Tom Bast's Podcast

Looking for a podcast that strives to help you self-actualise with cool stories from fantasy, literature, history, mythology, and science?

I’m a novelist and a world traveller. I’m not a therapist, but I hope that these podcasts will help you on your path.

Each one discusses some aspect of our efforts to become the best version of ourselves that we can be. I don’t come at you like I’m some sort of authority who has it all figured out. Nor do I tell you all about myself as though my path is somehow instructive.

Rather, I share with you what I have learned from literature, mythology, hard science, and the many conversations I have had with people over the course of my travels all around the world.

I’m extremely fortunate in that people readily enter into deep, esoteric conversations with me. If you and I met at some business conference, we would be the two who were discussing Hindu mythology or the Knights of the Round Table while everyone else was discussing business.

I’ve always been that guy, and so I have learned a great deal from people I have met. I’ll tell you stories about how they came to understand the challenges we all face, and the pathways they found through them.

As a lifelong reader, I’ll also tell you stories from literature and mythology that seem to me to be relevant to our self-actualization. I’ll stay off the beaten path and try to make original observations from interesting sources that are not commonly used.

Besides literature and mythology, I’ll also bring hard science and scholarly history into our discussions now and then.

As we learn how strange the cosmos and quantum mechanics are, we come to understand the underlying reason why our consciousness is such an incredible gift and such an impenetrable mystery. Sometimes contemplating the strangeness sheds light on our experience of life.

History has gone through several revolutions in my lifetime, and as we learn more about the past, from an ever widening body of evidence, we can find ourselves in the present with greater wisdom.

I strive never to tell you what to think or what to do. My objective is simply to give you interesting additions to your own path to self-actualization. Ideally, what I have to say is relevant to everyone.

If I really succeed, I comfort you, letting you know that I respect the path you’re on, and share with you the profound difficulties we encounter along the way. If you listen, perhaps you’ll feel a little less alone, and little more appreciated.