The Poet (delayed)

Episode 74: Part 2. We Die of Being Alive: Move with Integrity

April 7th, 2026  |  Season 1  |  18 mins 25 secs

decision making under pressure, emotional control, epictetus, living with uncertainty, managing anxiety, marcus aurelius, montaigne, not reacting, overcoming fear, reacting vs responding, rilke, staying grounded, stoicism

This is Part 2 of my series "We Die of Being Alive".

In the last episode, I talked about how life itself—its uncertainty, loss, and unpredictability—is not a flaw, but the condition of being alive.

In this episode, I take that a step further.

Because the question isn’t just what happens to us…
it’s how we move in what happens to us.

Why do we panic, freeze, or act out of fear—and in doing so, abandon ourselves?
And what does it look like to stay steady, to face what’s in front of us, and then move with integrity?

This episode is about that space between feeling and action…
and how learning to live there may be the difference between losing yourself and becoming who you are.

Episode 68: Go to the Limits of Your Longing

July 29th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 39 mins

authenticity, gratitude, healing, poetry, rilke, self discovery, suffering

I was joined this episode by Chris and Elise Jones and Ali Talbot. We gathered in the warm, book-lined library at Chris and Elise Jones’ home and just talked.

We read Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem Go to the Limits of Your Longing, and from there we let the conversation unfold naturally. We talked about suffering — not in a heavy, hopeless way, but in the way you talk when you know that pain and beauty are woven into the same thread. We explored what it means to surrender to life’s difficulties instead of resisting them. We laughed about childhood memories, tofu meatloaf, and the glory of Saturday morning cartoons. We got real about trauma, caretaking, creating from heartbreak, and what it means to show up for each other when life breaks us open.

This episode is about sitting with what’s hard, about finding connection through vulnerability, and about how creativity — whether it’s poetry, baking, music, or just making something out of pain — can save us in quiet, powerful ways.

Episode 2: [Ignorant before the heavens of my life] by Rainer Maria Rilke

June 1st, 2022  |  Season 1  |  28 mins

change, hero’s journey, poetry, rilke

Read and discuss Rilke’s [Ignorant before the heavens of my life]