The Examined Life

Épisodes

• Anthea Lawson - Should we be trying to save the world? 22.06.2026 52min

  What does it mean to try to change the world — without losing yourself, or everyone else, in the process? This week I'm joined by Anthea Lawson: activist, writer, former journalist, and campaigner who has spent three decades working on issues from the arms trade to financial secrecy. Her new book, How Not to Save the World: Doing Good Without Annoying Everyone (Oneworld, 2026), is a candid and hopeful look at the traps that well-meaning people fall into — and how to find a better way through....
• Gavin Francis - How should we live? 02.06.2026 54min

  Gavin Francis is a GP in Edinburgh, and also one of the best writers I know of on what it means to be a body moving through a life. In this conversation we got into territory I didn't quite expect — how much of modern spiritual hunger ends up in the consulting room, why a diagnosis can be both a relief and a trap, and what it actually looks like to help someone climb out of a dark period without reaching straight for a prescription. He has a ten-point list he shares with patients in despair. ...
• Stephen Cave - How Long Should We Live? 11.05.2026 55min

  Stephen Cave is a philosopher, writer, and Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge. His work sits at the intersection of philosophy, religion, ethics, and technology, exploring humanity’s oldest questions about death, meaning, immortality, and what it means to live well in a rapidly changing world. Before entering academia, Stephen worked as a diplomat for the British Foreign Office. He is an internationally recognised public philosopher...
• Kathryn Mannix - Is mortality a threat or a catalyst? 27.04.2026 1h

  Mortality: Threat or Catalyst? A Conversation with Dr. Kathryn Mannix In this episode of The Examined Life, Kenny Primrose is in conversation with writer, speaker, and retired palliative care physician Dr. Kathryn Mannix about whether mortality is experienced as a threat or a catalyst for living. Mannix describes how early fear and resentment of death drew her to caring for dying patients, what she observed as medical abandonment, and how nurses taught her that the most important thing at the...
• Dr BJ Miller - How are you grieving? 14.04.2026 1h 5min

  BJ Miller on Loss, Meaning, and Learning to Feel In this conversation, Kenny Primrose speaks with palliative care physician BJ Miller, co-founder of Mettle Health, about grief—not as an interruption to life, but as one of its central experiences. Rather than treating grief as something that happens only after death, Miller suggests it is a constant human condition: the emotional response to loving things that inevitably change, fade, or disappear. The problem, he argues, is that modern cult...
• Dr Lucy Hone - What has loss taught you? 30.03.2026 51min

  Learning from Loss with Dr. Lucy Hone How do you survive the unthinkable? When resilience researcher Dr. Lucy Hone lost her 12-year-old daughter in a tragic accident, she didn't just study the science of grief—she had to live it. In this episode, Lucy joins Kenny Primrose to share the practical, evidence-based tools that help us oscillate between mourning and living, and what we can learn about life in the wake of loss. In This Episode: In this new series on grief and mortality, we explore wh...
• Season Trailer - Mortality & Meaning 23.03.2026 1min

  A short trailer for the forthcoming season where we explore mortality, immortality, loss, grief and finding meaning in the wake of them. In the above clip you'll hear snippets from Lucy Hone, BJ Miller, Kathryn Mannix and Victor Strecher - with other episodes to follow. Subscribe and stay tuned for the forthcoming episodes, and sign up to This Examined Life on Substack to receiving updates and related essays to your inbox - This Examined Life | kenneth primrose | Substack Support the ...
• Flourishing in a Digital Age 10.02.2026 42min

  We explore what human flourishing means beyond quick hits of happiness and how attention, character, and community shape a life with depth. We offer practical ways to set tech boundaries, recover presence, and build habits that support meaning and stronger relationships. • defining flourishing as purpose, virtue, health, relationships, and stability • attention as a moral act that shapes identity • flow states, boredom, and the role of friction in mastery • how persuasive tech erodes agency ...
• Surviving Hard Times: The Stockdale Paradox And Everyday Resilience - ft. Terry Waite and Lucy Hone 26.01.2026 8min

  We trace how realistic hope sustains people through captivity and crisis, from the Stockdale Paradox to Sir Terry Waite’s agency in confinement, and preview Dr. Lucy Hone's reframe of resilience as steering through rather than bouncing back. A brief, grounded message closes for anyone in a hard season, with a request to share and stay connected. • what the Stockdale paradox really means • why deadline‑based optimism breaks people • agency as daily practice under pressure • sir Terry Waite’s ...
• Victor Strecher - Who am I? 02.01.2026 49min

  Living With Purpose: Insights from Victor Strecher In this episode of The Examined Life Podcast, host Kenny Primrose explores the profound questions of life's purpose and values with Professor Victor Strecher, a leading expert in the field from the University of Michigan. Strecher shares his deeply personal journey following the tragic death of his daughter, which led him to a renewed focus on what matters most in life. The conversation delves into how reflecting on death and one's core value...
• Sir Anthony Seldon - What is the purpose of education? 15.12.2025 44min

