In Krakow, Jonny meets Tomasz, a mercurial philosopher, and Weronika, a sharp-eyed artist. At first, there’s tension: a subtle contest for connection. But over time it transforms into an unconventional friendship shaped by fierce debate, unexpected loyalty, and the quiet moments that make people choose to stay. This episode explores the rare chemistry between three friends whose bond defies easy definition, revealing how conflict, contrast, and care can coexist in the same relationship.

Created and produced by Jonny Wright. Title design by Ellen Misloski.

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11: THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE ARTIST

I opened the attic door and almost backed out again.

Inside, two people were locked in what looked like a philosophical cage match—one seated, one pacing. The woman sat at a heavy desk, rolling a cigarette with the calm precision of a surgeon. The man stalked the room like a tall ship in a storm, muttering counterarguments under his breath. I couldn’t tell if they were fighting or flirting—or both.

I didn’t know it then, but I was stepping into something already in motion, a current between two people that I could never fully see, but could feel.

It starts with them: one an artist, one a philosopher. Weronika. And Tomasz.

These are the last ordinary days before the ground shifts.

Welcome to Go and Find Out. I’m Jonny Wright.

This is a story of discovering how to live.

I left my home, my job, and the USA in order to learn the old-fashioned way: with first-hand experience.

In these episodes, I ask big questions about life, not from an armchair but from roadsides and mountaintops, from temple halls and dance halls.

Join me as I hitchhike around the world, embrace the unexpected, and let go, one step at a time.

If you’ve ever thought about living a life outside the box, keep listening.

Because it’s never too late to begin your next adventure. OR Because it’s never too late to ask what your story could be.

You don’t need to hitchhike around the world. The adventure is right in front of you.

Let’s go and find out.

I met Tomasz first. It was my first time in Krakow, a year ago, and I got dropped off at the arched entrance to a cobblestone courtyard surrounded by apartments. The building was old but not in the charming way — more in the “generations of people have been quietly giving up here” kind of way.

Out of one of the apartments walked a young man, a couple years older than me. He was tall, broad, and unkempt with chestnut hair that refused to be tamed. The way he walked resembled an old dog’s amble, uneven and uncaring. I couldn’t tell if he was angry at something.

He met me under the archway, and as he approached, what most struck me was a glint in his eye. A piece of wild dynamite. It was unmistakably there, set in the upper iris of each eye.

“Jonny?” he boomed, grabbing my hand.

“You said you like philosophy. I didn’t know any Americans liked philosophy!”

And immediately I feel..understood. It’s not about what Tomasz says to me. It’s about how he speaks to me as though I understand him. Like we’re old friends. Like we’re sharing a joke that goes back to a middle school classroom.

“Oh” I think, “so this is acceptance.”

He leads me inside.

The apartment is filled with books, lined with books, stuffed with books and papers. He kept the rooms dark, thin curtains over every window. A perfect den for a bachelor-scholar. ‘I’m a slave,’ he said, grinning, ‘to Soren Kierkegaard and this damn PhD.’ Within an hour, he was pacing, ranting about existentialism, and pulling a sad potato out of the oven. I was hooked.

Tomasz had two modes. Either he had something to say or he didn’t. When he had something to say, he was saying it. He was possessed in those moments, his whole body caught up in the speech act.

It happened that first night when he spoke of Kierkegaard’s performative style of writing. The subject was nuanced and multilayered, and I could tell Tomasz was trying for the first time to talk about it in English. He paced, looked wildly around, searched for the word, working with all his might to gather up the idea in his head and shoot it into language. Inside his head the ideas were immediate and vivid, but language (and especially English) wasn’t so quick. He was forced to labor with it, wrestle it to the ground, pin it by any means necessary. With Tomasz, the match with language was no holds barred. He’d start with Plato, detour through a story about his neighbor’s cat, then circle back to Plato as if that was obviously where the cat story had been heading all along.

He was especially roused because he’d just quit smoking and was in the throes of nicotine withdrawal—snapping at the air, pacing the floor, warning me to steer clear when the cravings hit. But underneath that sharp edge was a well of generosity.

I’d go out during the day—walk the Vistula, eat cheap pierogi, sit in the Rynek square watching pigeons hustle the tourists—and by evening I’d come back to this cave of a room, where Tomasz would be in his next theory. Or crisis. The rhythm suited me. For a few days, I felt like I had found a wavelength worth riding, and a friend worth sacrificing for.

Then Weronika showed up.

She arrived like a storm barreling south—dragging a massive suitcase that thudded over the threshold, glasses slightly askew, a tattoo of a pistol visible below her shorts. Bangs cut with a surgeon’s precision, cigarette already lit. She sighed disappointedly as she stepped in, and barely said hi to me before her attention converged fully on Tomasz. They slipped into Polish, and I found myself pushed to the edge of the frame. The conversation confirmed: You are not the best friend anymore.

