The Wes Cecil Podcast

Epizody

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  An Invitation to Being Human: Ep. 8 - Kindness 27.07.2026 52min

  Lin-Yutang, Henry James and Herman Hesse all agree that kindness is perhaps the central value for any civilization. Obviously, our current dominant culture has little or no place for kindness as a goal. However, it is the cultivation of kindness and the capacity for kindness that underpins our capacity for joy. Kindness is not sacrificial but rather additive in that it is beneficial for all. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Taoism: Ep. 3 - The I Ching Nature and You 24.07.2026 42min

  If you reject laws, codes, rituals, and words as guides to organizing life and society, what is left? Nature! To understand the Taoist emphasis on Nature it is important to understand that it is offering a concrete, experiential response to what they saw as abstract, metaphysical and ultimately self-defeating approaches to living. Key to this was Taoism’s co-evolution with the I Ching as a central text and guide to thought.Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month.Image credit: Thanato, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  An Invitation to Being Human: Ep. 7 - The Human Experience is NOT for Sale 20.07.2026 47min

  If we want to be happy, we can go to the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ for the low cost of $5,000 to $15,000 for a family of four. Food, water, love, friends, joy, beauty, and more are continuously being re-packaged and sold back to us AS IF they are scarce and not available to us without some intermediary. However, as with competition, this notion of scarcity simply alienates from the most human elements of our own existence which, in any case, can’t be sold. Freeing ourselves from this notion from this scarcity mindset is a key element of recapturing our humanity.Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Taoism: Ep. 2 - The Path that is the Path 17.07.2026 46min

  Two key insights from a key section of the Tao Te Ching ask us to question 1) Our propensity for committing ourselves to pre-established narratives and 2) Our love of language games. By throwing these fundamental tendencies into doubt, Taoism provides a radical critique of pretty much every conceivable system, not just the prominent schools of Chinese philosophy. While the passages seem a bit gnomic and mystical, they are rather a very clear articulation of a key source of human confusion and unhappiness. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month.Image credit: Thanato, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  An Invitation to Being Human: Ep. 6 - Life is Not a Competition 13.07.2026 49min

  Perhaps one of the most pernicious concepts in modern society is the concept that we are all in competition for scarce resources. In this zero sum conception of the world, each human must, by necessity, compete with others for survival and self-expression. By reflecting on the writings of Primo Levi - particularly his “If This is a Man” - I try to underline how this deeply flawed and dangerous vision of the human condition actually destroys the possibility of simply being a human being at all. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Taoism: Ep. 1 - The Eternal Tao 10.07.2026 51min

  Taoism has been generally received in the West as a mystical, quasi-metaphysical philosophy. However, understanding its historical context and development helps place Taoism within its political and folk tradition. This series explores the complex and powerful vision of Taoism that may be more relevant today than ever before in its more than 2400 year tradition. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month.Image credit: Thanato, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  An Invitation to Being Human: Ep. 5 - The External and The Internal 06.07.2026 58min

  The dynamic interplay between the external and internal world is the very core of being human. The degree to which we cultivate ourselves within an experience of the world is the degree to which we can evolve and deepen our sense of ourselves and our world. It is this growingness that gives meaning and impulse to lives that thrive. Lacking this, we feel shallow, detached and depressed.Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Reading The Bhagavad Gita: Conclusion 04.07.2026 30min

  Congratulations, you’ve read the Gita. Ancient texts are often difficult and a bit offputting but they really help us discover the structures of our own thinking and how our culture has conditioned us to expect certain forms and arguments. While Krishna ends up arguing for acceptance of one’s place in society, he also argues that the way to truth is through inward searching and true dedication. The path of joyful wisdom and duty that is meaningful and light fulfil the brief, not withdrawal, unnecessary suffering and worldly renunciation. Thanks for reading along. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  An Invitation to Being Human: Ep. 4 - Discover Yourself 29.06.2026 48min

  Bizarrely, in a society that isolates people, we also don’t spend much time with ourselves. Consistently pulled from ourselves, striving for external standards and ignoring our bodies we lose track of the one thing that really makes us ourselves - ie ourselves. It is prosaic to say, but we need to spend some time with ourselves to actually be a person. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Reading The Bhagavad Gita: Books 14, 15 & 16 26.06.2026 28min

  We move from the Metaphysical arguments about How the universe is to how we should translate that understanding into our lives. And we finally get the argument for why Arjuna must indeed ride forth to kill his family and, oddly, it makes a lot of sense. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  An Invitation to Being Human: Ep. 3 - Be a Burden 22.06.2026 55min

