What is a Good Life? #24 - The Paradox Of Life with Robbie Stamp

On the 24th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am joined by Robbie Stamp, who is the is CEO of BIOSS International, a Senior Fellow at the Resilience and Sustainable Development Programme at Cambridge University, Chairman of HappenedHere, and was an Executive Producer on the Hitchhikers’s Guide to the Galaxy feature film.

In this episode, we discuss the quality and significance of paying attention, cultivating compassion for ourselves and others, becoming ok with not knowing, appreciating all phenomenological and conscious experiences, the mirror AI holds up to us and the limitations AI will have in accounting for all human experience, and how there will always be a tension between creative and destructive behaviour, both internally and collectively.

This episode will help you appreciate the messiness of being human and yourself, feel more comfortable with the uncertainty and paradoxes of life, exhibit more compassion for us all while striving to improve, and to cultivate some humility around the limitations of your own knowledge and perspective.

Subscribe for weekly episodes, every Tuesday, and check out my YouTube channel (link below) for daily clips and reflections.

Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life to book a free 30 minute consultation for one-on-one coaching programs or to hear about corporate workshops I am offering around this question.

Running Order:

01:31 Podcast begins

02:06 Paying attention

06:51 Compassion for the messiness of human beings

10:14 The paradox of needing to be hard and kind to yourself

17:29 Becoming ok with not knowing

21:32 Getting comfortable with uncertainty

28:19 AI and the mirror it holds up to us

33:11 What AI cannot capture

38:13 The significance of all conscious experiences

44:31 Suspending our labels and perspectives

48:08 How do we create better civil discourse

51:21 Burdening ourselves with ideas of Utopia

54:56 Paradox of humility

57:36 What is a good life for Robbie?

For further content and information check out the following: 

- For the podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos

- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/

- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

- Robbie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbie-stamp-70254/