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Adequate Conceit

by Benjamin John

Adequate Conceit is a philosophy podcast told through long-form audio essays about modern life after certainty.Each season is a collection of reflective essays exploring what happens when the old structures of meaning — religion, identity, work, and cultural certainty — begin to fracture.The show began in the aftermath of religious deconstruction, asking what fills the space when faith no longer does. But it has grown into something wider.This season turns toward: • loneliness in an age of optimisation • identity politics and the exhaustion of being seen • artificial intelligence and synthetic intimacy • self-help culture and the discipline that leaves us alone • existence pain without quick fixes • the tension between being wild and being domesticatedThis isn’t a motivational podcast.It doesn’t offer life hacks or tidy conclusions.Instead, each episode sits in the messy middle — pulling apart cultural habits, philosophical assumptions, and the quiet contradictions of moder

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Episodes

  1. After the Abyss

    What happens after the abyss? After certainty fades. After the outrage cycle burns out. After faith, productivity, and the promise of progress start to feel thin. After you realise there might be no rescue arc, no final act waiting to resolve the tension. After the Abis sits in that space. This…

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  2. The Missing Conversation

    As we choose our AI tools — not by features or performance, but by which one feels like it gets them. That isn’t really a story about technology. This episode traces that feeling back to a much older loss: the disappearance of thinking together. The loss of unfinished work, intellectual...

  3. After We Were Heard

    We fought to be heard. We fought for language. We fought for a seat at the table. And that mattered. But now that we’re here, something feels stalled. This episode looks at what happens when identity becomes the main thing we defend — and creation quietly falls away. When outrage replaces...

  4. The Loneliness After Discipline

    We did the work. We deleted the apps. We got more intentional, more self-aware, more disciplined. And then something unexpected happened. This episode explores the strange, quiet loneliness that can appear after self-help works — when coping mechanisms fall away and nothing rushes in to replace...

  5. Season 4 Trailer

    When we last spoke, we were trying to make sense of a world that had fractured. Since then, something quieter has happened. We became more disciplined. More self-aware. More intentional. And somehow, more alone. Season 4 of Adequate Conceit sits with what’s emerged in the gaps: after self-help...

  6. Existence pain

    Existence pain, sometimes it's hard to be here at all sometimes trying to work the whys and how's behind that doesn't do us any more Favors a lot of the thinking here developed after reading Loves Executioner

  7. Love with a side of Pitty

    Do we have to understand before we love? We develop a particular type of care where we still pathologist the wants and behaviours of others who just like us might be doing the best they can. A caring pity. this time ask if there's anything a little better

  8. I am sorry your just 'too much'

    That time you burst out love all over someone a bit too early.

  9. New year's notes from forgotten friends

    a new year's message from a forgotten friend and us we were

  10. 'you can't feel like that, Its Christmas'

    Some Christmas we didn't feel the things we were supposed to. Other times we felt things only naughty boys and girls did. what about those times we were ungrateful? antisocial or didn't feel like sharing? Maybe we learned not to tell anyone, it's okay, you can tell me. I will go first.

  11. Perfectionism and the kid in the corner

    Perfectionism and the kid in the corner, when our virtue turned out to be fear all along, How do we break through to hit publish just a little more often?

  12. Whats going on inside 'Okay' people?

    Those intoxicating souls already comfortable in their own skin, did they already do the work? did they learn how to be this way? most often advice on how to be confident, charasamtic, or even just present centers around the external habits we see, the questions the eye contact the standing tall…

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  13. Do we ever really 'find' ourselves? if so How?

    Do we ever really 'find' ourselves? And when we do how come we were somewhere else distant from our first culture? all the episoads of the first two seasons centre around self acceptance and self discovery. Now we're ready to hear some of your story's about what it took, what it takes, to be…

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  14. That time you got too dark at work

    We're doing so much better, how far would we like to get? this week is a conversation starter, leave us messages about how you let too much slip? or how you felt when your teammate did. Where do we put our dark souls at work? and did the grumpy old guy in the corner have it right all along?

  15. Six myths about lies

    Lies and liars the fibs and falsehoods and the hope we have that we know something clever that will help us find them.

  16. You just don't seem yourself

    The tiny version of you that lives in my head didn't react the way you did. how we end up with inaccurate working models of the people in our lives and the practice arguments we have with them start to crumble.

  17. I am not keeping score, but

    Keeping score? building a case? or just figuring out who we are dealing with? It's impossible not to keep a tally of our interactions with others. Is holding loosely a recipe for getting hurt?

