunite the Shadow with the conscious self is essential for true happiness and wholeness. Achieving your full potential is only possible by embracing everything about yourself you’ve been told to deny.
You are a stranger to yourself. The self you know and experience is partial and incomplete. Who you think you are doesn’t match who you really are. The unconscious Shadow is your creative self, the source of your individuality and originality. So long as the Shadow is not integrated with the conscious self, you are broken and will never achieve your creative potential. Wholeness is your first purpose in life!
How can we free ourselves from life’s chaos? While kayaking across a lake, your best friend is killed by a swan after getting too close to the bird’s nest. Your only child is wounded in a school shooting. At the Grand Canyon, your older brother jokingly pretends to fall to his death, then loses his footing and falls to his death. At the airport where he works, your husband dies after being sucked into a jet engine. Sudden and extreme chaos cannot be avoided or escaped from. You cannot prepare for the unpredictable. You can, however, outflank it. You just don’t know how yet!
Run away from friends who want you to fear something, who never question themselves, who won’t let you think for yourself, who try to change you into the person they think you should be, who revise your joy downward, who deprive you of your feelings, and who are afraid to tell the truth.
Voltaire’s garden is inside ourselves, within our own mind. Empty your life. Mind your own garden. Do what you love. Build a wall. Your mind is your kingdom. If you find peace there, you won’t need to look for it elsewhere.
Dogs have a philosophy of life with 12 guiding principles: Dogs love to learn. Humans are special. Dogs don’t compare themselves to other dogs. Dogs value a natural life. Dogs are trustworthy. Dogs are compassionate. Dogs practice moderation. Dogs are humble. Dogs pay attention. Dogs can neither deceive nor be deceived. Dogs are virtuous. Dogs love unconditionally. A reading of Bukowski’s poem on man’s best friend concludes this podcast.
The goodness and badness of human behavior is determined using intentions and outcomes. Yet, as Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet proves, judging mistakes is hopelessly messy. This episode offers four practical ways to overcome fear of making mistakes.
We invest more thoughtful, rational decision making in adopting a dog than in creating a new person. Procreation should not be automatic. To be a conscious choice, procreation should ask and answer — How much? Why? For what?
Why does it hurt to tell and to be told the truth? Why does truth hurt more than lies? Without false beliefs, fantasies, and illusions, truth wouldn’t hurt. It hurts to face the truth behind the lies we live by.
Why do utterly pointless things having no purpose or benefit? The real cost of pointlessness is the number of heartbeats one must pay for it.
Why is finding life’s meaning so difficult? Look right in front of your eyes! Eight of life’s most profound truths are hidden by familiarity.
Why is finding life’s meaning and purpose so difficult? Actually, it’s easy, once you understand why you’re looking for two things as different as the menu and the meal, the map and the journey.
Let’s reason out the abortion debate through the mind of a philosopher, addressing the big questions and finding answers that agree with your own wisdom and good sense.
Is this who I want to be? Is this the best I can be? What is my best purpose in life? The philosophy of Confucius will teach you how to live a virtuous life of good character and good behavior.
Once you make the psychic connection between your need for belonging and acceptance, and your feeling that everyone is judging you, you will no longer be a prisoner of society. You will be free!
“Happiness is the purpose of life. And it’s simple. We just make it complicated. Follow this easy recipe. You can eat all you want and you won’t gain weight.”
“The answer is: Suffer. That is all. Think clearly about an ordinary pencil and it will teach you five insanely Zen ways to be happy in a changing world.”
“Logic or emotion alone cannot navigate all human experience. Choose poorly when to use logic and reason or passion and emotion and life makes no sense. Choose wisely and everything is clear.”
“Almost from the moment of birth, you’ve been taught to accept many half-truths, total falsehoods, uncritical assumptions, and lies about the world that you probably still believe. Here’s 8 of the biggest lies.”
“Unlike humans, cats have figured out how to live a happy life guided by wisdom and good sense. Humans can learn much from cats. The truth is right in front of your eyes, on four legs, hidden by familiarity.”
“Why? Not despite life’s meaninglessness, but because of it. Only in meaninglessness can freedom exist, and you are free to choose how to give purpose to your life.”
“People let themselves be controlled. People fear solitude. People get love wrong. People live and die for illusions. People waste time like they’re immortal. People are bewitched by the future.”
“Do you care more about someone than they care about you? Do you give more to a relationship than you take from it? Here are six ways to achieve balance without caring so much that you deplete yourself and feel cheated.”
