‘Let’s start a podcast!’ is to the 2020s, it is often said, is what ‘Let’s start a band!’ was to previous decades. While there’s truth to this comparison, the key difference lies in the enjoyability for one’s friends.

If many of my friends were to start a band (there are notable exceptions), I would not be able to say from a place of honesty that I thought their music was good. I’d support them, of course, and cheer, and whoop. And I would love seeing my friends do something they were passionate about.

But I’d imagine the odds of my loving it on an aesthetic, or an artistic, level, to be low. Creating good music is really, really hard. I say this as someone who could never. Vibes can do a lot of the leg work, but actually good music requires creativity, rhythm, passion, and at least some level of technical proficiency.

Podcasting, I’d argue, is different. In a recent article, I broke down what I think makes a good podcast – essentially, that the host has: a propensity for telling the truth; a willingness to engage with ideas; is incisive enough to compellingly challenge their guest; and, perhaps most importantly, that they are a good person.

On reflection, I’d probably add a final qualifier: that the person to whom you’re listening is charismatic and likeable. Provided you think of your friends as representing these qualities (and I very much hope you do), then your learning of your friends starting – or appearing upon – a podcast, is a lovely thing.

This morning, my friend Ben shared with me his guest appearance, on the first episode of The Durham Podcast. As someone who cherishes impassioned, idea-rich conversations, and likes Ben very much, I was thus excited.

The Debate and Discussion Society (DADS) was a society I only attended a handful of times but always enjoyed. Each week a topic would be debated, on myriad conventional and unconventional issues. The format was relaxed, the people were all cool – seemingly good natured with interesting minds – and, thereby, good discussion flowed forth.

There were two people I knew there better than others, although still not admittedly that well. One was a man named Will, who I remember as being kind, and having a warmly sardonic, deeply self-deprecating sense of humour. Very dry, very funny. And the other, was a man named Sam.

I had met Sam a number of times at various talks and events. I only met him a handful of times, but the impression he made on me was indelible. He was a considered and serious thinker, who teemed with curiosity and an infectious passion for ideas. His manner of speech emblemised these qualities, but had to it also a delightful softness, a built-for-radio unflappable calm.

I remember some pretty compelling conversations we had about meditation (he’d sat a ten-day silent retreat), and he introduced me to Will Self’s idea of Psychogeography, an idea I still like very much.

A few members hosted a podcast, then named the DADS Podcast.I only listened to one episode of the DADS podcast last year, but my god, it was funny. The DADS Christmas special, featuring Will, Sam, and another man, Gabriel, debated the greatest Christmas song of all time. The three of them just so tangibly enjoyed each other’s company, that it was a huge pleasure to spend (approximated) time with them too.

This year, it has been relaunched, rebranded and rebirthed as The Durham Podcast. Happily, it continues in the vein of its predecessor.

The new co-hosts, Rue and Casper, seemingly have great chemistry, and bring a delightful energy to the podcast. Casper is funny, providing a very English challenge – both in flavour of humour, and nature of argument – to the Eastern spirituality advocated for by Ben and Sam (the guests on this debut episode). He brought a necessary grounding to what was a very esoteric conversation, making it both amusing and comprehensible.

Rue is a natural born podcaster, excellent throughout. As Sam and Ben sweepingly weave through philosophical concepts and spiritual instruction, she masterfully balances upon a tight rope, providing them both the space to run whilst also centring their endless flow. Her questioning is astute, her critical thinking active, and her melodic laugh continually enlightens the conversation.

 I first met Ben at an Effective Altruism talk in Durham last year, and we first conversed at the social afterwards. Over pizza in the Mary’s JCR, we spoke and listened, until, relatively quickly, one of us struck upon Sam Harris.

Having spent so many days in the years prior filling my mind’s pail with Harris’s ideas, this conversation with Ben enabled a serious spouting of it all. An influential teacher of Ben’s too, the conversation that ensued can only be described as one of my life’s most psychedelic moments.

It was an open space in which emerged an effervescent stream of kaleidoscopic communication. We were speaking the same language, soaking in the same serotonin. Talking in the same frames of speech without having to calibrate each other’s definitional barometers. How good it felt, to share in these ideas with someone who could see as I saw, speak as I spoke.

Further conversation revealed that, to my eyes, it was not Sam Harris which was the point at which we collided. Instead, it was that we had an uncannily similar experience of reality, an understanding of self, consciousness, meaning and beauty, that almost mirrored that of the other. Like many psychedelic experiences, it was profound, beatific, overstimulating, and also, on some level, unsettling.

I don’t think it’s too presumptive to say, that we have learnt much from each other, and continue to do so.

My memory does not recall me knowing Ben and Sam together. I had never met them both at the same time, and I was not aware that they had yet crossed paths. One can imagine by delight then, in hearing the two of them talk together on the things that I find most compelling.

Formally positioned as “Is Buddhism the answer to the lost spirituality of the West”, they spoke broadly and beautifully on all matters spiritual. The essentiality of meditation practice, the profound insights that can be gleaned from it, Buddhism as a philosophy rather than a religion, and some conversation too on different sects, or approaches, within it. I particularly loved their shared exploration of how thought is language manifested in consciousness. Thought as an addiction, as an evolutionary mechanism gone haywire.

Their knowledge is impressive, and it was a real pleasure for me to hear how these two delighting people conceptualise their conscious experience. They speak with command, on issues that are, by their nature, irreducible to words.

In years bygone, each new idea I heard would hum with profundity, and flutter by with promises of truth and understanding. When I now think about or read philosophy, there is a flavour-tone of nostalgia, of wistful longing, for the days when ideas used to regularly electrify me. Now, this is fewer and farther between.

Perhaps the dulling comes from leaving educational institutions, where free thought can thrive, and tasting instead the restrictive goulash of the infinitely complex wider world. Perhaps this stems from each hunt for new philosophy bringing lower peaks, my serotonin receptors anaesthetised by the repeated disappointment of eventually finding each idea to be lacking something. Unlike Derek Parfit, I am sceptical we will ever find a Theory X, an idea which encapsulates all philosophical truth.

Regardless, how refreshing it is to hear four people think, move and understand together, with a zeal and energy that is fervent and infectious. They all think clearly, communicate with elegance, and do so throughout with great humour and kindness.

The podcast, as the Spotify caption reads, is a “more chill debate society”, a place for “fostering conversation and dialectics instead of partisanship”. It is with honesty I can say, not just loyalty or respect for friends, that this podcast meets these ambitions, then surpasses them. To be honest, I’m just glad that Ben didn’t start a band.

In listening to this episode, I held no sense that I wished to be a part of the conversation. I was instead content and grateful to be merely privy to it. Now that is what good podcasting is all about.