The Day The Magic Died (And How to Bring It Back): An Interview with Dan Garfield | Ep. 2

Why do children naturally experience wonder while adults feel threatened by it? In this conversation with my dear friend Dan Garfield, we explore how the very systems meant to educate us can actually suppress our ability to experience the world as it is.

We dig into:

• The difference between curiosity and wonder
• Why "I don't know" might be the most honest stance anyone can take
• Why meanings aren't fixed objects but living things that unfold over time
• What happens when you stop filtering out weird experiences that don't fit your worldview
• How language cuts reality into the speakable and unspeakable—with most of life in the part we can't name
• The practice of paying attention without needing to understand

For anyone feeling like life has become a series of familiar categories rather than an ongoing mystery, this episode offers both a diagnosis of how we got here and a surprisingly practical path back—not through magical thinking, but through the simple, difficult practice of actually paying attention.

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If you enjoyed listening to Dan, I encourage you to subscribe to his substack. A few pieces I recommend are Radical Empiricism and Where is my mind?