Wisdom For Life Radio Show - Questions and Suggestions

Our first episode of the Wisdom for Life radio show aired last Friday evening on Riverwest Radio - WXRW 104.1 FM - here in Milwaukee.  My co-host, Dan Hayes, and I go live every other Friday from 5 to 6 PM, discussing philosophy and its applications to challenges, problems, and issues of everyday life.

The first show went pretty well - not perfect, of course, but that's part of the fun of live radio!  We introduced the main idea of the show and ourselves as hosts, then shifted into discussing what philosophy as a way of life is and how it differs from the academic philosophy one might encounter in textbooks or classes.  We also introduced the idea of philosophical practices, and at the end of show introduced one drawn primarily from Stoicism - negative visualisation.  Between those two segments, we also looked at a real-life problem about how to make and maintain healthy boundaries.

If you missed the show and would like to give it a listen - or if you were one of the people who tuned in live worldwide, and would like to hear it again - here's two places you can do so:

• Riverwest Radio's archived recording of the show - listen here
• My YouTube channel video - added bonus - you can listen or watch here

I've no doubt that the show is going to evolve over time, but for now, we're planning on sticking to the format we've got so far

• a bit of banter at the start
• a half-hour of back and forth discussion of some key topics
• roughly ten minutes of in-depth examination of a common problem
• another ten minutes or so about a philosophical practice and how to use it
• signing off

Dan and I are meeting today to go over the first episode and think about what else we might want to talk about or do on the show - and how to improve bits of it - so here's my two invitations to you:

• If you've listened to the show, and have suggestions about what you'd like to see in upcoming episodes, go ahead and send them to me.
  
• Whether you've listened to the show or not, if you've got a problem, challenge, or issue in your life, and you'd like to see what philosophy might contribute to dealing with it, send me that as well, and we might discuss it on the air

You can send suggestions or questions to me in Twitter, on my Facebook page, or by email.

I'm hosting another online AMA (Ask Me Anything) session tomorrow.  It starts at noon Central Time, and runs for about an hour-and-a-half.  (I started out scheduling them for an hour, but they've always ended up running over due to the number of questions and comments that I end up getting).

Here's the video page for the session - if you click through to it, you can set yourself a reminder so that you don't miss the event.


If your goal is to get one of your questions asked and answered, you'll probably want to get there early in the session.  As the time goes on, the comments and questions start to come in faster and faster, and when I realize we're close to the end of the session, I start looking for ones I can answer fairly easily to cap it off.  I've never succeeded in getting to all of the questions and comments in any given session.

If you'd like to watch and listen to any of the earlier AMA sessions - you can also see what all the questions and comments were for that session by looking at the chat replay on the left side of the screen - here's a link to a playlist containing all of them.

The work involved in these free online events are underwritten by my Patreon supporters. Their pledges help me earn a living for myself and my family doing work I love - making philosophy accessible to people of all walks of life, all over the world.

If you'd like to become a supporter, here's where you can do that.

Nine Answers to Common Questions About Stoicism

A few months back, I started a new video series - Answers to Common Questions - to address some of the recurring questions, puzzles, and confusions I see coming up in various settings.  Sometimes they are posted as comments on my YouTube videos, during my online events, or in various social media (I'm on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn regularly).  Sometimes they're coming up in various philosophy-related forums or in sites like Quora.

After giving it a lot of thought, I decided that it might be useful to create videos as responses.  It's an engaging medium, to start with, and given my current digital presence, they would probably reach quite a few people.  And, having answers in easily linked-to video forms would allow me to provide some useful information with just a minimum of writing, copying, and pasting.

Since Stoicism is of major interest in the present and will likely continue as such in the foreseeable future, the questions and confusions that come up about that struck me as a good place to begin. There are a number of other Stoicism-related topics that I'll be shooting these videos about in the coming months, but it won't be Stoicism all the time for good - there are a lot of other common questions on a host of other philosophical thinkers and topics I'm hoping to get to down the line!

Here are the videos I have produced up to this point:

• Which Book Should I Read First?
• Why Do The Stoics Only Recognize Four Virtues?
• How Does Stoicism Define Happiness?
• Does Being a Stoic Mean I Can't Have Empathy?
• Is The Philosophy of Stoicism Self Centered?
• Is Ego/Self To Be Embraced or Overcome In Modern Stoicism?
• Does Stoicism Believe in God?
• Doesn't Nietzsche Prove the Stoics Wrong About Nature?
• I'm Practicing Stoicism. Why Am I Still Angry?

So, if those are questions on your mind - or if reading those titles piques your curiosity - click on those links and see if the answers sort matters out for you. As I mentioned, I'll be shooting a lot more of these, both about Stoicism and about other topics in philosophy as well. 

If you'd like to support the work that I put in on these and my other videos, consider becoming a Patreon supporter!