THE TALKING ARMCHAIR

The Talking Armchair is my podcast moniker that caters to the top two interests - high strangeness, and heavy metal music, in the search for the moral meaning of my life.

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These interests have nurtured my growth perhaps even better informing my academic and professional pursuits. However, I also feel these interests pose more questions than provide answers - I’ll try and put that into my life context here:

I believe we are all presented with cues early on in life that partly set us on a path to seek the truth in why we exist - and we vary our response to those cues - from actively researching and pursuing them to ignoring them. The balance that one achieves to a great extent dictates how long they take to answer those questions. For me, those cues were found in the outdoors and the abstract, very early on in life and I have very vivid memories of myriad experiences caused by these cues.

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Those two cues have affected all phases of my life - childhood, adolescence and adulthood significantly - and to varying degrees. Therefore the extent to which one should follow these cues is the critical question The Talking Armchair aims to answer.

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My school life was anything but interesting, but it brought two tangible benefits: One - friends, the majority of whom I still count as good friends today. Second - clarity that forced pursuit would not aid my quest but ploughing through it would enable me to set out on the path to answer these questions. It also emphasized how important the right mindset is.

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Growing up in India, mental health is not given its due because it's often thought of as a stigma and a distraction to academic pursuits. I was forced to pursue a life of material benefit, which unsurprisingly, has brought me no answers. Yet my cues only got stronger and more disruptive to my life as it went on, stereotyping me as an “eccentric”, “insensible” and “lost” individual - exactly the target audience of these podcasts.

I believe life has taken me down this path for a reason and while it hasn’t been smooth sailing, my experiences have been an eye-opener, or an eye-closer, as the case may be.

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I’ve also dissected each experience with the benefit of hindsight, sometimes assisted by a friend’s parallel experience, with different circumstances and outcomes. I believe there to be a metamorphic truth to time and space - these questions loop through both time and space, constantly reminding me that I don’t fully understand things and urging me to act on my cues.

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These pursuits also raised the question of whether the morals and ethics I am subject to, are aligned and if in the justification of one, do I sacrifice the other? This is question two - pursuits of interests are not always aligned to what your social obligations are - chosen or forced, so which do you follow to make life, life?

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I’m aware that the issues I’ve written of are potentially mental health risks for many similarly inclined people who suffer from being unable to articulate why they follow certain interests and are often ostracized because of it. Furthermore, as their relationships deepen with the world around them, they’re often misunderstood by their peers. The Talking Armchair is a platform for these individuals to get them to talk about their interests without being judged for it and perhaps help them find their way or just to have someone listen to them.

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So, I’ll be harnessing the collective voices of friends and guests to talk about these topics. It’s a collaborative engagement that enables diverse opinions without creating a material benefit - which in theory should help transcend thought across science and theology. That is question three - do such pursuits help define your course?

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I hope you enjoy what The Talking Armchair brings. Remember there is no right or wrong answer.