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Zen-punk mixtape meditations from iconic Gen X Everyman Lloyd Dobler. Think Ram Dass by way of Rage Against the Machine, filtered through a VHS tape of Say Anything left to melt on the dashboard of American decline.
Imagine Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything as a middle-aged dissident: still romantic, still defiant, and thumbing through the Tao Te Ching to turn ancient philosophy into an anti-fascist dharma mixtape for the Trump 2.0 era; on a mission to craft a field guide for late-stage everything.
37 Episodes
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If Late Stage Everything is when the system still runs—just not for humans, have we arrived there yet? In Chapter 21 of the Tao of Lloyd, Lloyd Dobler (yes, that Lloyd Dobler) drops a zen-punk mixtape meditation for doomscroll times. When your phone buzzes like a casino slot machine designed by a sociopath, your nervous system is getting hit with endless war + climate catastrophe + AI apocalypse before coffee, and “normal life” feels like a group project run by billionaires. Chapter 21 is ...
A morning meditation with Lloyd Dobler—yes, from Say Anything—all grown up and trying (imperfectly) to become a dissident sorta-guru. This is a repeatable ~10-minute practice for mornings when you woke up tired, hit snooze too many times, or you’re already commuting to the capitalist timeclock circus. Built around four “sacred questions” (popularized by Deepak Chopra): Who am I? What do I want? What is my purpose? What am I grateful for? Expect breath cues, monkey mind interruptions, cultural...
What rules are you still following that no one is enforcing anymore? Chapter 20 of the Tao of Lloyd takes on burnout culture: late-stage compliance, people-pleasing, and self-policing disguised as “professionalism.” Then a calm, deadpan guided meditation on opting out quietly, imperfectly, and without needing to prove anything today. With Lloyd Dobler. Send a text. Ask a question & I will answer, maybe in a episode subscribe and share CTA 01. revise when the cold gows away Support t...
What happens when we mistake overworked and exhausted for virtue? Lloyd Dobler turns to the Tao Te Ching to examine why Americans are so tired, so rushed, and so starved for time with the people they love. Blending spiritual commentary, political critique, and dry Gen X humor, Lloyd asks what it would mean to design a life—and a society—where human beings matter more than productivity metrics. This is not a productivity hack. It’s a meditation on refusal, presence, and reclaiming time.&...
Ready to let go of 2025? This special episode of The Tao of Lloyd is a short, unorthodox guided meditation for anyone crossing the finish line of the year feeling braced, exhausted, and still carrying more than they meant to. Lloyd Dobler (yes, that Lloyd) all grown up—leads a calm, dry, anti-guru meditation built around four simple questions: what you’re still bracing for, what you’re carrying that you don’t need, what you can set down without forgetting, and what presence feels like without...
Why do powerful men keep fantasizing about public punishment? Lloyd Dobler riffs on “The Guillotine” by The Coup, written by Boots Riley, using the song’s provocation to examine how structural violence gets normalized under capitalism. In Chapter 18 of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu suggests that when a society forgets the Great Tao, fear hardens into spectacle—and power starts mistaking cruelty for strength. This episode was sparked by comments from Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir, who recen...
What does it actually mean to refuse an unlawful order—when no one’s watching, and no one’s officially in charge? In Chapter 17 of The Tao of Lloyd, Lloyd Dobler moves from a humiliating road-rage incident in a Whole Foods parking lot to a chilling national moment: U.S. lawmakers reminding the military of a long-settled legal truth—that service members are required to refuse unlawful orders, only to be accused of sedition punishable by death. Drawing on Chapter 17 of the Tao Te Ching, Lloyd e...
What happens when road rage turns into a near-death experience? In Chapter 16 of The Tao of Lloyd, Lloyd Dobler sets out to explore stillness, emptiness, and non-reactivity, and then promptly fails in spectacular fashion at a red light. A reckless moment of political rage escalates into a real-world confrontation that nearly ends very badly, forcing Lloyd to reckon with the gap between spiritual ideals and how the nervous system actually behaves under threat. Grounded in Chapter 16 of the Tao...
Chapter 15: Let the Mud Settle Subscribe free: https://www.patreon.com/TaoOfLloyd Monthly supporters get the bonus universe: https://www.patreon.com/taooflloyd/membership Lloyd aims the Tao Te Ching at Trumplandia like a spiritual weather report for a country vibrating itself into madness. Using Chapter 15, he explores three versions of where he comes from: Seattle, the Big Bang, and a VHS copy of Say Anything that slipped into the multiverse. This is a guided meditation for people who m...
