This episode is another attempt to keep the podcast on life support. Like last year, our busy musician schedules (and lack of proper planning) made it difficult to publish several episodes throughout the year. With a few free days left in 2025 before some traveling, I gathered my thoughts and reflections from the year 2025 and tried to make them into this stream of consciousness style of episode.

The first topic I talked about was my musical reflections from the year, with one of the primary ones being my thoughts about how psychological flow works, aka, that "being in the zone" feeling. I reflected on the following quote, which I love:

On the theme of surrender, I also explored the topic of duende, a concept my wife Yankı read about in the Edward Hirsch book linked below on artistic inspiration. Duende introduces a mischievous, mysterious, and almost demonic force behind artistry. A quote referenced in this book is another one that stuck with me in my performances this past year:

I really want to devote a whole episode series to what we've been reading and thinking about regarding Carl Jung over the past year. Perhaps that will happen. However, for this 2025 reflection episode, I introduced some of my favorite concepts that I've learned from reading Jung or reading about him.

I covered what Jungian synchronicity is and a few possible examples that happened to us this past year. I also talked about coincidentia oppositorum, the coincidence of opposites, a mystical and philosophical concept crucial to Jungian psychology and also something I've wrestled with over the past year.

I gave several Jung quotes throughout the episode, with this one probably being my favorite:

Lastly, after probably getting a bit too wiggly in my thinking, I closed the episode with some thoughts about skepticism and how it can go too far. Being completely naive is bad, but it is also sad to have your skepticism dial turned up too much and miss out on some of the magic and "wiggles" that make life meaningful. Maybe the point is to find a balance between skepticism and the instinct to believe and to play.

1. [02:55]Musical Lessons & Reflections
2. [10:07]Carl Jung, Symbols, & Syncronicity
3. [25:37]Carl Jung and Coincidence of Opposites
4. [39:13]The Problem with Skepticism

1. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Affiliate Link)
2. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's TED Talk
3. The Master and...

Well, it's been over a year since our last episode! As a COVID-19 pandemic project, sticking to a consistent publishing schedule for this podcast has been tough. But we've always said that even if our focus on it fades and drifts, we'll continue putting out content as long as we have something to say.

So, we threw this episode together on New Year's Eve to at least say that we put out one episode in 2024. Enjoy our lessons, observations, and reflections on 2024, which includes topics we hope to cover over a few episodes in 2025.

We talk about the value of simplicity, gratitude prayers, learning to surrender, knowledge vs wisdom, and the meaning crisis in our culture and why there are so many zombie movies/TV shows.

"It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple." —Rabindranath Tagore

• [01:48] Gratitude practice/prayer
• [06:16] Earning your simplicity
• [08:52] The value of surrender
• [18:04] What is wisdom?
• [22:03] Meaning of life vs. meaning in life
• [39:24] The Greek word tonos and embracing healthy tension
• [45:19] Thoughts on toxic compassion

• Overcoming Nihilism (My 2022 article)
• Zombies in Western Culture A Twenty-First Century Crisis by John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro, and Filip Miscevic

You can always support us by leaving a rating or review in your podcasting app. You can also share our episodes with friends on social media.

But it does take a lot of time to put together a podcast, maintain a website, and write new content every week. So if you would like to support us in a more substantial way, consider making a donation through the PayPal buttons on our website:

https://exploringkodawari.blog/donation/

• Our Website/Blog
• Newsletter
• Twitter: @EKodawari
• Instagram: @exploringkodawari
• Facebook: facebook.com/ExploringKodawari

In this episode—especially since it has been so long since our last one—we decided to revisit the concept of kodawari and how it has changed for us over the three years of doing this podcast/blog.

Over time we encounter more knowledge and have more life experiences. And as we attempt to integrate those into a coherent life philosophy, our ideas about life change and update. I believe we have a duty to regularly bring a beginner's mind to our ideas so that we can "rediscover" them with novelty.

There is something cyclic to the way that we descend into a more chaotic state of confusion and then emerge from it by finding once again our deep truths with freshness in the present moment. This cyclic process can subtly or drastically update our ideas, making them more personal, genuine, valuable, and "true".

So since we are very different people than when we started the podcast three years ago, we felt it would be good to revisit the meaning of kodawari with fresh eyes. We especially lean into the uncompromising element of kodawari and why our society needs more "skillful inflexibility" to continue functioning.

• [04:36] Why are we revisiting the meaning of kodawari?
• [09:09] How has kodawari changed for us?
• [12:12] What are we uncompromising about?
• [20:41] Rethinking how perfection fits into kodawari
• [23:11] Why humility is crucial
• [26:32] Limitations of the intellect and Chekhov’s The Seagull
• [32:59] Our official 2023 definition of kodawari

• First podcast episode on kodawari
• Article: What is Kodawari?
• Japanese Ramen’s Kodawari
• The Japanese philosophy of "Kodawari"
• Chekhov’s The Seagull
• A Rabbi, a Priest, and an Atheist Smoke Weed Together

You can always support us by leaving a rating or review in your podcasting app. You can also share our episodes with friends on social media.

But it does take a lot of time to put together a podcast, maintain a website, and write new content every week. So if you would like to support us in a more substantial way, consider making a donation through the PayPal buttons on our website:

https://exploringkodawari.blog/donation/

• Our Website/Blog
• Newsletter
• Twitter: @EKodawari
• Instagram: @exploringkodawari
• Facebook: facebook.com/ExploringKodawari