Robert meets World Podcast

Aqua Flamingo Media
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  • Philosophy
  • Updated Biweekly

Some questions don't resolve and this podcast doesn't pretend otherwise. Ranging from existential philosophy to conversations about therapy, dating and cultural theory of religion, each episode is less about arriving at answers than about taking the questions seriously. Essays, interviews and occasional side quests from the edges of how we think about meaning, identity, consciousness and what it actually means to live well, by someone still genuinely figuring it out. Produced by Aqua Flamingo Labs Inc.

  1. 5d ago

    Side Quest 26 - Dress Rehearsal for Life; ambition, self-myth & a cheque as heavy as the world

    I’m standing alone in a University Community Center basement classroom. Beige, brown and black tiled, dull, and lifeless walls enclose the space with a cast of around 18 empty chairs and tables. Overhead, a projector scatters light onto a white screen with a PowerPoint presentation reading “Expect The Unexpected” in black font to an orange background (apparently I failed the Intro to Perfect PowerPoint Presentations 101 class). It’s intensely quiet, only the sound of my inner monologue and what I have to do holds next. It’s around 7PM in the evening, not many students are on campus, voluntarily. It’s the third time I’ve run through my speech, enunciating the words and accentuating the tone and points. I practice my walk. I practice my pacing. I practice a confident grin and pause held before I drop the next devastating idea. #siliconvalley #ambition #personalessay #selfmythology

    Side Quest 26 - Dress Rehearsal for Life; ambition, self-myth & a cheque as heavy as the world

  2. Aug 7

    Side Quest 8: Who Are You When You Stop Becoming?

    Who are you when you stop becoming? It is common in social groups to give a role to a given person. A role is a box. A safe, bounded, predictable box. The mind is a sophisticated categorizing, perimeter and box constructing machine. It draws divisions on the continuous to create order, logic and reason. Once a box is drawn around something or someone, the mind is set at ease. It no longer says: “What is this?” Instead it says: “I know”.

    Side Quest 8: Who Are You When You Stop Becoming?

  3. Jul 31

    Side Quest 20: The Culture That Could Only Count

    Everything today seems to come with a number attached. Followers, likes, watch time, sentiment scores, even influence itself, quantified and ranked. What would happen if we took all of that away? This episode is an open inquiry into a world that has learned to measure almost everything, told through verse, and what the implications may be.

    Side Quest 20: The Culture That Could Only Count

  4. Jul 24

    Side Quest 23 - Ain't No Economy Like The Attention Economy: On Leaving (But Never Actually Leaving)

    The story of a decade long, still unresolved fight to quit social media, from deleting Facebook in university to running Instagram ads for a DJ business years later. A honest look at notification loops, comparison, and what it actually costs to live inside the attention economy, even when you know exactly how it works.

    Side Quest 23 - Ain't No Economy Like The Attention Economy: On Leaving (But Never Actually Leaving)

  5. Jul 17

    Side Quest 18: What Would You Be Secretly Relieved Not to Do? (RXW)

    Several months ago I became a bit obsessed with understanding Human Design (HD), a neo-typology that has emerged in the last 40 years combining Jewish Kabbalah with the Chinese I Ching and Vedic Astrology. While I do wonder if it was an immaculate conception born of counter culture in the bohemian refuge of 1970s Ibiza (the founder “Ra Uru Hu” lived there during his “revelation”), it has stimulated me into trying to live in a more embodied way. That is, to make decisions with an additional body level awareness rather than exclusively from the mind. Through my explorations, I discovered Jenna Zoe’s podcast “Align” where she shared a fascinating tool for decision making that I wanted to share with you today.

  6. Jul 10

    Side Quest 19: The Ministry of Self Improvement

    Jung personified that place, the Shadow, which Robert Johnson playfully describes as: “[the] unconscious dumping ground for undesirable characteristics of a personality” As a collective, we’ve developed different sanctioned places for those parts of ourselves, and for me, that’s always been fitness and performance training. The gym has always been the place to find comfort in breaking myself down and vocalizing parts of myself that I don’t often express. From long distance running to Olympic Weightlifting, yoga and later martial arts, I think most physical practices I’ve experimented with seriously, belong in some way, shape or form to a place in my psyche I call “The Ministry of Self Improvement”; it’s run by my favourite little tyrant: the silhouette that clings to my feet, and matches my every step.

    Side Quest 19: The Ministry of Self Improvement

  7. Jul 3

    Side Quest 10: The Beauty of Ugly Movement

    I laid on the floor in a heavy state as a dark wave of depressive fatigue and heaviness washed over me. A massive pressure weighed on my head, and that characteristic optimism telling me there is always a way out, reframe or way to step back to see the bigger picture, seemed to be failing me. I didn’t see a way out of what was happening to me: the seeming hell of a mind viciously swirling in an anxious and disturbed spiral; the same hell that Vipassana meditations had so kindly reacquainted me to several months prior in Koh Phangan. Yet, I was frozen and encroaching into deeper and darker psychological ground. Luckily, having been introduced to Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, I had a new vocabulary for these occasional emotional overloads; at this very moment, I was firmly in the grips of a firefighter shutdown.

    Side Quest 10: The Beauty of Ugly Movement

  8. Jun 26

    Side Quest 22: The Selfish, The Selfless & An Old Man Laughing At The Two

    In this side quest, Robert unpacks the chaotic, messy, and deeply human struggle at the intersection of ego, detachment, and higher minded ideals. Starting with a late-night standoff with a spider, Robert discusses internal conflict between three distinct modes of being that we all cycle through: The Personal Ego: Our defensive, flawed nature trying to get ahead. The Spiritual Ego ("The Yogic Doormat"): The exhausting pursuit of endless compliance that often leads to self-abandonment. The Zen Perspective: The liberating realization that life is a bit of a joke, and we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously. We look at why modern therapeutic clichés like "protecting your peace" can feel hollow, why you have to build an ego before you can dissolve it, and how the Buddhist Two-Truths doctrine helps us navigate our own hypocrisy. Ultimately, it’s a reflection on forgiveness, learning to extend the same radical compassion to ourselves that we try to give to the world.

    Side Quest 22: The Selfish, The Selfless & An Old Man Laughing At The Two
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About

Some questions don't resolve and this podcast doesn't pretend otherwise. Ranging from existential philosophy to conversations about therapy, dating and cultural theory of religion, each episode is less about arriving at answers than about taking the questions seriously. Essays, interviews and occasional side quests from the edges of how we think about meaning, identity, consciousness and what it actually means to live well, by someone still genuinely figuring it out. Produced by Aqua Flamingo Labs Inc.

Information

  • Creator
    Aqua Flamingo Media
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    28
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Robert meets World Podcast