Havana Cafe Sessions Podcast

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance." Karl Popper's famous Paradox of Tolerance seems something important to explore in light of recent events and what seems ever-increasing strands of extreme intolerance from terrorists to NeoNazis.  But what is Tolerance? Is it still something to strive for? And where are the limits of tolerance? This week Clay and Sarah discuss the Paradox of Tolerance.   In this episode: * a discussion of the whole of Popper's Paradox of Tolerance (including ways it is often misquoted) * what is Tolerance? (Malcolm Gladwell claims we often misinterpret the meaning of Tolerance) * is truth more important than tolerance? * The limits of tolerance * Tolerance with different relgious and political opinions and how this differs in extreme cases such as the recent NeoNazi rally in Charlottesville * The Dalai Lama on Tolerance - a Buddhist perspective

What is true friendship? C.S. Lewis famously claimed that "like philosophy, like art...friendship has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival." Kalil Gibran has written "Your friend is your needs answered. He is your friend which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving." Yet in our modern world of Facebook, pressures of professional networking and the general commodification of the word 'friend', we felt it was time to revisit this often un-asked question — What is a true friend? What role do friends play in our lives? Do we have levels of friendship? How should we 'be' with our friends?   In this episode: * definitions of friendship from Stoic philosophers down to Emerson & C.S. Lewis * the role of trust and judgement in friendship * social media & the commodification of the word 'friend' * levels, taxonomies and kinds of friendship * psychological studies on the necessary elements of friendship * can men and women ever really be friends?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both... Here in lies our dilemma. With every choice we make, we also say goodbye to other opportunities, possibilities. And knowing how way leads on to way... each choice we make leads us down a path with new possibilities, but usually not the ones we left behind. This week, Clay and Sarah ask: How do we think about those 'Roads Not Taken'? And how is our life shaped by the choices we make?

An old favourite of the Victorian era, Willpower has made a big comeback in recent years as the key to a succcessful life. But what is Willpower exactly? Is it a force like a muscle that we can strengthen with practice? Does it exist at all? And why does it seem to work in some instances and not others? This week Clay and Sarah tackle the question of Willpower and whether or not it works as a way to direct our life choices.

We seek spiritual paths to remind us who we truly are. If we don't nurture our spiritual selves we stand in danger of losing ourselves. And, indeed, we can even get lost in spirituality if we allow ourselves to identify ourselves with a single 'right' system that moves experiential knowledge into the realms of passive belief. This week Clay and Sarah continue their discussion of walking our individual spiritual paths.

This week Clay and Sarah discuss why we embark on a spiritual journey and reflect on their own journeys up to this point.  From magick and mysticism to eastern philosophy, Native American wisdom and Celtic paganism to yoga and Buddhism we've collectively been through it all. Come listen in and hear what we've tried to take from each of these wisdom traditions.

What can a man searching for an experience of the divine learn from Zen masters and Archangels? When the Archangel Gabriel suddenly appears to a simple Zen practitioner, the narrator must reassess what he believes about the potential of human life and the nature of our human reality. In this episode, Clay and Sarah discuss what they have taken away from Stephen Mitchell's fictional tale Meetings with the Archangel.  

"To the past, or to the future. To an age when thought is free. From the Age of Big Brother, from the Age of the Thought Police, from a dead man - greetings!” In honour of George Orwell's birthday on 25th June and the relevance of many of the ideas about personal privacy, mass surveillance and 'alternative facts', Clay and Sarah discuss to what extent our we living in Orwell's 1984

"To thine owe self be true." Hamlet's words have become famous because they resonate with so many of us.  We are happiest when we feel we can truly be ourselves, and yet this often feels more complicated than it should.  So what is an 'Authentic Life'? And what do we do when our need for Authenticity conflicts with our need for Social Acceptance and Belonging? In this episode, Clay and Sarah discuss aspects of authenticity and how it applies to the way we live our daily lives.

There are times when we long to be alone and seek out our own company. This kind of solitude can be a restorative and energising. However, there are other times where, even though we are surrounded by people, we can feel very much alone. What is the difference between these two ways of being alone? In this episode, Clay and Sarah discuss the vastly different experiences of loneliness and solitude.

Is it the events in our lives that shape us, or our beliefs about what those events mean? How do we interpret our past experiences to create beliefs about who we are and what we are capable of? And do we always acknowledge the beliefs we hold about ourselves or can they live in the shadowlands of our subconscious, whispering to us, and holding us back from really living the life we want to live? This week Clay and Sarah tackle the concept of our 'Limiting Beliefs'.

