The Observing I Podcast

The Observing I: Deconstructing My Own Philosophy

19 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Against all odds, we have reached episode one hundred and fifty. To mark this milestone of collective survival, we are taking a brief, unannounced int...

Carlos Castaneda: Wisdom, Fiction, and the Desire to Believe

12 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we explore the strange and troubling legacy of Carlos Castaneda, the anthropologist and author whose books about Don Juan Matus helpe...

The Tyranny of Pleasure: Aldous Huxley and his Brave New World

05 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We often imagine tyranny as a heavy hand from the outside, but Aldous Huxley understood a more unsettling possibility. He saw that we can be persuaded...

Be Here Now: The Great Unmaking of Richard Alpert

28 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Human beings are often drawn to transformation because we aren't entirely comfortable being ourselves. We imagine that if we can just find the rig...

Terence McKenna and the Problem of Enchantment

21 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of The Observing I, I explore the life and ideas of Terence McKenna, one of the most fascinating and controversial voices in psychedel...

Turn on, tune in, drop out: The life and ideas of Timothy Leary

14 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Timothy Leary is often remembered as a prophet of psychedelic liberation, but his story is more complicated than that. In this episode, we look beyond...

Emil Cioran and the Insomnia of Being

24 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Emil Cioran was the most honest philosopher of the twentieth century. He believed, with total intellectual sincerity and forensic rigour, that being b...

Emil Cioran and the Insomnia of Being

24 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Emil Cioran was the most honest philosopher of the twentieth century. He believed, with total intellectual sincerity and forensic rigour, that being b...

Not Yet: The Philosophy of Ernst Bloch

17 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Not yet.Ernst Bloch was born in a factory town on the Rhine in 1885 and spent the next ninety-two years refusing to accept that the present tense was ...

Not Yet: The Philosophy of Ernst Bloch

17 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Not yet.Ernst Bloch was born in a factory town on the Rhine in 1885 and spent the next ninety-two years refusing to accept that the present tense was ...

Leszek Kolakowski, the man who autopsied his god

10 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What do you do when the thing you used to explain everything stops explaining anything?Leszek Kołakowski was born in Poland in 1927. He grew up under...

Leszek Kolakowski, the man who autopsied his god

10 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What do you do when the thing you used to explain everything stops explaining anything?Leszek Kołakowski was born in Poland in 1927. He grew up under...

Vladimir Solovyov and the Philosophy of the World Soul

03 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Three times in his life, Vladimir Solovyov saw her. Once at nine years old in a Moscow church. Once in a lecture hall mid-sentence. Once face down in ...

Vladimir Solovyov and the Philosophy of the World Soul

03 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Three times in his life, Vladimir Solovyov saw her. Once at nine years old in a Moscow church. Once in a lecture hall mid-sentence. Once face down in ...

Nikolai Federov: The Librarian who declared war on Death

24 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What if your acceptance of death isn't wisdom? What if it's surrender with better branding? What if the most dangerous idea humanity ever had wasn't p...

Nikolai Federov: The Librarian who declared war on Death

24 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What if your acceptance of death isn't wisdom? What if it's surrender with better branding? What if the most dangerous idea humanity ever had wasn't p...

Jan Patočka and the Philosophy of Living in Truth

17 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Jan Patočka was a Czech philosopher who spent thirty years banned from teaching, running illegal philosophy seminars in private apartments, passing h...

Jan Patočka and the Philosophy of Living in Truth

17 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Jan Patočka was a Czech philosopher who spent thirty years banned from teaching, running illegal philosophy seminars in private apartments, passing h...

Mikhail Bakhtin and the Unfinished Self

10 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

You are not one person. You never were.This is not a metaphor about complexity or depth. This is not inspirational content about containing multitudes...

Mikhail Bakhtin and the Unfinished Self

10 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

You are not one person. You never were.This is not a metaphor about complexity or depth. This is not inspirational content about containing multitudes...

Lev Shestov and the Violence of Reason

03 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Lev Shestov spent his entire life at war with the most dangerous idea in human history. Not God. Not death. Not the void. Reason itself. The belief th...

Lev Shestov and the Violence of Reason

03 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Lev Shestov spent his entire life at war with the most dangerous idea in human history. Not God. Not death. Not the void. Reason itself. The belief th...

The Berdyaev Problem: What If You're Afraid of Freedom?

27 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

September 1922. A German steamship loaded with Russia’s most dangerous weapons. Not bombs. Not guns. Philosophers. Seventy intellectuals who committ...

The Berdyaev Problem: What If You're Afraid of Freedom?

27 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

September 1922. A German steamship loaded with Russia’s most dangerous weapons. Not bombs. Not guns. Philosophers. Seventy intellectuals who committ...

