What is a Good Life? What is a Good Life? #5 - Building a personal life philosophy with James Cussen
On the fifth episode of the “What is a Good Life?” podcast, I am joined by James Cussen, the Creator at The Living Philosophy.
I discovered James’ work through his well-received YouTube channel of the same name, The Living Philosophy. I’d strongly recommend this to anyone with a curiosity for philosophy or a desire to broaden their thinking.
Since devouring a copy of Albert Camus’s The Outsider as a teenager, philosophy has taken James on a journey from despair to immense purpose. His content, guidance, and ideas, have a strong emphasis on the importance of embodying the wisdom of philosophy and learning the art of the good life, so naturally I felt he’d be an ideal guest for this podcast.
In this podcast we discuss discovering purpose, focussing on the collective’s well-being as well as our own, building your own personal philosophy, the role of curiosity in James’ personal philosophy, and the considerable significance of family and close relationships in experiencing a good life.
Running Order:
00:01 Introduction
01:50 How James discovered philosophy
04:55 Finding purpose
06:52 Focus on the collective
11:26 Balancing self-work and helping society
14:13 Preconventional, conventional, postconventional morality
18:10 Using my work to bring everyone to the table
21:20 Processes for self-development
23:20 Ayahuasca
28:10 Acknowledging what could be beyond the material
32:30 Racing to enlightenment!
35:15 Anthony DeMello
37:50 Simple doesn’t mean easy
42:40 Simplicity or complexity
45:35 Deeper understanding
48:35 Building your own philosophy
53:30 A tool for cataloguing ideas / thoughts / dreams
55:58 Gardening my thoughts
58:53 Curiosity is a golden virtue
1:01:30 The more I know, the less sure I am
1:05:12 Well-being and truth
1:09:00 What is a Good Life for James?
1:11:44 The importance of relationships
For further content and information check out the following:
- For the podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
- The Living Philosophy YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheLivingPhilosophy
- The Living Philosophy Website: https://www.thelivingphilosophy.com/
- The Living Philosophy newsletter: https://thelivingphilosophy.substack.com/
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