Alone, Together

A live conversation.

https://lnk.bio/zdoggmd for all the things, including contact form, website, etc.

0:00 Welcome, and where the phrase "alone together" came from

0:34 The pain of being enmeshed with other people

1:57 Watching strangers alone together at an izakaya counter in Japan

2:39 The loneliness epidemic as something we're creating

4:00 How could you truly be alone or truly together

4:40 The dark night of the soul that comes with unraveling

6:40 Why Zubin only does live shows, never pre-recorded ones

8:26 Feeling rich in Japan, then broke again back home

9:23 Stephen Batchelor and being always alone and always together

10:33 How Perfect Days illustrates this paradox

13:04 What the seeker is actually seeking, and why it never gets it

16:34 Even seeking itself is already this

18:03 What was really being longed for this whole time

20:44 Grateful for the lives, and the parasocial alone-togetherness of it

22:21 A question about forgetting all this during a trauma loop

24:08 A childhood memory in the back seat of a car

25:10 Teenage daughter in tears over a boyfriend out of cell range

27:53 Fauci, Rand Paul, and not being able to know what's actually going on

33:56 Fear of blissful states ending, and the grasping that comes with them

36:20 Bliss currents in the body after getting back from Japan

38:22 Most days are just meh, and why that's the freedom

39:27 A visceral glimpse of no-self that lasted days

42:02 Grief for a father, and where he would even go

43:23 Shadow work and retreat as valid if that's what's arising

45:13 Wife's promotion to full professor at Stanford

47:59 Being recognized in Japan, and letting go of the Zdogg identity

50:00 Doing his own grocery shopping and the myth of toxic food

52:47 Fear of poverty and dying on the street after giving up the old identity

54:56 A mantra: just feel everything

56:00 Fauci's diaries, the pardon, and why nothing will come of it

59:39 Honest thoughts on Burning Man

1:03:12 The story of the vintage shirt from Shimokitazawa

1:08:59 Wrapping up, thanks for hanging out