“At the age you forgive yourself. Stop worrying. Treat good and bad times just the same. Own yourself. Hope for something. See differences as differences. Live every heartbeat.”
“Your life is like a ship. Your dreams are your compass. Forget your dreams and you will be lost, run aground, and sink.”
“Think like a loner. Trust your inner voice. Be yourself, but always, be a better friend to yourself.”
“Was Michael’s decision to order Fredo’s death moral or immoral? What does Kantianism say? What would Kant do?”
“Here are just some of my favorite philosophy jokes. I have more than 10, but I’m not trying to be Thoreau.”
“Be a rebel! Don’t dance. Be extremely honest! Don’t pray. Be insanely happy! Don’t wait. Be what you’re good at! Don’t try.”
“Human behavior is stubborn. Humans don’t easily change. Still, Scrooge changed. Three revelations drive personal change.”
“You will always have troubles. Don’t quit! Start over! Suffering with purpose is not suffering.”
“Don’t fear solitude! Don’t confuse the price of something with its value! Don’t kill your life!”
“Don’t be afraid to think for yourself! Don’t fear your individuality! Don’t be afraid to go your own way!”
“You not only do your best, but you wear yourself out in tireless pursuit of unnatural, unattainable, and insatiable perfection.”
“Your life is an unfolding of the past. The past is not dead. You are here and now. The past is not fixed, but it can be fixed. You can change the past in the present by the choices you make.”
“Living is your only reason for being. You were not born to be a means to an end. You were not created for a purpose. Follow this eight-fold path to your purpose in life.”
“No matter how ferociously you rebel against it, you can’t stop change. Nothing you do will keep you safe and protect you from it. Change is inevitable. Go with it!”
“Why isn’t enough, enough? We can’t get enough of what we don’t really want. We focus on what we don’t have rather than on what we do have. You can choose your relationship with money. You can choose not to be its slave.”
“Your only duty in life is to be yourself. Only in solitude are you free to find and experience your true self. Solitude is not empty. It is full of answers.”
“What is the best way to live in order to possess both the negative freedom of Diogenes and the positive freedom of Aristippus?”
“Choose your relationships. Conquer yourself. Embrace your other half. Be in charge of your own freedom.”
“Does Christianity make a difference? Is your society a better place because of the influence of religion? Are you a better person?”
“Life is complicated with serious challenges. Growth and change are a response to challenges. We begin to live by not running away from the very things you should be running toward.”
“We are living through Vico’s final stage of history, the age of the individual. This will lead to a war of all against all, barbarism, and the self-destruction of society.”
“The Golden Rule is a sensible path to follow to be a good person. But which one? Positive or negative? Jesus or Confucius?”
“When you’re 80, you will regret that you didn’t love more, forgive more, and dream more.”
“Should you fear God? How does death feel? How does eternity feel? Is life too short? In death, what can you take with you? Is it normal to think about death?”
“Why should you go on living? What is the purpose of life? Is there another kind of life after death? Is your fear of death real or imaginary?"
“A divine being that is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful would not write a book. And if God wrote a book, then God is not a god.”
“You don’t know what you want because your desires are fleeting and impermanent. Forcing your life to fit your desires is like forcing your head to fit your hat. You will only hurt yourself.”
“If you don’t know why you need it and you just want more of what can’t make you happy and what you already have enough of, then perhaps you don’t really want it.”
“Life’s most precious possessions are not found by striving, but by waiting. Waiting gives space to the unexpected that it needs to happen.”
“Yes, 2 plus 2 can only equal 4. But not only 2 plus 2 can equal 4, just as there is more than one right way to happiness. Start by not looking for it.”
“You are at war with yourself. Your personality is home to two warring egos, one is evil and imprisoned in the shadows, and the other is good and free in the light. Inside sanity is madness.”
“Life’s most precious gifts are not found by searching and struggling, but by waiting. Surfers don’t make waves. They just wait, and the waves come to them.”
“Why is fast good and slow bad? Why is new good and old bad? Why is forward good and backward bad? Why is tomorrow good and yesterday bad?”
“Are you afraid of who you really are? Do you fear life? Do you fear death? Are you afraid of being afraid? Fear not!”
“Our mind deceives us. What we refer to as the present is really the past. Prayer is unnecessary, since even before we pray, our prayers already have been answered.”
“In a game, winning is everything. But how does one win at life? The game of life is filled with suffering, the future is uncertain, and things just happen for no reason.”
“Solipsism is so convincing, there should be more solipsists. What you think, becomes. Nothing exists separate from the awareness it appears within. You are the only consciousness that you can be sure of. For all practical purposes, you are God.”
