In this episode of Speaking Body, I read a Substack piece reflecting on thinking publicly, revising ideas, and appreciating listener feedback.
I situate the essay in summertime observations and my immersion in Stephen Batchelor, then revisit my claim that Batchelor reframes Buddhism as ethical practice rather than a metaphysical or ontological system.

Drawing on Lacanian aphorisms about the impossibility of a “metalanguage,” I argue both psychoanalysis and secular Buddhism prioritize changing one’s response to subjectively experienced reality over fidelity to ultimate truth claims. I critique endless ontological theorizing using Batchelor’s “poisoned arrow” parable and examples of theory as defense in Lacanian analysis, then highlight Batchelor’s focus on removing reactivity through practice.

I close by linking Batchelor with Freud’s aim of transforming misery into common unhappiness, emphasizing that practice can alter our relation to unavoidable human suffering.

00:00 Welcome and Format

00:30 Why Think Publicly

02:11 Zucchini and Setup

03:46 Key Questions Ahead

04:59 Metaphysics Lacan Meets Batchelor

08:57 Ontology Endless Questions

10:33 Poisoned Arrow and Theory Defense

13:54 Ethics Practice Over Answers

16:07 Freud and No Cure

For the first time, Neil reads a written piece aloud to promote the Speaking Body Substack (speakingbody.substack.com) and to improve his writing by hearing it spoken.

The piece, titled “The Intersection of Psychoanalysis and Secular Buddhism” with the subtitle “An Ethics That Resists the Seductive Feeling of Being Certain,” describes his long academic life shaped by school calendars and his current summer-like mode of slower research and reflection. He discusses discovering secular Buddhist Stephen Batchelor via the Ezra Klein Show and reading After Buddhism, focusing on Batchelor’s ethics of uncertainty, curiosity, and resisting the tyrannical pull of certainty.

Neil connects these ideas to Lacanian psychoanalytic formation, plans a new cartel exploring Lacanian praxis and theology, and intends to share biweekly dispatches.

00:00 Welcome and Setup

01:09 Why Read It Aloud

02:14 Piece Title and Structure

02:30 Summer Mode Reflection

04:40 Discovering Secular Buddhism

05:32 Ethics of Uncertainty

06:29 Three Key Bullet Points

06:59 Lacanian Connection and Plans

07:48 Dispatch Format and Footnotes

08:20 Closing Thanks and Goodbye

Show Notes:
In this episode of The Speaking Body, Neil speaks with Sam McCormick, professor of communication studies at San Francisco State University and host of Lectures on Lacan. What begins as an interview quickly becomes a wide-ranging conversation about Lacan, teaching, fatherhood, clinical practice, and psychoanalysis as a lived experience.

Neil and Sam discuss what it means to read Lacan seriously without turning Lacanian language into empty jargon; the difference between knowing how to do something and knowing how to deal with what cannot be mastered; the place of the real, the end of analysis, the role of the analyst, and the importance of uncertainty in clinical work. They also touch on the question of making psychoanalysis more accessible, the meaning of payment and the body in analytic treatment, and the possibility of bringing Lacanian work into broader conversations beyond the clinic and the classroom.

Table of Contents:

00:00 Welcome and Setup

01:02 Why Sam McCormick

01:57 Scheduling and Ditching the Plan

04:25 Neil Leaves Academia

07:42 Live vs Asynchronous Teaching

10:51 Fatherhood Leads to Lacan

16:25 Knowing How to Deal

18:57 Sam Introduces Lectures

21:37 Building a Global Community

28:13 Seeing Suffering Everywhere

31:45 Psychoanalysis as Experience

33:39 Certainty and Repetition Loops

36:19 Discourse Theory and Mastery

42:45 Neurosis Psychosis and Not Knowing

46:33 Analyst as Little a

48:13 Trash and Sainthood

49:52 When Analysis Ends

50:45 Draining Jouissance

52:57 From Knowing to Desire

55:43 Hysteric Trap of Insight

57:50 Threshold of the Real

01:03:20 Why Teach Lacan

01:05:19 Access and Affordability

01:07:17 Psychoanalysis in Streets

01:09:00 Why the Fee Matters

01:14:56 Teleanalysis and the Body

01:19:37 Being Versus Having

01:22:31 Miller on Existence

01:29:22 Littoral Zone and Borders

01:32:20 Closing and Next Steps