Hello and welcome to What is a Good Life? A project exploring the big questions around what actually matters. Over the last 5 years, I have interviewed over 300 people around this question.
This week, I had a conversation with Ewan Townhead – an entrepreneur, coach, and author of Artist, Merchant, Seeker: Bring Your Whole Self to the Path of Work. We explore past-life memories that shattered his worldview, a period of burnout that gave clarity, and the seven years it took to write his book. If you're trying to integrate different parts of yourself into your work, this will give you plenty to consider.
If this project resonates with you, thank you for being here – and if you’d like to support it, consider a paid subscription, sharing, or subscribing.
Take care, Mark
1. My Weekly Reflection
My daughter blew out the 3-shaped candle on her birthday cake a couple of days ago. I don’t think I have ever seen a smile quite like it. She asked me or my wife to sing happy birthday to her on and off for the last month when we played together. It seemed like one of those moments in life where the experience exceeded expectations, as she gazed around a table full of family members all beaming and singing in her direction.
I sat in an airplane seat for two hours yesterday without a device, only for my eyes to be repeatedly caught by rows of smart phones and tablets in front of me. I ended up periodically checking in on The Truman Show from a lady’s phone two rows ahead of me. I spent the rest of the flight looking upwards to avoid the shiny flashing things and repeated the cycle many times. The tight Ryanair seat for this 6’4” body making both the strain and comedy of the moment more apparent.
I am in a strange sort of a confused fog these days. My life isn’t presently adding up to some traditional ideas of success, yet it feels remarkably good. Whether the two possibilities cross paths again for me is something I can’t possibly know. I suspect that not knowing has something to do with how it feels.
I love the act of exploring what things mean to individual people in all these interviews, yet I feel such an aversion to drawing conclusions or templates from those individual experiences. I find listening to and sharing in the experience feels as useful as it gets for me.
One experience may be about connection, growth, suffering, intention or confusion. In one moment you or I will be a hero or a villain, have succeeded or floundered. And it all goes on. Someone will die and it will all go on. Differently sure, but it all just trundles on. Ideas of legacy seem a bit thin in the midst of that.
A belief that makes perfect sense to one person might sound naive or foolish to another, regardless of whether it is useful to the person who holds it. Do you want to tell someone in a war torn country they are in control of their lives or destiny? Would you tell a couple trying for a baby without becoming pregnant that they need to manifest more?
I recall an early interview in this series with a woman who wished she would stop seeking to make sense of it all. I wonder at what point that pursuit actually gets in the way of a good life.
2. This Week’s Question
Q: Is there an area of confusion in your life you need not make sense of?
3. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
4. Full Episode - Artist, Merchant, Seeker with Ewan Townhead - What is a Good Life? #187
Listen to or watch the full conversation with Ewan Townhead below.
For Apple podcast click here.
About Me
I am a writer, facilitator, and podcast host, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 300 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.