"The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates famously said.  Since the times of Ancient Greece, Socrates's Method of questioning everything from beauty, virtue, courage and friendship down to our most basic assumptions has endured as a way of living an Examined Life. So how can we apply the Socratic method to think not only about the human condition but to examine our own individual life?

When we think about our physical health, it is usually in terms of nutrition and exercise.  Occasionally we consider how stress might be impacting us.  However, some traditions that argue that an individual's physical health must be examined within a much broader context of their life -- in terms of their personality type, mental state and energetic constitution. So how can we understand the links between physical health and healing, and our psychological and spiritual practice?   In this episode, Clay and Sarah discuss: * Ayurveda - the traditional Indian health practice, known as the 'Science of Life' * The three types of bodily constitutions (known as doshas) in Ayurveda - Vata, Pitta & Kapha - including physical characteristics, approaches to work & social situations, responses to stress and lifestyle tendencies * Sarah and Clay discuss their own results of the 'dosha test' -- you can take it yourself here! * How we can use the knowledge from this Ayurveda 'dosha' test to keep ourselves in balance

Remember your six year old self? Your thirteen year old self? Your twenty year old self? Are you the same person as you were then?  Memory provides an important sense of continuity to our lives.  But do our memories make us who we are?   In this episode, Clay and Sarah delve deep into the land of memory to discuss: * Amnesia and what is reality like when you've forgotten your past (see this great article by Daniel Levitin, 'Amnesia & the Self that Remains when Memory is Lost') * Different kinds of memory (Semantic, Procedural, Episodic) * Are we the same person through time? * High school reunions - when the person people 'remember' collides with the person you are now * The impact of shared memories - family memories & communal memories * Questions of memory in pop culture - the film Momento & the TV series Black Mirror * What makes you You? Memories? Personality? Habits? Deeper consciousness?   What is memory for anyway?  A simple answer would be -- so we can learn from our past.  So we can resp

Do what you love. Follow your passion. This kind of advice has become a common catch-phrase of our time.  But is this actually good advice? Does it correspond to the reality of how successful people who are 'doing what they love' got to where they are today? This week, Clay and Sarah discuss the question of whether following your passion is worthwhile advice.

On the strange road to Santiago de Compostela, Paulo Coelho reflects about the experience of pilgrimage and journeys of all kinds.  In this episode, Clay and Sarah talk about what they’ve taken away from reading Coelho’s book The Pilgrimage.    

Stories are the operating system of human consciousness and myths are culture-specific upgrades, each new version bringing out new features and retiring some old ones. Yes indeed, we have a compulsion to turn almost everything into a story. Joseph Campbell has claimed it is the distinguishing mark of our species. The thing that makes us different from all other animals is not our emotional complexity or even our intellect, but our ability and indeed need  to tell stories.  So why do we need stories? What do they do for us? How can stories make us more human? We spend more time within the realm of story than you might think.  This not only includes our time spent reading or watching TV or films.  It also includes our propensity to constantly daydream -- playing out potential real life scenerios in our heads or replaying our version of past events.  It includes the way we answer social questions such as "How are you?" Or "How was your weekend?" Even things from advertisements to watching sports are taken out of

With more and more of our lives being lived online on places like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram is the need for offline communities still relevant? Or do our online communities actually strengthen our offline communities by bringing people with like minded interests together like never before, spanning local and global divides to link people up regardless of their geography. In this episode, Clay and Charlotte of @leamjoyjam explore the importance of our online and offline communities and how the two re-enforce each other.

Does it feel like everyone else is having more fun than you? Taking better vacations, going to trendier bars or cooler art exhibits or playing with newer tech gadgets? Do you worry when you step away from your iphone or email in case you miss something important (even when you're not expecting anything)?  If so, you could be suffering from the latest in our line of modern mental ailments -- there was Affluenza, Comparativitis, and now, FOMO -- the Fear of Missing Out.

Are we destined to take a certain path in life? Or are we the masters of our own destiny? Or is there middle way? Some subtle truth that both fate and free-will play a part on our path in life? "Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are...condemned," Wrote Tom Stoppard in his famous play Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. "Each move is dictated by the previous one -- that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it'll just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect that our spontaneity was part of their order, we'd know that we were lost."   In this episode, Clay and Sarah discuss: * Why we don't like the idea of Fate * The idea of 'God's Plan' as a possible conception of Fate with Free-Will * Hard core Destiny (this is Oedipus's problem!) * The role of Habits in determining our destiny. (Remember in the Matrix, the Oracle's explanation to Neo that "You've already made the choice, now you need