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The One You Feed

Can Radical Hope Save Us from Despair in a Fractured World? with Jamie Wheal

The One You Feed

Eric Zimmer

Education, Self-improvement, Religion & Spirituality, Health & Fitness, Buddhism, Mental Health

4.6 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Jamie Wheal explores the question of “Can radical hope save us from despair in a fractured world?” He argues that most of the feel-good positivity we are sold is useless when facing real crises, from climate collapse to meaninglessness. But there is a kind of hope that survives contact with brutal reality.

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Key Takeaways:

  • The internal and cultural struggle between hope and despair in the context of global crises.
  • The concept of “radical hope” as a resilient form of hope amidst harsh realities.
  • The inadequacy of typical positivity in addressing complex real-world problems.
  • The need for a new “rational mysticism” suitable for the 21st century.
  • The dangers of failing to establish a stable, shared sense of meaning in society.
  • The critique of hyper-individualistic and consumer-driven culture in relation to existential risks.
  • The historical evolution of existential risk narratives and their implications for modern society.
  • The importance of community and connection in fostering healing and growth.
  • The challenges of creating secular communities that provide meaningful structure and belonging.
  • The potential for a revived Western rational mysticism to address contemporary spiritual needs and crises.


If you enjoyed this conversation with Jamie Wheal, check out these other episodes:

How to Overcome Cynicism and Embrace Hope with Jamil Zaki

Human Nature and Hope with Rutger Bregman

For full show notes, click here!

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Either we create a rational mysticism for the 21st century, or we end up with national mysticism,

0:05.5

and that's the Nazis, the Third Reich, right? That's Jews will not replace us, Charlottesville.

0:12.0

That is a lot of hate-filled ethno-nationalism. So the bottom line is in that meaning crisis,

0:17.2

if you don't create a rock in the middle of that ocean, everyone just goes whooshing past the moderate middle.

0:23.6

And the first place they find community, the first place they get seen is in increasingly fundamentalist and extreme versions.

0:34.6

Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.

0:45.0

Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.

0:50.5

And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.

0:54.9

We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear.

0:59.6

We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

1:02.5

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.

1:05.8

But it's not just about thinking.

1:07.9

Our actions matter.

1:09.0

It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a

1:12.6

life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right

1:17.6

direction, how they feed their good wolf. Today on the one you feed, we're naming the wolves,

1:26.2

the ones fighting inside us, and in our culture at

1:29.7

large. Hope versus despair. Jamie Wheel argues that most of the feel-good positivity were sold

1:37.3

is useless when facing real crises, from climate collapse to meaninglessness. But there is a kind of hope that survives contact with brutal reality.

1:49.0

We talk about his book Recapture the Rapture, the loss of shared stories, and what it would

1:54.8

mean to build a new, rational mysticism for our time.

1:59.3

If you felt the tension between giving up and giving

...

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