Wisdom for Life Radio Show Goes Weekly!

Earlier this year, my co-host Dan Hayes and I launched a new radio show.  It's called Wisdom for Life, and it focuses on taking ideas from practical philosophy and applying them to issues, challenges, and problems of everyday life.  We draw upon a number of different philosophical traditions - Stoicism, Aristotelianism, and Existentialism in particular - as well as insights from various psychological approaches.

Our latest show, episode 5 - devoted to the topic What Makes Relationships Good? - aired on Riverwest Radio (WXRW 104.1) last Saturday (you can listen to that show here).  We've been getting really positive feedback about the show itself, the topics we're focusing on, and the conversational approach that Dan and I are taking.  That's great for two reasons.

The first is that this is a rather unique radio show.  There aren't too many shows out there that discuss and apply practical philosophy with any depth or rigor and also in ways accessible to the ordinary, non-academic listener.  In fact, who are we kidding - there isn't much philosophy content out there in radio period!  So the fact that the show is getting some interest and appreciation is good for philosophy and also good for the people who listen.

The second is that Riverwest Radio is a local community radio station.  It's here to provide a diverse array of voices, interests, and programs for the Riverwest neighborhood, and also for the Greater Milwaukee community.  If that term "community radio" is unfamiliar to you, think NPR and PBS, and now imagine an even more community-centered focus.  Less for the elites, more for the person on the street.  Shows don't just have hosts.  The hosts are also the show producers.  A program like what we're doing would likely be a hard sell to NPR, but we have a home in community radio!

We started out as a bi-weekly show, but have decided during the COVID-19 crisis to step up show production to one episode a week, and we've managed to keep to that schedule now two weeks in a row!  You can listen live over the internet anywhere in the world, Saturdays, 4-5 PM Central Time.

If you'd like to hear any of the five episodes we've produced so far, here are the links.

• Wisdom For Life Episode 1 - Philosophy as a Way of Life
• Wisdom For Life Episode 2 - Dealing With Fear in a Crisis
• Wisdom For Life Episode 3 - Defining What's Good and What's Bad
• Wisdom For Life Episode 4 - Setting and Maintaining Boundaries
• Wisdom For Life Episode 5 - What Makes Relationships Good?

And if you'd like to support the work that Riverwest Radio does, offering a wide range of quality programming you won't hear anywhere else, consider making a donation to the station!

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.

Wisdom for Life Radio Show Coming Up - Questions Welcome!

In the last few years, I've done ethics consulting work and a number of guest appearances with a local radio station, WXRW-Riverwest Radio. This is a community radio station, so there's a considerably wider variety of shows than on most other radio stations and networks.  They've been asking for some time whether I'd be interested in producing a philosophy-focused show for the station. And starting at the end of the month, that is going to be the case!

The new show is called Wisdom for Life, and will be focused on how insights and practices derived from philosophy can help people understand and deal with problems and issues arising in the course of life.  One of my fellow co-organizers of the Milwaukee Stoic Fellowship, Dan Hayes, is also the co-producer of this show. We did a 2-hour special fundraising show for Riverwest Radio, focused on generosity and giving, back in December. And earlier this month, we completed our training at the station.  So we are now ready to go on the air live!

The show will run every other Friday from 5-6 PM Central Time, starting on February 28. If there's sufficient interest, and if Dan and I manage to find the available time in our schedules, we'll consider turning it into a weekly show.  There's certainly enough topics available that we'll never run out of material to discuss.

In the very first episode, we'll introduce ourselves and briefly present the broad outlines of what the show is about.  We'll also devote a good bit of discussion to how it is that philosophy - which many people encounter as an abstract subject, rather detached from everyday life - turns out to have a lot to contribute to thinking about our lives.  And, by practical applications, to living better lives as well.

We're also planning for each show to have a segment during which we'll tackle questions coming from listeners.  We can't do call-in on-air, so we'll take questions provided to us prior to the show, and then try to work out some decent answers to them.  You can send them to me by email, in Twitter, or on the Facebook event page for the episode.