“What must you do to be a good person? You cannot apply one ancient rule to everything that happens to you, no matter how golden it is. Figuring out right from wrong is complicated. It’s up to you. Do nothing that does not agree with your reason, wisdom, and experience.”
“Do you live in a just world? Is your life fair or unfair? We must believe in a just world or life is not worth living. Yet, it is nonsense to ask questions that lie outside the world as these are unaskable and unanswerable.”
“Time passes differently as we age. Time seems to pass more slowly when we are young and speed up as we enter adulthood. Why, and what is the effect on human behavior and on how we choose to live?”
“It is better to roll the stone up a hill only for it to roll down every time it nears the top, than to just stop pushing. Surrender and be unhappy, or suffer with purpose and be happy!”
“Human behavior happens for no reason. So, to appear logical and rational, your life is either/or and must be either half-full or half-empty, good or evil, happy or unhappy.”
“Truth is not determined by the individual, by many people, or by most people. It is not what we don’t dream or make up, or what is left after we go away. Belief is easy, but truth is hard.”
“Lao-tzu and Jesus, the philosophical founders of Taoism and Christianity, respectively, walk into a bar ...”
“At his trial, the principle of counterfactual causation, by philosophers David Hume and David Lewis, could have been used to save Mr. Pimental from five felony convictions and a prison sentence of ten years.”
“It is an honor to be invited to speak at your graduation ceremony. I wish I could tell you what you want to hear. But I can’t lie. You need to hear the truth. I hope you can handle it.”
“Survival requires sustenance, society, and philosophy. Sustenance means more than material comfort. Social relations means more than other persons. Philosophy of life means more than big answers to big questions.”
“Happiness and success don’t always go together. Being less successful by choosing a simple, modest, and less exhausting life will make you even more happy. Would you rather burn-out like a shooting star or fade gently away like a garden of roses?”
“Happiness is not a goal. You cannot achieve happiness by aiming for it. Yet entrances to happiness are everywhere. Not one of your footsteps leads away from it.”
“Jesus made up his own mind. He chose to think and reason for himself. Your life can be just as individual and extraordinary. The ball is in your hands. The clock is ticking. Take the shot!”
“Life is neither meaningful nor meaningless. Freedom of choice has very little to do with how we live. Heaven means fear, doubt, and uncertainty. Justice may be illegal just as the law may be immoral.”
“All certainties end in doubts and all doubts end in certainties. Let’s hang a question mark on six certainties you have long taken for granted.”
“We are neither in control nor the center of everything. Even your thoughts are beyond your control. But you are more than the voices in your head or the atoms that make-up your body.”
“Do you ever feel like running home to your mother and licking your wounds? But your mother blames you for your mistakes, and some wounds are impossible to reach with your tongue? Let me confess the top 14 lies I once told myself.”
“We have a profound desire to believe because we fear the uncertainty of not-knowing, and the not-knowing makes any belief, no matter how absurd, feel more likely to be true. The idea of God is a logically incoherent mess, but it is preferable to the doubt and the uncertainty of not-knowing.”
“The 13th century argument that abortion is immoral and ought to be illegal is logically incoherent and absurd. If Jesus steps on an acorn, does an oak tree die?”
"Why do you love who you love? In every mind there are two persons in conflict. Love springs from this self-conflict and, in fact, is impossible without it. Love is a second-best way of unifying the person you are with the person you desire to be.”
"Should happiness depend on money, fame, prestige, power, things and relationships, and the achievement of worldly goals outside yourself? You don’t need a reason to be happy. You can be happy for no reason."
"Why isn’t this a just world where bad things don’t happen to good people and good things don’t happen to bad people? There are 13 footprints in the sand that will help lead you to a just life in an unjust world."
“Is God someone like you, just bigger? What is God made up of? Does God exist like you and I exist? Is the Bible a book of instructions? Why do we dress God in clothes that we want to wear? When a god became a man, did Man become God?"
“Found yourself yet? Self-discovery is not the big, cosmic meaning of life. You are looking for something that isn’t there. Life’s meaning is right in front of your eyes, hidden by familiarity. You possess the secret of living a rich, full life and just don’t realize it.”
“Are you being true to yourself? Your life doesn’t have to be just a performance of the roles you’ve been made to play in the world. You are more than what is expected of you. You are more than what you play at being. You are an individual.”
“Do you have regrets? Regrets are about losing what never belonged to you in the first place. Be gentle with yourself and accept that your life is unfolding just as it should. So stop looking backward or you will always be bumping into things.”