Voices in the Dark

Jon’s been getting disturbing dispatches from Andrea.

Is the economy about to crash like never before? Was 2008’s Big Short just a dress rehearsal for an incoming apocalypse that will shred the stock market and rewrite the future of society?

More importantly, should we all be investing in GameStop?

Well, perhaps.

Andrea’s been going incredibly deep into this very confusing world and he’s back to fill the rest of us in. Jon’s not co...

Andrea returns for a live, YouTube-streamed episode as we finally get back in the recording saddle!

And we're back with anger. Or at least, a certain kind of anger: the channelled variety which Andrea says is essential to making a true connection with and impact on the outside world.

We've decided to shake things up a bit, so we're putting aside our coverage of 'The Laws of Human Nature' and, starting with this episode, will be foc...

This episode is an experiment.

Jon turns on the mic for a solo cast – to reflect on what life in the pandemic means and the challenges of finding meaning and direction in a world where it feels impossible to plan for the future.

We've also go an update for you on the state of the podcast, and Jon's inviting you to get in touch with him via his websiteto offer some feedback, questions, and prompts for future episodes like this.

Jon ...

Here's a hidden treasure from the VITD archives for you – our interview with the brilliant and fascinating Michael Garfield! Michael's the host of the Future Fossils podcast, an artist, musician, and a 'sense-maker' of what it means to be having this strange human experience.

We spoke to Michael some years ago and for reasons lost to history the episode got mislaid but has now resurfaced! So, not a whisper of Covid to be found, and...

Envy is an inescapable part of the human experience. But nobody likes to feel – let alone admit to – envy. Instead, whenever we feel the stirrings of the green serpent, we rapidly turn the feeling outwards, projecting that gut churning insecurity onto the object of our desire.

So, we're not envious – that person just got lucky; they knew the right people; their stuff isn't even that good! And on and on it goes, because we'd rather ...

Maybe you've heard of the shadow? Even if you haven't, you've got one – and there's no escaping it. This episode, we discuss how to discover it, accept it, and stop being driven by negative emotions you don't consciously understand.

Carl Jung's idea of the shadow side of the personality is fascinating, vital, and compelling. But it's usually presented in an incredibly complex way – thankfully Robert has made it super accessible, an...

Time to escape the mind prison. This episode is like a shot of distilled Stoicism... are you ready?

Tapping into our true nature and living a good life often comes down to breaking the cycle – to escape the common fate of becoming just an echo of an echo of all the mistakes that came before you, be it in your family or your community. If we don't break free, we end up repeating the same patterns and simply becoming a victim of our ...

This is our second episode exploring The Law of Defensiveness, but this time we're breaking it down into some clear steps on how to hone our ability to interact and work with other people!

Robert has five key strategies, some of which we dig, some of which we think need some careful reflection before we put them into practice.

Becoming a Deep Listener is a great place to start – by listening to others and getting out of your own he...

This could be the most important Law of all: The Law of Defensiveness.

At our emotional core, we're all desperately grasping onto three basic ideas – the sense that we're independent; that we are intelligent in our own way; and that we are, overall, a good and decent person. It doesn't matter that a lot of the time this isn't true – these ideas remain the cornerstones of our sense of self and we'll defend them to the last.

Knowing ...

It feels like we're living through a tipping point in world history. The year 2020 began with the Pope slapping a woman and the Australian wildfires (remember them?). That seemed dramatic at the time, but since then we've found ourselves in the midst of a pandemic, followed by mass protests that began in the US and are now spreading around the world.

This episode we try to look behind the matrix: is anything really going to change ...

Why do people get caught up in wild and implausible conspiracy theories, get-rich-quick scams and other tantalising pyramid schemes? As we learn in this episode, even brainboxes like Isaac Newton can't seem to resist the excitement that so easily overcomes our better judgement when we think we can shortcut our way to success.

And that's the problem – it's exciting. The danger comes from our emotions: we are caught in the present, e...

It’s Week 4 of Lockdown in the UK and we’ve got the band back together. Well, the duo. Andrea and Jon are back in the virtual studio to make some sense of a world awash with fear, confusion, conspiracy theories and lots of very bad science.

What does the coronavirus mean politically, socially and culturally? How far should the state be involved in tackling the crisis? Are Sweden’s fears justified that any kind of lockdown opens the...

We're living through some damn strange times. We wanted to release something to stay connected with you and to share some thoughts on the current Coronavirus crisis and its effects.

Jon shares an article he's written about the vital role of humour in helping us to cope with and make sense of crisis, and why all those dark memes you might feel guilty for laughing at are actually essential for keeping us connected and (more or less) ...

In this episode, Robert Greene forces us to confront our inherently covetousness nature: we always want what we don't have. And yet, if we do get those things, we rapidly fall out of love with them. Why does possessing something make our enjoyment of it fade? Why is the grass always greener on the other side, no matter how often we jump back and forth over the fence?

Jon has experienced a lot of this recently. Nomadically wandering...

This episode we get together to discuss a variety of topics, ultimately centring around the seeming decline of popular culture into endless sequels and entertainment-by-algorithm. Where did it all go wrong, and why are so many of us still comfort-eating the shit out of it?

In the wake of the Golden Globes and the release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood we pause to reflect on why so many contemporary films and TV shows are so uncon...

After an unintentional hiatus, Jon and Andrea return for their seasonal year in review, where they reflect on what they've learnt, how their goals and values have changed, and what the goddamn hell might be next...

This time we didn't quite manage to record in the bar of a 5-star hotel as we have in the past, but it was great to get behind the mics again and share what's been keeping us busy over the past few months.

Jon has now fi...

The idea of the 'gentleman' increasingly seems a thing of the past – a costume drama caricature, or an old fashioned toff whose connection to the present day is, at best, a pending #MeToo revelation.

Jon certainly held those prejudices until he was introduced to the work of Zach Falconer-Barfield, the man behind 'The Perfect Gentleman', who's made it his mission to bring the best qualities of the well-rounded, Renaissance gentleman...

In a vast modern world, where we're constantly encountering strangers and trying to work out where they're coming from and how we can operate and cooperate together, we're living quintessentially unnatural lives compared to the tight-knit communities in which we evolved. It's as though we're living behind enemy lines: everyone's playing some kind of game we don't quite understand, saying one thing, but doing another; smiling while ...