Dostoevsky: Patient Zero of the Nervous Breakdown

20 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Your life is being optimized into a coffin. Every app on your phone, every metric at your job, and every "wellness" routine you follow is designed to ...

Dostoevsky: Patient Zero of the Nervous Breakdown

20 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Your life is being optimized into a coffin. Every app on your phone, every metric at your job, and every "wellness" routine you follow is designed to ...

Kafka and the Machinery of Modern Dread

13 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to 2026. The calendar flipped, but the gears didn’t stop grinding.Most people think Franz Kafka wrote fantasy. They think he dreamed up gian...

Kafka and the Machinery of Modern Dread

13 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to 2026. The calendar flipped, but the gears didn’t stop grinding.Most people think Franz Kafka wrote fantasy. They think he dreamed up gian...

The Vanishing of Vernon Pale

16 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a little different. It’s a work of fiction. A Christmas ghost story for philosophers. A Dickensian horror wrapped in VHS static and ...

The Vanishing of Vernon Pale

16 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a little different. It’s a work of fiction. A Christmas ghost story for philosophers. A Dickensian horror wrapped in VHS static and ...

The Secret Lives of Objects

09 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if everything around you has a secret life you’ll never access?Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology makes a radical claim: objects aren’...

The Secret Lives of Objects

09 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if everything around you has a secret life you’ll never access?Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology makes a radical claim: objects aren’...

Chronophobia: Why Modern Life Makes Us Afraid of Time Itself

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You wake up and the first thing you think is how many hours you wasted sleeping. How many emails piled up. How many opportunities slipped past while y...

Chronophobia: Why Modern Life Makes Us Afraid of Time Itself

02 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You wake up and the first thing you think is how many hours you wasted sleeping. How many emails piled up. How many opportunities slipped past while y...

Ethics for the End of Everything

25 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The universe is falling apart. That is not a metaphor. That is physics. That is the second law of thermodynamics. That is entropy winning every single...

Ethics for the End of Everything

25 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The universe is falling apart. That is not a metaphor. That is physics. That is the second law of thermodynamics. That is entropy winning every single...

How Imagination Becomes Reality: Grant Morrison and the Tulpa Effect

16 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Grant Morrison had a nervous breakdown in 1988 while writing about insanity. He was channeling madness, writing madness, becoming madness. And then on...

How Imagination Becomes Reality: Grant Morrison and the Tulpa Effect

16 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Grant Morrison had a nervous breakdown in 1988 while writing about insanity. He was channeling madness, writing madness, becoming madness. And then on...

Hyperobjects and Other Nightmares: Timothy Morton and the Ecology of Collapse

02 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You think you understand climate change. You don’t. You think it’s a problem you can solve with better recycling habits and electric cars. It’s ...

Hyperobjects and Other Nightmares: Timothy Morton and the Ecology of Collapse

02 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You think you understand climate change. You don’t. You think it’s a problem you can solve with better recycling habits and electric cars. It’s ...

The Cartography of Pain: Paul Auster's City of Glass and the Architecture of Identity

26 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A writer named Daniel Quinn answers the wrong phone number at three in the morning and becomes a detective who never existed. He follows a father who ...

The Cartography of Pain: Paul Auster's City of Glass and the Architecture of Identity

26 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A writer named Daniel Quinn answers the wrong phone number at three in the morning and becomes a detective who never existed. He follows a father who ...

Four Thousand Weeks: A Love Letter to Your Mortality

19 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You have approximately four thousand weeks to live. If you’re lucky. If you’ve already lived thirty years, you’ve spent about fifteen hundred of...

Four Thousand Weeks: A Love Letter to Your Mortality

19 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You have approximately four thousand weeks to live. If you’re lucky. If you’ve already lived thirty years, you’ve spent about fifteen hundred of...

Peter Putnam's Cosmos: The Functionalist Demolition of Self

12 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week on The Observing I, prepare for the total demolition of your most cherished comfort: the belief in your soul. We drag the ghost out of the m...

Peter Putnam's Cosmos: The Functionalist Demolition of Self

12 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week on The Observing I, prepare for the total demolition of your most cherished comfort: the belief in your soul. We drag the ghost out of the m...

The Philosopher’s Cage: Why Every Age Builds Its Own Prison

28 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Philosophy sells itself as the search for truth. Eternal wisdom. Universal principles. But strip away the polish and what you find isn’t purity, it’...

The Philosopher’s Cage: Why Every Age Builds Its Own Prison

28 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Philosophy sells itself as the search for truth. Eternal wisdom. Universal principles. But strip away the polish and what you find isn’t purity, it’...

