QLR #8 Gary McGowan - Finding meaning in struggle and gratitude in perspective

The human condition is bizarre.

There are three huge questions in the world of science that have excited me for years:

• what is the universe within which we seem to exist?
• what is the Life that we seem to be part of?
• what is the consciousness that allows us to contemplate the first two questions?

However, while these questions are truly fascinating, the deepest and most profoundly useful query I have ever encountered relates to what may be considered the “dark side” of human self-awareness:

How do I live when I know we must die?

This is the fundamental question at the basis of what it means to be a member of the Homo sapiens species. And, it is in pondering this enigma that I am driven to curiously explore engaging topics and chat to interesting people.

I am Ciaran The Quarrelsome O’Regan and this is Quarrelsome Life Radio.

Struggle, meaning, death, gratitude. These are some of what make up the core of this juicy discussion here on episode 8 of the podcast.

Gary McGowan is the co-owner of Triage Method with a background in Personal Training, Nutrition Coaching & Physiotherapy, and a current student of Medicine at University College Cork. Beyond exercise, nutrition, and the behaviours we typically associate with "health", Gary has a keen interest in philosophy and psychology as it relates to the pursuit of a good life. All in all, Gary's interests all convene on a common theme: how to live well and navigate the struggles of everyday existence.

We do a deep dive into some truly rich topics including:

• Doing hard things for the sake of them being hard.
• Thoughts about concentration camp survival mentality.
• Christian ideals and the double-edged sword of the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution.
• Suicide, death, awe, and the mechanization of life compared to actual human experience.
• Professional soccer to murder charge: the story of Gary’s father.

Check out the shownotes below or the newly refurbished www.QuarrelsomeLife.com  for a more detailed list of topics and their associated time stamps.

One mistake that I’d like to correct involves my man Galileo Galilei. For some reason I say that he was doing his thing a “few hundred years before the Reformation”. This is incorrect.  Galileo was of course born in the 1500s after the Protestant Reformation had already been kicked off.

All in all this was a thoroughly enjoyable conversation. I personally gained a ton from it and can only hope that it may be of use to you too.

Gary can be found on Instagram and Facebook @skinnygaz as well as over at https://triagemethod.com/

My details can be found over on www.QuarrelsomeLife.com . There you will also be able to enter your email address and sign up for the fortnightly Quarrelsome Life Newsletter.

Before getting in to our discussion, I will close this introduction with a quote from Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece The Denial of Death:

“Who knows what form the forward momentum of life will take in the time ahead or what use it will make of our anguished searching. The most that any one of us can seem to do is to fashion something—an object or ourselves— and drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life force.”

TOPICS:

• 4.00 Doing hard things for the sake of them being hard.
• 12.40 Internal dialogue and overcoming physical pain in training.
• 25.15 Thoughts about concentration camp survival mentality.  
• 41.30 Utopian thinking versus the reality of the human condition.
• 44.00 Christian ideals and the double-edged sword of the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution.
• 1.02.55 The “God Shaped Hole” and the tension between having a faith in life and the avoidance of dogma.
• 1.13.50 Identity politics, the marginalization of disadvantaged white people, “Social Justice” as a cloak for avoiding difficult socioeconomic problems, and reciprocal radicalization.
• 1.37.00 Death anxiety and the role of Terror Management Theory in the reaction to George Floyd.
• 1.53.30 Suicide, death, awe, and the mechanization of life compared to actual human experience.
• 2.07.55 Human potential and the ability to contribute a legacy of action through individual responsibility.
• 2.29.00 Professional soccer to murder charge: the story of Gary’s father.
• 2.43.34 Gary’s powerful experiences with an orphanage in Belarus. 
• 2.53.35 When naïve utopian notions are confronted with reality.
• 3.04.25 Ignorance and death as unifying human characteristics and the danger of ideology.
• 3.13.55 Gary’s closing thought: train hard!