Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby

Matt delves into the concept of embracing discomfort as a means of growth and transcendence, suggesting personal experiences where initial discomfort can lead to valuable outcomes. He explores how modern society tends to avoid discomfort, often inflating minor inconveniences into significant issues, as well as the importance of distinguishing between productive suffering that foste

Matt shares his views on the upcoming presidential election rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Maybe, just maybe, it's reality and not the media that makes everyone think Biden is old. And maybe, just maybe, the thought of another Trump presidency, along with the constant shenanigans and scandals we managed to live through last time, is enough to stress us all out all

A lot of the conversation around the Israel/Palestine conflict goes off the rails when people start confuse the people for the government or anti-semitism for anti-zionism. So with that in mind, Matt offers some tips to keep in mind if you want to mindfully criticize Israel without coming off as either uninformed or potentially bigoted.Produced by Stereoactive Media

Matt's father was an Israeli who grew up in Palestine back before the state of Israel even existed. He was also reluctantly a tank commander in the Israeli army because he had to serve. Now, Matt brings the perspective of his father, along with his own as he tries to explain how many Jewish people may be feeling in the wake of events in Israel and Gaza this month, which have ad

Have you ever gone to a rock (or pop) show and wondered why people pull out their phones to record it instead of just experiencing it? Well, now there's a place seemingly built just for those people. U2, once a band that explicitly criticized big commercialized theatrics (admittedly while exploiting big commercialized theatrics), recently played at the latestLas Vegas mecca of

As the saying goes, “a family is a dictatorship ruled over by its sickest member.” Matt describes his first hand experience with this idea by way of his own mother, but also parallels the concept with other organizational structures, from the armed forces to society itself. What lessons can we all learn from the both simple and complicated circumstance of having a loved one tha

From time to time, Matt shares some of his favorite paragraphs of writing he’s come across. In this episode, he and producer J. McVay discuss a few of those paragraphs and the ideas behind them. Featuring passages from the following:“Vicious Traps” by Morgan Housel (Collab Fund)“Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Great ‘Indiana Jones’ Adventure” by David Marchese (The New York

Have you ever been in a coffee shop or other public area when someone gets on a Zoom meeting, plays their music out loud, or does something else that should politely be kept private? Well, Matt has an open letter for all those people about the agreed upon rules of a civil society because it sure seems like a lot of people need a refresher in our after spending so much time away fro

From time to time, someone proposes the ingenious idea of a so-called national divorce to finally separate blue and red states that, to some, seem irreconcilable in their differences. Sometimes the proposal comes from someone on the right, sometimes someone on the left – and sometimes it’s someone as completely ignorant as Marjorie Taylor Greene. Well, now it’s Matt’s turn

“Aging well” is an oxymoron and the future will frown upon all of us. Matt explores the friction between generations that occurs when younger people expect elders to be able to keep up with changing expectations about language, behavior, etc, even as many elders are unreasonable in their refusal to even try. A wider willingness to forgive elders who are trying might be helpful,