  We receive endless messages about the importance of being independent, standing on our own, making something of ourselves and so forth that it is easy to forget this is all nonsense at best and life destroying lies at worst. Humans are, necessarily, social animals and can only achieve our potential within the context of being dependent. The question is not one of dependence vs. independence but rather how we construct our relationships relative to the structures and people we are dependent upon. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Reading The Bhagavad Gita: Books 11, 12 & 13 19.06.2026 25min

  The fascinating parallels with the Book of Job in Chapter 11 of the Gita helps to highlight the profound differences between the Hindu and Christian tradition and the concept of the divine at the center of each religion. Books 12 and 13 provide a subtle but powerful reconceptualization of Buddhist values that places Vishnu at the center of Transcendent Enlightenment. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions.Starting at $2/month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  An Invitation to Being Human: Ep. 2 - Make Something 15.06.2026 51min

  It is commonplace and true that we live in a consumer society. Less noticed is that being a consumer casts us in a role as passive non-makers who do not produce and participate but simply define ourselves by an association with objects or events. It is primarily by making that we can orient ourselves and escape a sense of meaninglessness in the world - which is why the notion of a consumer society is so powerfully anti-human. Join Wes on Patreon for a deeper dive into the ideas we explore on the podcast. It’s a space for lifelong learners — with bonus lectures, course materials, peer discussion, and audio diaries from France. Wes is active in the community and often engages directly with listener questions. Starting at $2/month. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Reading The Bhagavad Gita: Books 8, 9 & 10 12.06.2026 27min

  The Atman, Brahman, and Karma are presented quite clearly in book 8 and the implications are then extrapolated in Nine and Ten. These are the key ideas at the heart of Hinduism. The Atman is a challenge for western audiences because it pre-supposes a very different concept of individuality and what constitutes a self. A powerfully metaphysical argument, it challenges quite directly the critiques of metaphysics that have been at the heart of western philosophy for at least 200 years.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  New Series! An Invitation to Being Human: Ep. 1 - Go Outside 08.06.2026 52min

  This series is a concrete extrapolation of the ideals of Humanism within the context of our contemporary society. While it might seem like we can’t help but know how to be human, the pressures and structure of our society are powerfully opposed to the expressions of the ideals of Humanism and, de facto, of our human potential.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Reading The Bhagavad Gita: Book 7 05.06.2026 26min

  It sounds a lot like monotheism, and perhaps this is what Krishna is arguing, but it is a conceptual framework very much different than the Christian concept of monotheism (the Jewish people did not have a monotheistic view of the world btw). In Book Seven we get the very different Hindu framing of this question in which there is only one ‘god’, if Vishnu can be conceptualized in that category, in but Vishnu is also all the Gods and all the practices, both good and evil, so there is no single god or approach or belief that actually frames Vishnu. In essence, like the different understanding of Sin, our dichotomy of Mono vs Poly theism cannot be applied to Hindu thought.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  “How Things Mean” - Live Lecture From Maastricht, The Netherlands - 4.30 26 01.06.2026 47min

  I want to share the live audio of the 2nd lecture I gave at The University of Maastricht, the Netherlands a month ago. This one is from Thursday, April 30.The focus of this lecture is the deep ontology—the how or why (instead of the what)—of our stories and discourse in the modern world. Here's the write-up for the lecture:We make sense of the world through our values. Unfortunately, we have become overwhelmed with discourse and media. We no longer feel like we can make sense of the world through our own values. In this lecture Dr. Cecil will share his critical take on our responsibility to slow down our media consumption and to think about our values. The lecture will be done in an accessible and engaging format using parables, stories and personal accounts to make the topic engaging and stimulating.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Reading The Bhagavad Gita: Books 5 & 6 29.05.2026 36min

  While slightly repetitive, the importance of the idea of holy work and doing as superior to not doing is central to these two books. I spend extra time on the concept of ‘Sin’ and how this is a misleading word to use in translation from the Sanskrit and how Dharma, Karma and Kama are not just about the endless cycle of life but also about how we experience our lives in the moment. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Values: Ep. 9 - Conclusion 25.05.2026 47min

  In conclusion, I consider a few of the pitfalls one is likely to encounter if they decide to pursue new values. I also provide a few suggestions for some approaches that might be helpful in beginning the process of adopting a new set of beliefs. Mostly, though, I want to encourage anyone who might be interested in running a values experiment.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Reading The Bhagavad Gita: Book 4 22.05.2026 24min

  Krishna reveals the divine wisdom to Arjuna who is thoroughly confused by what Krishna says as you may have been as well. Some deep Hindu theology is working in the background of this passage that is difficult to pick up in translation. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON community to get your questions answered by Wes! (Yes, Wes is very active on Patreon)Plus, gain access to bonus lectures, peer discussions, additional course materials, and audio diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.