What if the future keeps ghosting you because it doesn’t want to be predicted? In this chapter of The Tao of Lloyd, Lloyd wanders into prediction culture, political chaos, and AI riddles, using the Tao’s reminder that you can’t know the future—but you can inhabit the present. It’s a meditation on uncertainty, refusal, and staying human while the algorithms keep guessing. Subscribe free: https://www.patreon.com/TaoOfLloyd | Monthly supporters get the bonus universe: https://w...
Lloyd Dobler uses the Tao Te Ching to make sense of a tragedy in Washington DC: a National Guard member killed, another critically wounded, and a political system that turned grief into ammunition before the scene was even cleared. Lloyd traces the scapegoating of Afghan refugees, Trump’s threat to “permanently pause migration from all Third World countries,” and the creeping authoritarianism that arrives not with a bang but a slow-drip leak no one bothers to patch. What follows is a ...
AI acceleration meets sensory overload meets the eerie quiet that appears when you finally silence your notifications. Lloyd uses the Tao Te Ching to navigate machine-learning hype, Gen X dread, and the possibility that enlightenment may just be your brain in airplane mode. A Taoist meditation on clarity in late-stage everything. Send a text. Ask a question & I will answer, maybe in a episode subscribe and share CTA 01. revise when the cold gows away Support the show ABOUT / The Tao of Ll...
Lloyd Dobler returns with a guided meditation for an America that feels like it’s been written by Vince Gilligan on a bender with a quantum physicist. This chapter looks at the Tao Te Ching’s reminder that “the many” and “the one” are illusions we cling to when we’re scared, and how the Apple TV+ series Pluribus accidentally became a funhouse-mirror metaphor for our moment. Alternate selves, divided societies, infinite timelines, and the spiritual plot twist that We Is Us whether we like it o...
A rediscovered 2011 letter from Diane Court kicks off a guided-meditation crisis. Lloyd turns to Chapter 10 to sift through memory, softening, relationships, Gen X nostalgia, and the parts of himself that once believed in things like tenderness and courage. A Taoist deep dive into self-reflection, heartbreak, and emotional archaeology. Send a text. Ask a question & I will answer, maybe in a episode subscribe and share CTA 01. revise when the cold gows away Support the show ABOUT / The Tao...
Burnout meets spiritual wisdom as Lloyd tries to follow the Tao’s advice to “step back” while TikTok insists you “go the f home.” From Black Friday chaos to yoga calamity to a Diane Court breadcrumb, he tackles unclenching, trauma alphabetizing, and resisting a culture that treats exhaustion as a patriotic duty. Send a text. Ask a question & I will answer, maybe in a episode Support the show ABOUT / The Tao of Lloyd is a Zen-punk mixtape for late-stage everything—blending Tao Te Ching m...
Lloyd channels the Tao Te Ching, Bruce Lee, and Standing Rock to figure out how to stay fluid in a country addicted to certainty, shouting, and weaponized confidence. A Taoist survival guide to softness, resilience, and not cracking like a ceramic mug dropped on concrete. Send a text. Ask a question & I will answer, maybe in a episode Support the show ABOUT / The Tao of Lloyd is a Zen-punk mixtape for late-stage everything—blending Tao Te Ching meditations, Gen-X philosophy, and anti-fa...
Lloyd holds Chapter 7 up to New York and accidentally walks into a borough-wide spiritual awakening involving Zohran Mamdani, a bureaucratic bull, and a matador with excellent timing. A Taoist meditation on revolution, clarity, compassion, activism, and the rare moment when capitalism finally blinks. Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TaoOfLloyd Send a text. Ask a question & I will answer, maybe in a episode subscribe and share CTA 01. revise when the cold gows away Su...
A cryptic Taoist passage meets an AI-fueled attention storm, and Lloyd tries to loosen his grip without dropping the entire plot. Between tech hype, political theater, spiritual commentary, and soft rebellion, he explores whether small human softness can survive a system designed to monetize your nervous system before breakfast. Send a text. Ask a question & I will answer, maybe in a episode Support the show ABOUT / The Tao of Lloyd is a Zen-punk mixtape for late-stage everything—blending...
Is it possible to stay centered when everything around you is engineered to panic? Lloyd attempts to meditate inside late-stage America, also known as a 24-hour anxiety carnival sponsored by lobbyists. With Lao Tzu whispering calm on one shoulder and W. B. Yeats muttering doom on the other, he searches for one breath that isn’t manufactured by crisis. A Taoist riff on clarity, culture, mindfulness, and why everything seems to be screaming all the time. Send a text. Ask a question & I wi...
What would the world look like if the hippies won? Moving from nostalgia to social justice, from Reagan-era greed to democracy’s questionable taste in role models, this episode traces a quieter counterfactual: what might have happened if gentleness, softness, and care had been allowed to win—even once. Part meditation, part cultural memory, this chapter asks whether letting go isn’t retreat, but a different kind of resistance. Send a text. Ask a question & I will answer, maybe in a ...
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