The Observing I

Nikolai Federov: The Librarian who declared war on Death

What if your maturity is just surrender with better posture?

Feb 24 • David Johnson

47:49

Jan Patočka and the Philosophy of Living in Truth

What it means to live without the comfortable lie

Feb 17 • David Johnson

52:51

Mikhail Bakhtin and the Unfinished Self

The monologue you call your identity is about to break

Feb 10 • David Johnson

44:13

Lev Shestov and the Violence of Reason

You think you're free. You might be wrong.

Feb 3 • David Johnson

2

56:22

January 2026

The Berdyaev Problem: What If You're Afraid of Freedom?

On persons becoming things, and why creating is the only resistance left.

Jan 27 • David Johnson

4

1

53:32

Dostoevsky: Patient Zero of the Nervous Breakdown

The Crystal Palace and the Spiteful Soul

Jan 20 • David Johnson

1

36:51

Kafka and the Machinery of Modern Dread

Existential crises delivered ad-free.

Jan 13 • David Johnson

4

42:00

Welcome to 2026

And what we have in store for the podcast

Jan 6 • David Johnson

1

3:02

December 2025

The Vanishing of Vernon Pale

On the ethics of obligation, and what it costs to become no one.

Dec 16, 2025 • David Johnson

1

46:39

The Secret Lives of Objects

Graham Harman's object-oriented ontology

Dec 9, 2025 • David Johnson

1

42:52

Chronophobia: Why Modern Life Makes Us Afraid of Time Itself

A journey into the shame, regret, and panic that hides beneath the surface of our relationship with time.

Dec 2, 2025 • David Johnson

1

43:46

November 2025

Ethics for the End of Everything

Why meaninglessness and suffering are not the same thing

Nov 25, 2025 • David Johnson

1

52:19