Heidegger and the Horror of Existence

14 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Martin Heidegger doesn’t waste time with the easy questions. He doesn’t ask what truth is, or what justice means, or whether God exists. He asks t...

Heidegger and the Horror of Existence

14 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Martin Heidegger doesn’t waste time with the easy questions. He doesn’t ask what truth is, or what justice means, or whether God exists. He asks t...

The Pendulum of Suffering: Schopenhauer’s Dark Philosophy

07 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Life isn’t a journey. It isn’t progress. It isn’t destiny unfolding like some golden road. According to Arthur Schopenhauer, life is a pendulum....

The Pendulum of Suffering: Schopenhauer’s Dark Philosophy

07 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Life isn’t a journey. It isn’t progress. It isn’t destiny unfolding like some golden road. According to Arthur Schopenhauer, life is a pendulum....

121 In the Province of the Mind: The work of John C. Lilly

31 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Step into a black coffin filled with warm saltwater. Float until your body disappears. Wait until your thoughts collapse. What’s left? Just awarenes...

In the Province of the Mind: The work of John C. Lilly

31 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Step into a black coffin filled with warm saltwater. Float until your body disappears. Wait until your thoughts collapse. What’s left? Just awarenes...

120 Attention is the Last Frontier: Bernard Stiegler and the Age of Distraction

24 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bernard Stiegler’s life reads like something out of a parable. A young man with no future robs banks in 1970s France, spends years behind bars, and ...

120 Attention is the Last Frontier: Bernard Stiegler and the Age of Distraction

24 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bernard Stiegler’s life reads like something out of a parable. A young man with no future robs banks in 1970s France, spends years behind bars, and ...

119 Laughing at the End of the World: The Philosophy of Slavoj Žižek

17 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Slavoj Žižek is a philosopher who shouldn’t exist. Dishevelled, incoherent, constantly coughing and stumbling, he looks less like a thinker and mo...

119 Laughing at the End of the World: The Philosophy of Slavoj Žižek

17 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Slavoj Žižek is a philosopher who shouldn’t exist. Dishevelled, incoherent, constantly coughing and stumbling, he looks less like a thinker and mo...

118 The Middle Path of the Mind

10 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After a month away in Indonesia, the temples, incense, and heavy heat of Bali still linger in my mind. The summer break has ended, and The Observing I...

118 The Middle Path of the Mind

10 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After a month away in Indonesia, the temples, incense, and heavy heat of Bali still linger in my mind. The summer break has ended, and The Observing I...

117 Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty

06 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Antonin Artaud didn’t want to entertain you. He wanted to infect you. He wanted to burn down the theatre, then climb into the ashes and scream until...

117 Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty

06 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Antonin Artaud didn’t want to entertain you. He wanted to infect you. He wanted to burn down the theatre, then climb into the ashes and scream until...

116 Georges Bataille, The Philosopher of Holy Filth

29 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is not clean.It doesn’t try to sanitize the grotesque or turn philosophy into polite conversation. It doesn’t quote thinkers to make ...

116 Georges Bataille, The Philosopher of Holy Filth

29 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is not clean.It doesn’t try to sanitize the grotesque or turn philosophy into polite conversation. It doesn’t quote thinkers to make ...

115 The Death of Deep Time

22 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You know that nagging feeling, right? That relentless pressure of the "now"? The constant urge to scroll, to react, to optimize for the immediate? We'...

115 The Death of Deep Time

22 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You know that nagging feeling, right? That relentless pressure of the "now"? The constant urge to scroll, to react, to optimize for the immediate? We'...

114 Hannah Arendt: Totalitarianism, Evil, and Action

15 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Project Mayhem, prepare yourselves. This week on The Observing I, we’re tearing into the mind of Hannah Arendt, the radical thinker who redefined ou...

114 Hannah Arendt: Totalitarianism, Evil, and Action

15 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Project Mayhem, prepare yourselves. This week on The Observing I, we’re tearing into the mind of Hannah Arendt, the radical thinker who redefined ou...

113 A Tyranny of Happiness

08 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Alright, Project Mayhem, this isn't another episode about chasing good vibes. This week, The Observing I rips apart the shiny façade of forced positi...

113 A Tyranny of Happiness

08 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Alright, Project Mayhem, this isn't another episode about chasing good vibes. This week, The Observing I rips apart the shiny façade of forced positi...

112 Screaming in an Echo Chamber

01 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You’re trapped. Not by physical walls, but by invisible ones. The constant, self-confirming loop of your feed, your tribe, your chosen narrative. Ev...

112 Screaming in an Echo Chamber

01 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You’re trapped. Not by physical walls, but by invisible ones. The constant, self-confirming loop of your feed, your tribe, your chosen narrative. Ev...

