Hello everyone, I'm Stephen West. This is philosophize this.

Happy to be here. Happy to be feeling good. Good to see you all.

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Today's episode we start to look at the work of Ernest Becker. I hope you love the show today

So the last thing I'd ever want to do is be disrespectful of your time with this podcast

But with episodes being released in between installments of this creation and meaning series

I'll make it quick

But I feel like there are a couple things I got to prime the episode with right off the bat first off

This is an episode in the creation of meaning series

Second at the center of this series has been a main character so to speak a protagonist

And if you've listened to the other episodes in this series and you already know who I'm talking about here

This is a person who believes that we're living in what seems to be a

Disinterested universe. This is a person who is basically

subsisting in Western modernity living in a culture of complete and total abundance and yet starving at an existential level

starving for some real sense of recognition in this world of digital ontologies starving for identity

starving for a system of meaning that will actually endure throughout their otherwise day-to-day

Conjugal visits with suffering. We all know who I'm talking about here and while these are not funny problems to be having

You gotta admit

They're at least pretty ironic problems to be having given the circumstances here

We are overpopulated and yet often feel completely alone

...