Hi, this is Against Everyone with Connor Habib, a podcast featuring my conversations with

countercultural figures and presenting complex philosophical, spiritual, and political ideas in an

engaging and accessible way. Before I start this episode with author Philip Hoare, I want to talk

about distance and separation a little.

Have you ever been with someone you love or someone you like very much, someone you're

interested in, and say you go to a museum with them or you're listening to a song with them,

or maybe they're doing some sort of craft with

their hands they're creating something and you look at them and they seem so engrossed

and for a moment perhaps you panic because you think they don't even know I'm here they don't know

maybe that you brought them to the museum or that

you're the one who played the song for them or whatever it is. And you look at them and you

see an open, seemingly empty, but actually totally unbreechable and opaque surface.

You know, you really want to break the surface.

You kind of want to say, look, here's what I think.

What do you think?

Or, oh, I noticed, look at you.

You're doing this thing.

You're creating something.

And I'm noticing it.

It looks so cool.

Maybe you're walking in the woods and that person is just taking things in.

And you want to say, well, I'm taking things in too.

...