  Sir Anthony Seldon is one of the most influential voices in the UK on education. He has led three prominent independent school, and written or edited more than 40 books. In this episode we explore how education can honour what truly matters in a time when AI can outscore us on the tests we designed. Sir Anthony Seldon lays out a shift from human capital to human flourishing, urging schools to cultivate agency, character, and love of learning. • redefining the purpose of education toward huma...
• LM Sacasas on why life should not be delegated 08.12.2025 6min

  In this brief episode we explore a short soundbite from a previous episode with philosopher of technology LM Sacasas. In it we explore the way that efficiency and ease might give with one hand, while taking with the other. - check out the previous episode in full here - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/michael-sacasas-what-should-we-be-doing-for-ourselves/id1680728280?i=1000705506079 - LM Sacasas substack here - https://substack.com/@theconvivialsociety - This Examined Life s...
• Leaning into Pain with Anna Lembke 01.12.2025 7min

  Comfort is easy; appetite is sacred. We trace a surprising path to steadier happiness by leaning, gently but deliberately, into friction. Drawing on psychiatrist Anna Lembke’s insight that our modern environment is addictogenic, we look at how endless convenience and constant dopamine nudges can flatten mood, fog attention, and leave us restless. Then we put the theory to the test with a cold North Sea dip—short, sharp, and strangely joyful on the other side. Across the conversation, we unpa...
• Dr Alex Curmi - how should we prepare for a technological future? 24.11.2025 1h 8min

  Dr Alex Curmi is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who also hosts The Thinking Mind podcast, and is a gifted communicator on mental health and self-development. Alex's clinical work and training has given him acute insights into troubling aspects of modern life, and how we might prepare for an uncertain future. The question which formed the spine of our conversation was ‘ In a world where technology has been quite disruptive psychologically for a lot of people, how do we prepare for an...
• Tom Chatfield - What myths are we telling ourselves about technology? 02.07.2025 56min

  Technology is taking on a mythic mantle as we look to our creations to supply us with a sense of belonging and purpose, but this is a category error because tech cannot honestly deliver on these promises. In this podcast Tom Chatfield explores some of the issues bound up with the ways we are thinking about technology. • Technology is not a bolt-on or optional extra, but has been integral to human existence since before our species evolved • The delusion of neutrality allows us to abdicate re...
• Rosie Spinks - What Do We Do Now That We're Here? 17.06.2025 52min

  Rosie Spinks Substack - https://rojospinks.substack.com/about Kenny Primrose Substack - https://positivelymaladjusted.substack.com/ Moby Gratis Music - https://mobygratis.com/ Writer and journalist Rosie Spinks joins us to explore her powerful question: "What do we do now that we're here?" Drawing from her journey from ambitious journalist to burnout victim to advocate for a different way of living, Rosie offers a surprisingly hopeful perspective on navigating a world where traditional marker...
• Ruth Taylor - How do we develop better cultural values? 04.06.2025 59min

  Ruth Taylor explores how our cultural conditions shape our values and beliefs, revealing how we can build futures where humans and other life forms flourish together on our planet. She illuminates the often invisible narratives that guide our thinking and behavior, showing how these shape everything from our personal happiness to our collective response to global challenges. • The "values perception gap" - most people prioritize intrinsic values like community and equality, but believe other...
• William Damon - Am I serving a bigger purpose than myself? 21.05.2025 54min

  What does it mean to live a purposeful life? Is the way you're spending your time truly reflective of your deepest values and aspirations? These questions stand at the heart of my enlightening conversation with William Damon, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a world-renowned expert on purpose and moral development. Damon brings decades of research to bear on understanding how purpose shapes our lives, offering a compelling definition that transcends simple personal satisfac...
• Katharine Birbalsingh - Why are we ignoring our future? 15.05.2025 53min

  What shapes our children's future? Who are they becoming? And why aren't we talking about it more? Katharine Birbalsingh, known as "Britain's strictest headteacher," has a clear vision for the role of school's in shaping the future of Britain. "Children are the future and families and schools influence who they will become, and we seem to care about neither," she observes with passion that's impossible to ignore. While politicians debate net-zero targets and immigration policies, Katharine a...
• Peter Gray - What do children need to develop psychologically? 07.05.2025 55min

  If you’re a parent or a teacher, you’ve probably wondered about what the best conditions are for psychological development in children, and where we might have gone so wrong as a society. This week, we talk with psychologist Peter Gray about the developmental needs of children, and why long school days, risk free environments, and too much supervision are wreaking havoc with their psychological development. Other episodes on parenting/teaching: Michaeleen Doucleff on the universals of childho...