The Surprising Advantage of New Year's Day: A Synchronizing Ritual Over the course of a year, a lot of change happens. From work and relationships to internal growth and mourning loss, the world is constantly changing. How do we deal with change healthily? How do we vulnerably confront the changes of life, its loss, and its possibilities? Synchroni…

Re-telling the Story of Christmas: What is a different way to think about Christmas? This episodes is taken from a project at The Farmhouse in rural NW Ohio that goes through: A meditation on how the context of the nativity connects with our world today. A synopsis of Christmas with different angles and emphases. The Story of the King The Story of …

Putting St. Nicholas Back in Christmas: How did the modern version of the Christmas season come to be? From Santa Claus and the reindeer at Macy's Thanksgiving Parade to the classic songs, these traditions are not only new, they were created by department stores and other industries. This doesn't make it bad, but we should be honest about it. There…

Christmas History, Saint Nicholas, and Putting Santa in His Proper Place What is the Santa Claus thing? How did it come about? How has it changed? And, of course, should we tell our children about this? This episode explores the progression that led to the cultural phenomenon of Santa Claus and asks how we should handle this season with our childre…

Two Views of Time, the Problem of Fads, & Constructive Change The final episode in the series exploring the ideas of roots, growth, tradition, progress, conservativism, & liberalism. Extrinsic motivation and ulterior motives are not constructive means of change. The danger of progress occurs when it is purely based on the elusive hope of the future…

Gardeners, Docents, and the Present-Progressive Tense of Living Tradition Docents see things as in need of protection and enshrinement. Gardeners see things as in need of guidance and growth. Which is a metaphor for how not to use tradition and a case for how to nurture progress. Romanticizing the past leads to stalling the present. However, we can…

Rethinking tradition through the constraints of time and perspective. Human beings have temporal constraints. We die. Within our finitude, mortality, aging, and the vast population of history, we should have a proper sense of proportion. Human beings also have mental constraints. We only have our perspective. We only know the world through what it …

Atonality, Theseus' Boat, & a Proper Sense of Historic Proportion How much does something need to change before it is deemed new? This episode explores the philosophical nature of change and newness. Short version, new is not random because everything is a continuation of what came before it - from the atomic structure of humans, the nature of comp…

How to be both a conservative and a liberal Tradition and progress are a dance: we need to balance both roots and growth together. First, we need to confront the two main problems that separate these perspectives dealing with sociological superiority. You can project the complexity of incoherency on another because you stake your identity in your p…

What should be our relationship to tradition and progress? Is the debate on conservatives and liberals haphazardly assumed in our culture? In this episode, we pull back the curtain on what has become a cultural and political institution through the lens of time and change. The past is the only known data but is constantly over. The future holds pos…

The Life of a Musician Being a singer-songwriter and creating music, poetry, videos, and stories is a complicated role. Jon Torrence is a creator — but not just of art. He is a creator of meaningful experiences and seeks to put life into words and sounds. This episode is a listening room for Jon Torrence of The Native Heart with live performances o…

Questions to ask for ecological ethics Achieving the ideal of ecological ethics is not realistic. The first suggestion is to accept the impossibility. Living ecologically is not a test to pass but a journey to improve. Our goal should not be to fix something but to live in the best way possible. Once we've accepted that our life and society are rif…

Food & Ecology Food is the most practical dimension of ecological ethics. So, how should we eat? What are the effects of our food decisions? Should we take this more seriously? And, what should our relationship to food look like? This episode explores three general guidelines that might help capture the philosophy of ecological entanglement when it…

Practical Steps for Ecological Action Why don’t movements work? History tends to repeat itself and we’re still wrestling with the same issues that have been plaguing society for millennia. Ecological ethics, then, can’t be a movement. But what other options are there? This episode takes the philosophy of ecological ethics and offers a practice call…

Is there a philosophical and practical premise for ecological ethics? Despite technological advancement, there is still a mystery to being alive and a mystery to the natural world we are a part of. Why should that matter and how should we live with the natural world? This episode explores four premises: Contingency - the nature of existence and the…

An exploration of ecological ethics: Are there moral principles and philosophical perspectives relating to the natural world? Should we care about the earth? Should it be confined to political or religious ideologies? This episode explores ecological entanglement, depoliticizing environmentalism, and the central principle for why human beings shoul…