111 Life: The Ultimate Pay-to-Win Scam

25 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

They’ve gamified your existence, turning every breath into a metric, every action into a score. On this episode of The Observing I, we confront the ...

111 Life: The Ultimate Pay-to-Win Scam

25 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

They’ve gamified your existence, turning every breath into a metric, every action into a score. On this episode of The Observing I, we confront the ...

110 The Memory That Speaks

18 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if the ground beneath your feet remembered more than you do? What if the stories you inherit, the ones whispered across centuries, aren’t just ...

110 The Memory That Speaks

18 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if the ground beneath your feet remembered more than you do? What if the stories you inherit, the ones whispered across centuries, aren’t just ...

109 Sophia’s Dream

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You were told this world was real. That flesh was truth. That gravity meant something.But what if none of it was supposed to happen?This is the dream....

109 Sophia’s Dream

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You were told this world was real. That flesh was truth. That gravity meant something.But what if none of it was supposed to happen?This is the dream....

108 The Ethics of Monsters

13 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We cheer the hero. We hiss at the villain. But what if we've had it backwards all along?In this episode of The Observing I, we dig deep into the ethic...

108 The Ethics of Monsters

13 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We cheer the hero. We hiss at the villain. But what if we've had it backwards all along?In this episode of The Observing I, we dig deep into the ethic...

107 Ego is a Deepfake

06 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if everything you think you are is just a performance? A glitch. A mask. A beautifully rehearsed hallucination mistaken for truth.In this episode...

107 Ego is a Deepfake

06 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if everything you think you are is just a performance? A glitch. A mask. A beautifully rehearsed hallucination mistaken for truth.In this episode...

106 The Sacred Between

30 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if the most important thing you’ll ever do isn’t think, achieve, or succeed - but truly meet another human being?In this episode of The Obser...

106 The Sacred Between

30 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if the most important thing you’ll ever do isn’t think, achieve, or succeed - but truly meet another human being?In this episode of The Obser...

105 Slay the Dragon, Steal the Fire

16 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every great story follows a pattern. From Star Wars to The Matrix, from The Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter, we see the same arc: an ordinary person...

105 Slay the Dragon, Steal the Fire

16 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every great story follows a pattern. From Star Wars to The Matrix, from The Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter, we see the same arc: an ordinary person...

104 The Architecture of Unfucking Ourselves

09 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You’ve been lied to. Not just by society, not just by the self-improvement industry, but by the person staring back at you in the mirror. Every beli...

104 The Architecture of Unfucking Ourselves

09 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You’ve been lied to. Not just by society, not just by the self-improvement industry, but by the person staring back at you in the mirror. Every beli...

103 Panopticon Dreams

02 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Are you being watched? Not by a person. Not by some trench-coated agent in a van. But by a system - one that never blinks, never forgets, and knows yo...

103 Panopticon Dreams

02 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Are you being watched? Not by a person. Not by some trench-coated agent in a van. But by a system - one that never blinks, never forgets, and knows yo...

102 Monks, Mystics, and Madmen

23 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever tried sitting in complete silence with nothing but your own thoughts? No phone. No music. No distractions. Just you.If that idea makes y...

102 Monks, Mystics, and Madmen

23 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever tried sitting in complete silence with nothing but your own thoughts? No phone. No music. No distractions. Just you.If that idea makes y...

101 The Meaning Crisis

09 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Something feels off, doesn’t it?You wake up. You go through the motions. You scroll endlessly, consuming more information than any human in history,...

101 The Meaning Crisis

09 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Something feels off, doesn’t it?You wake up. You go through the motions. You scroll endlessly, consuming more information than any human in history,...

100 The Lost Tape

02 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You’ve been sold a lie. Happiness. Perfection. The stories that shape you, control you, keep you running like a hamster on a wheel, chasing a dangli...

100 The Lost Tape

02 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You’ve been sold a lie. Happiness. Perfection. The stories that shape you, control you, keep you running like a hamster on a wheel, chasing a dangli...

099 We built the gods that will bury us

26 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we’re diving headfirst into the philosophical minefield of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). This isn’t just about robots an...

099 We built the gods that will bury us

26 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we’re diving headfirst into the philosophical minefield of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). This isn’t just about robots an...

098 The Truth is a Mosaic, and We're All Bleeding from the Edges

19 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Here’s the pitch: What if every religion you’ve ever heard of, every sacred story, every whispered prayer, was just a shard of broken glass? Each ...

098 The Truth is a Mosaic, and We're All Bleeding from the Edges

19 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Here’s the pitch: What if every religion you’ve ever heard of, every sacred story, every whispered prayer, was just a shard of broken glass? Each ...