Checking In

Seven episodes in. Two mini-series down. And somehow, we’ve already covered friendship, ghosting, power, wellness culture, dating apps, and the loneliness epidemic. But more than just naming trends or offering takes, I think The Second Look has become something I hoped for when I started it. A space to think out loud, to reflect, to pause. And at the center of it all has been Simone de Beauvoir.

Pavlosky, Jacques. 2016. Simone de Beauvoir at Home in Paris. Editorial 583022500. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/french-author-simon-de-beauvoir-in-her-parisian-apartment-news-photo/583022500?adppopup=true.

When I began this podcast, I wasn’t sure exactly what it would be. I had never made a podcast before. Talking into a mic felt (and sometimes still feels) awkward. The editing process was clunky. I recorded some episodes under blankets. But I knew one thing. I wanted to revisit Beauvoir’s work not as something frozen in a syllabus, but as something alive. I wanted to treat her writing as a wisdom tradition. A body of work you return to not just for analysis, but for guidance, for clarity, for courage. And I really believe that through these episodes, we’ve started to do just that.

Beauvoir is often remembered through her connection to Sartre. But sitting with her and her work, especially The Ethics of Ambiguity, The Second Sex and The Mandarins, reveals how rich and open her thought really is. She doesn’t hand us rules. She doesn’t promise a clean formula for how to live. Instead, Beauvoir offers an invitation. She asks us to grapple with ambiguity, contradiction, and the complicated responsibilities that come with freedom. She doesn’t smooth over the hard parts. She insists we live inside them.

That’s what has felt most striking to me while making these episodes. How much Beauvoir leaves up to us. She gives us a foundation. Freedom, interdependence, authenticity. But she never dictates what those should look like in practice. That is our job. It is philosophy that respects your agency, even as it challenges you to think more deeply about it. In that way, it has felt incredibly personal. Almost like a form of self-help, but one that resists the easy answers and moral shortcuts we’re so often sold.

Throughout this project, I’ve been surprised by how much doing philosophy in this medium, out loud and in public, through storytelling and analysis, has clarified my thinking. Writing is where I usually feel most at home, but something about speaking these ideas aloud has forced a different kind of honesty. I’ve had to ask what I really believe. What matters enough to record. What feels worth sharing. In that way, the podcast has become a space not just for philosophical exploration, but for personal reflection too.

There is something vulnerable about putting thought into words and sending it into the world. Especially when the topics are personal. The mini-series on friendship came from real questions I was wrestling with. And the second series, on what we owe to one another, felt even more raw. Writing about ghosting, power, and wellness culture were not abstract topics for me. They were grounded in lived experience, in messy relationships and quiet doubts. I didn’t always feel ready to talk about them. But doing so through the lens of Beauvoir’s philosophy gave me a framework. A way to hold the questions without needing to rush toward answers.

And that is one of the things I love most about philosophy. It refuses to treat anything as too small. It reminds us that everyday life (our texts, our friendships, our fears, our choices) is worthy of reflection. Ethical life isn’t just about the big moments, but about how we show up for one another, and for ourselves, in the ordinary ones. That is the perspective I’ve tried to bring to each episode. To take a second look at things we think we understand, and ask what’s really going on here. What does this reveal about the kind of world we’re building. About who we are.

So, as we wrap up these first two mini-series, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for listening, for sharing, for sitting with these questions. This podcast started as an experiment, and it’s slowly grown into something that feels more grounded and more alive. I’m still learning. Still re-recording awkward sentences. Still unsure how to end episodes sometimes. But I’m also feeling more certain that this is a worthwhile way to do philosophy. Not alone, not in the abstract, but in conversation. With a thinker like Beauvoir, and with all of you.

More soon.