  18. Living in the unfinished tale.

    How the rags to riches tale hurts us, how oversimplified journalism bypasses our empathy and why not being done and still being messy gets in the way of us sharing the moments we are still living in.

  19. Stop me if you heard this one before

    The repeated tails and personal propaganda that that we lay out for the word. And the choice we can take to manage it

  20. The Hawk Tattoo, the made-up reason, and the truth it taught me

    When we create our own propaganda there's a story of who we want to be seen as. Maybe looking at that person tells us something new. Or we're so full of crap we forgot who were until we wrote it in Ink.

  21. Not for me ness

    A little bit of not for me ness goes a long long way.

  22. "I want's don't get" Learning to want and get comfortable with desire

    While there are plenty of us who have no trouble with selfishness others of us struggle to even begin to open the door to wanting anything for ourselves.

  23. The phantom limb

    part 2 of a 3 episode cluster on losing faith, this episode explores the impact of not having the belief systems and models of thinking to rely on. and makes parallels to losing a relationship or simply trust in what we think we know.

  24. Unconditional positive regard. (Loving the enemy, and everyone else too)

    Protect yourself, don't trust, don't love too easily and keep your energy for those who deserve it. To be strong, we preach our vulnerability, share our truths, yet we also hold such bile for our counterparts that we hurt ourselves more than we need to, and we never get from the other the change…

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  25. F is for Feedback

    Whose opinion of our work matters? is the feedback of our work critical to development or a step in the process we have got lost in?

  26. The Pendulum Swings

    Much of the time the argument we hear is the second half.

  27. You're not as introverted as you think

    When we need a new language to understand which side of a line we stand on the lines not drawn all that well. Introversion as Trates is no were like as fixed as it are made out to be and they are not the most helpful boxes to put ourselves in. is episode is also available as a blog post:...

  28. The school of mild knocks.

    A generation and more of self-help teach us we need rags to riches story before we come out as the Victor. Many of us follow an easier path and the story isn't told because it risks being boring not much to tell if we just did the things we were taught and it all turned out okay. Can we forgive...

  29. Bad Questions

    Intentionality in our questions, what response are we hoping for? This episode is also available as a blog post: https://bnjh.wordpress.com/2019/08/01/bad-questions/

  30. How identity affects capability

    Does who we think of ourselves as affect what we are capable of. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://bnjh.wordpress.com/2020/01/23/how-identity-affects-caperbility/

  31. What if I am the Bad Guy?

    Before we jump in and say not all Men before we leap to our counter-argument let's sit with the discomfort of asking if I am part of the problem what do I do next?

  32. Why all personality tests are garbage, but you should take them anyway

    A little riff I am often drawn into on personality testing. the MBTI, DiSC profile and Strengths. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://bnjh.wordpress.com/2019/12/18/which-is-the-best-personality-test-for-work/

  33. The one about the Wolves

    Maybe we don't have to deny our desires and needs all the time. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://bnjh.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/the-one-about-the-wolves/

  34. Adequate Conceit (Trailer)

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ABOUT THIS SHOW

Adequate Conceit is a philosophy podcast told through long-form audio essays about modern life after certainty.Each season is a collection of reflective essays exploring what happens when the old structures of meaning — religion, identity, work, and cultural certainty — begin to fracture.The show began in the aftermath of religious deconstruction, asking what fills the space when faith no longer does. But it has grown into something wider.This season turns toward: • loneliness in an age of optimisation • identity politics and the exhaustion of being seen • artificial intelligence and synthetic intimacy • self-help culture and the discipline that leaves us alone • existence pain without quick fixes • the tension between being wild and being domesticatedThis isn’t a motivational podcast.It doesn’t offer life hacks or tidy conclusions.Instead, each episode sits in the messy middle — pulling apart cultural habits, philosophical assumptions, and the quiet contradictions of moder

HOSTED BY

Benjamin John

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Adequate Conceit have?

Adequate Conceit currently has 34 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.

What is Adequate Conceit about?

Adequate Conceit is a philosophy podcast told through long-form audio essays about modern life after certainty.Each season is a collection of reflective essays exploring what happens when the old structures of meaning — religion, identity, work, and cultural certainty — begin to fracture.The show...

How often does Adequate Conceit release new episodes?

Adequate Conceit has 34 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.

Where can I listen to Adequate Conceit?

You can listen to Adequate Conceit on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.

Who hosts Adequate Conceit?

Adequate Conceit is created and hosted by Benjamin John.
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