What should a healthy community look like? We continue our conversation on community with Dr. Ashley Pryor-Geiger and Amie Brodie. How should community work? What is required for a community to function healthily, especially with relational conflict that is bound to happen? We explore the roadblocks to community and observational practices for how …

A philosophical, sociological, and pragmatic survey of community. How has community been understood and how shouldn't community be understood in conversation with Dr. Ashley Pryor-Geiger of the University of Toledo and Amie Brodie of The Farmhouse. Community is something that we talk about a lot, but do we actually understand it? Community is the c…

What causes a person to sign up for an Ironman? For Morgan Hudik, it was a major surgery as a result of her family’s genetics. Not having a BRCA gene forced Morgan to make a huge decision that came with major changes, major loss, and deep pain. But Morgan’s story is an example of taking deep pain and turning it into deep love. She’s an extrovert, b…

Existential Death Grief is not just for the loss of a person. Anything lost requires the grieving process. This episode explores why that is so necessary with an example of an existential death and how it was grieved. Music composed by Jon Torrence from The Native Heart. Reading from the memoir: "A Lost Home, A Lost Family, and a Tequila Bottle Ful…

Our culture doesn't handle death well. From funerals to the grieving process, we can move through death more healthily. This episode explores the grieving process including: Grief as any form of loss and an unending process Four grieving principles (Distress, Trauma, Affliction, & Meaning-Making) Instrumental versus instinctive grief. Reactive vers…

What is the role of memory? Your memory is a means of grieving your inevitable death. Which then offers an honest approach to the time that you have left. This episode explores mortality, phenomenology, and an exploration of Augustine's three tenses of time: Memory, Attention, and Expectation. May you grieve your own death with every passing moment…

Our memories are not reality We tell stories, relay information, and discuss details, but they only capture the limited perspective that we've experienced. Our memories are malleable, splintered, and easily influenced selections and interpretations. Memory is not about history, memory is about meaning. Why is this the case? And how should it impact…

How do you improve your memory? A lot of people think they don't have a good memory. That's not true. Memory is not a personality trait. Often poor memory is a result of leaving the process to chance. If you don't know the seven methods of encoding or how sensory, short-term, and long-term memory works, you probably won't have a good memory. How, t…

Why do we fail to enact the good ideas we have and the changes we desire? We have to confront our natural resistance to change and the complicated process of memory.Oleh Tyler Kleeberger

A different approach to changing and transforming your health - from diets, nutrition, exercise, and helpful processes for meaningful health and wellness development. Topics covered: How to approach holistic health transformation Exploring the fitness industry (especially this time of year) The goals of integrative health: Functionality, quality of…

What is justice? Guest contributor Bryce Webster explores a third form of justice: Eucharistic Justice. If you acknowledge justice, you have to consider the source of that justice. Justice, therefore, is a metaphysical question and Eucharistic Justice is a way to give a source for justice and a practice of justice deeply inspired by Dietrich Bonhoe…

What is justice? Guest contributor Bryce Webster explores justice and begins unpacking the first two options - retributive justice and restorative justice. Although retributive justice (revenge) is the most common form, there are other options.Oleh Tyler Kleeberger

What is capitalism all about? Why do we often hate our day jobs and work? We look at our economy and alienation; and why the alternative might not be as romantic as it seems. There are problems with every type of economy. Here's why we probably won't change our modern one and why we probably wouldn't want to even if we could.…

What is work and why do we say no one wants to do it? Labor is an action or exertion to develop the world through the deployment of human abilities, time, and energy and there are multiple ways to approach it. This episode explores the history of hard work, extrinsic labor, intrinsic labor, and the two overarching types of economy that result: "Pro…

A Spurious Guide to Changing Other People (Part II) Conflicts with others beckon us to want to change them. Can you change other people? If so, how do you change other people? This episode explores how to approach changing others. It starts with you, and then you pull them into the future with you. We cover interpersonal relationships, pre-cognitio…

A Spurious Guide to Changing Other People Conflicts with others beckon us to want to change them. Can you change other people? If so, how do you change other people? This episode explores how not to change others including peace and conflict resolution, control, and violence.Oleh Tyler Kleeberger

Curiosity is not just a personality trait. Curiosity is a discipline that can be developed and practiced. Between David Hume and the Stoics, we can harness a more curious presence and live better with rich wisdom. Plus, a bunch of depth on the core emphases of Stoicism and why being curious is important for living well.…

