Terribly Honest with David Tensen

A kind listener to sent through a stack of questions, which I thought I would tackle in today's podcast. A lot of them emerge from concepts I explored in my last book, Decenter Everything, published in 2025.

A short reflection on what Gets my goat and makes me angry. I, for one, don't want to tell a small and common story at the end of my life.

In this episode I unpack and reflect on something called "Existential Labour". I also touch on existential angst and emotional labour. I highlight that chaplains, pastors, therapist and perhaps even life coaches can suffer under prolonged exposure to unanswerable questions, mystery and meaning-making.

In my book Decenter Everything, I say the following about Boomers:
"Inquire of most economists and they will tell you the Boomer generation’s wealth creation and sustained lifestyles have never been seen before, and probably won’t be seen again. For example, in 2023, American Baby Boomers owned 52% of their country’s net wealth despite comprising only 20% of the population. In the US, according to Federal Reserve records, Boomer wealth grew from $4.5 trillion in 1990 to $76.2 trillion in 2023. Boomers now have nearly double the wealth of Gen-X born 1965-1980 and more than five times the wealth of the Millennials born 1981-1996. In short, the current generation of potential elders across the West have been busy booming and enjoying the post-war material spoils at the expense of their own soul growth. Of course, this is a generalisation with outliers, but outliers exist across all generational means and the data is what it is."

Recently, a Boomer ( born 1964-1946) phoned me to chat about the book and the shallowness of his Boomer friends. In this episode I reflect on wealth, hoarding, and generations to come.
As always, you can discover more about me and my work at www.davidtensen.com

I am answering your questions! This is part 2.
I begin with answering a question on the tail end of epidsode 19 about writing. Someone asked : "Additionally, how did you decide what to write about? Context - I would love to write a non-fiction book one day but I have so much I want to write about, it’s difficult to decide on where to start!"

I then attempt to answer the question: "On the topic of ministry, I’m interested in how you ministered across many different denominations / church expressions and how you navigated different doctrinal beliefs? "

Feel free to send questions through on email or DM me via socials.
Find my books and more at www.davidtensen.com