'We Are Lucky to Be Alive': On Food, Freedom, and Facing Mortality
I was on Last Meal with Tom Nash, talking about how to create meaning in a world of infinite possibilities and terrible, terrible freedom.
I’m on the most recent episode of Last Meal with Tom Nash, an incredible podcast hosted by a charming Australian who is lucky to be alive. At age 19, he contracted meningococcal disease and lost both hands and feet and has extensive scarring over the rest of his body. In the two decades since, he has flourished as a DJ (he calls himself DJ Hookie), writer, and speaker. Scroll down to start watching/listening on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.
The conceit of the show is that Tom asks his guests—they’ve included people like
, , , , , , and —what they would want for their final repast and he makes it for them. That’s the starting point of insanely unique and wild conversations about life, death, and everything in between. Full disclosure: My last meal is truly terrible from a culinary POV, though if you know my penchant for crazy diets, you’ll understand why I went there.Here’s a slightly edited AI summary of my and Tom’s conversation, which is one of the most intense I’ve had in forever (it was recorded last September). I really enjoyed it and I hope you find it interesting. It’s definitely in keeping with my growing insistence that our cultural pessimism stems not from reduced material conditions but from our near-complete triumph over scarcity. I call this The Agony of Abundance, or a negative, even neurotic, response to unprecedented material wealth and personal freedom. We have thankfully thrown off most of the shackles of the past and have nearly unlimited choice in most aspects of our lives (where to live, whom to love, what to believe, where to work, etc)—now we need to build the world(s) we want to live in. ‘We are as gods and might as well get good at it,’ wrote
when he launched The Whole Earth Catalog back in 1968. That’s more true now than ever.Nick Gillespie’s Last Meal is a moving and philosophical conversation with the Editor-at-Large of Reason magazine. It’s not just about food—it’s about mortality, meaning, freedom, and the man-made world. Gillespie discusses his deep admiration for artificial and lab-created products as symbols of human creativity, his Promethean outlook on life, and his Christian existentialist roots (without the Christ).
He reflects on how we are unimaginably lucky to be alive now, how failure is essential to progress, why optimism about the future is warranted, and why building a meaningful life—knowing it will someday be wiped away—is the great human project. Gillespie also shares personal stories about his immigrant family history, feelings about legacy, love, death, and the urgency to act without certainty.
Listeners will come away with a passionate, intellectually rich, and ultimately life-affirming perspective on how to live meaningfully in a fleeting, chaotic world.
Here are the chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:09 Nick Gillespie's Last Meal
01:52 Promethean Philosophy and Enlightenment
02:53 Christian Existentialism and Barabbas
04:41 Creating Meaning in a Post-War World
07:01 Living Forever and Appreciating the Present
09:07 Imposter Syndrome and Personal Growth
14:29 Legacy and Parenting
15:56 Artificial vs. Natural Preferences
19:50 Failures and Success in Life
24:08 Reflections on Mortality and Meaning
26:37 The Ideal Last Meal Context
28:14 Last Word
Watch Tom’s 2019 TEDx talk, The Perks of Being a Pirate.
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And watch the rest of his series!
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So good, Nick. Greatly enjoyed. Thank you.