Amathia Physical exercise is a common idea. But what about cognitive exercise? Amathia, often translated as "Intelligent stupidity," is the outcome of having a static perspective. This episode explores how we avoid that through things like empathy and curiosity. Otherwise, you have the banal arguments and debates so rampant in our culture.…

Four Reasons Why Should & 4 Ways How You Can Can you change your mind? Absolutely! And you really might want to consider it. This episode explores four reasons our perspectives need to be put in their proper place: They are incomplete They are constructed Entrenching them leads to competition If they are wrong (or just incomplete), they can result …

What is Truth? Exploring relative, subjective, and objective truth reveals that there is a progressive nature to truth. Truth is not a thing, but a process. Overview: Questions of ontology (the nature of existence) — is anything true? 3 categories of truth — objective, subjective, and relative. Why objective truth is complicated. The progressive na…

Elusive Certainty & Determining Truth Can we be certain about anything or is truth subjective? Ontology, epistemology, and the modes and tools of discerning truth(logos, ethos, pathos, epistemological assumptions, superstition, inductive and deductive reasoning). How ought limited, finite, myopic human beings use their incomplete knowledge to appro…

How Do We Know Stuff? Humans have always wondered about how we're able to know stuff. Though we have consciousness, can we have certainty? This episode explores the problem with perspective through rationalism and empiricism; reason and logic versus experience and sensory observation. Certainty is elusive and if we are gonna know anything, rational…

This is how the conflict resolution technique called mapmaking works. If you want to stop arguing, you have to be honest about your finite, limited perspective. Since neither person in the conflict is working with all the information, constructive possibilities remain. Then, there are four concepts and two ground rules: Empathy, humanization, trust…

Stop arguing. Do this instead! If you don't know everything, maybe your conflicts and disagreements could be opportunities to see the world more than you currently do. Mapmaking is a conflict resolution technique based on the collaborative approach. In this episode, we explore how mapmaking works and what makes it different from arguing. Episode Ov…

Our perspectives are limited and finite; we can't know everything, we aren't working with all the information, and we desire certainty even though it is quite impossible. But why does this cause problems? When we are certain about our perspective, we act like our perceptions aren't perception; and when perception is reality, we can only argue and d…

What is a perspective and how does it work? This is a topic that deals with everyone and it's one of the biggest causes of conflict. You have a lens of the world that shapes your experience and understanding. We cover epistemology, the nature of perspective, and the phenomenology of egocentric perspectives. You know things with your mind (conscious…

We put a lot of focus on the content of our disagreements; we don't even seem to consider what causes us to have such different perspectives in the first place. This episode covers the methods we use to approach issues that act as our interpretive lens for our arguments: Rule Based Greatest Good Teleological Based on Lawerence Kohlberg's "Methods o…

We have conflicts and disagreements, but do we know why we have them? Do we know why they often fail to be productive? This episode covers the categories that contain our disagreements through six argumentative approaches: Pseudo, Fact, Value, Ego, and Meta. If we are going to have better arguments, we need to know what kind of arguments we are hav…

How do we actually pull off healthy conflict resolution? We cover some different models and then explore processes to avoid, tips to utilize, and skills to nurture for your next conflict resolution situation.Oleh Tyler Kleeberger

Conflict is gonna happen, so we might as well explore how to resolve it positively. On this episode, we look at why conflict arises in relationships of all kinds (Relational Dialectics Theory) and we explore the core components to a conflict mediation experience with the various strategies and styles we typically use.…

Because conflict is inevitable and has no moral value in and of itself — our response to conflict is incredibly important. We discuss three potential responses and their effects for what kind of change they might bring in the hopes that we will be able to enter into our next conflict with a much richer understanding of what we are handling.Music by…

What is conflict? How does conflict work? And why does conflict often lead to change? We look at some social psychology and change theory to see that conflict is inevitable and a natural part of being alive. We also explore how conflict has no moral value in and of itself, but how you respond to conflict does. Music by Jon Torrence & The Native Hea…

To what can the long-game be compared? We talk about gardens, cheat codes, and what makes “the process” actually be a process.Oleh Tyler Kleeberger

A bit of a rant about how transformation ought to work versus how our culture typically approaches change. Change is a process. We cover the “Age of Marketing” and the “Age of Ease” as well as some other societal ills in the hopes of accepting that change is, in fact, a long game.Oleh Tyler Kleeberger