I’d been the audience, the partner in dialogue, the foil to Tomasz’s wild ideas. And then in an instant, when Weronika walked through the door, I’d been sidelined.

She gave me a quick up-and-down, then turned back to Tomasz with a small, dismissive shrug. She intimidated me because she spoke a language I didn’t know, both literal and cultural. She was fluent in the art world: raised on psychoanalysis and experimental literature.

We stood rather awkwardly in the kitchen. “Jonny’s come from America,” Tomasz said, bringing the conversation back to English. Weronika tossed off a line in Polish. Tomasz laughed, and I stared out the window, unsure if I’d been skewered or only ignored.

“I remember very well. At first I was angry or irritated, because Tomasz didn’t tell me that he has a guest. I was expecting to meet him and sit on the couch and talk about the awfulness of existence. And then there was you.”

From the start it was tug-of-war—her grip anchored by years of friendship, mine slipping on the thin rope of guest privilege. Clearly, the man in the middle had failed to manage expectations, and now she and I were forced into proximity—both feeling off-balance and jealous.

“At the beginning I was nervous, because although I love to meet new people, it’s kind of a challenge for me… not easy to feel comfortable when there’s someone new around.”

I wondered if I should leave. There’s only enough room for one of us in this town, and Weronika’s got the upper hand. She and Tomasz are complete together; they don’t need a third. Either I should pack my bags tonight, or somehow gain the confidence of this sharp-edged stranger.

I only had a few hours to make my decision.

That evening, as we walked back home from dinner, Tomasz’s phone rang. He drifted behind us, voice low, and suddenly it was just the two of us, side by side on the tree-lined sidewalk. Me and my nemesis. I decided I would keep asking questions until a crack appeared in her cold facade. I started with her research. She answered in careful English, pausing mid-sentence, frowning at words that didn’t quite fit.

“I really struggle with the fact that I am conscious… if I was able to speak about those topics in Polish, I would say much more.”

But I kept asking, and she kept answering.

The shift came when she mentioned her journal, one she’d kept for over a decade. The journal wasn’t ordinary; she didn’t use it to mark what happened that day. She was attempting to document the ways the self showed itself to her. To try and capture that fleeting, momentary sense of “I, me, myself” that comes and goes throughout our experiences. Her face lit up. Her hands started moving. It was the first time I’d seen her animated, and she looked a little like Tomasz.

And then the formality dropped. We moved from ideas to stories. We left philosophy behind and talked about dance, about movement, about childhood, about loss. At one point she glanced over again, not the measuring, dismissive look from the kitchen, but a quick, light glance. Like she was checking to see if I was still there.

“I had a feeling that I already knew you, I was feeling safe… and I really enjoyed our talk.”

We wandered the quiet streets for what felt like hours, up past rows of trees, into darker neighborhoods with crooked streetlights. By the time we returned to the apartment, something had changed. The discomfort was still there, but it had a hint of possibility within it.

The next morning, we sat on the steps of Tomasz’s door, looking out to the courtyard with our cups of coffee. Weronika rolled her cigarette.

“We were talking about your past and my past, And I really found it inspiring. I don’t know, I just liked you.”

She tapped ash into the courtyard air. It drifted down slow, dissolving before it landed.

And I liked her too. In a quiet, careful way. It was like watching a combination fall into alignment—small tumblers clicking one by one until something opened. And behind that, behind all the technical words and schemas, there was a beating heart.

We were friends.

From there, it just… unfolded.

The awkward triangle steadied, becoming a balanced and brilliant kind of asymmetry.

Tomasz was the engine. The performer. The force that pulled us into motion and kept the whole contraption rattling along. Weronika and I were the audience, but not passive ones—we fed the show, heckled from the sides, rolled our eyes, and fought for our ideas. And when one of us drifted or fell quiet, the others closed the circle. A kind of kinetic trust emerged.

We started spending whole days together. Reading, watching obscure films, cooking strange meals gathered from the open-air market down the street. We turned the smallest things into rituals.

A dialectical movement worked between us. Tomasz would bring an idea, often outrageous. Wielding a knife as he cut celery, he said: "Philosophy departments are just graveyards for dead ideas! Kant didn't need tenure to think!"

Then Weronika would step in with a counterpoint, unlit cigarette dangling from her lips: "Right, but who's going to pay for your celery while you contemplate existence?"

And I would offer some kind of synthesis: "Maybe the question isn't where philosophy happens, but whether it's still philosophy once it gets comfortable."

This became our rhythm—Tomasz throwing grenades, Weronika trying to defuse them, and me trying to salvage something useful from the wreckage.

One afternoon, we walked across the city to a Polish art museum—Tomasz mocking the premise the entire way there.

“Prepare yourselves,” he warned, “for the most gloriously mediocre collection of Polish art in Europe!”

And once we were inside, it began. He transformed instantly into a deranged docent, half-historian, half-performance artist. With complete confidence, he explained the political symbolism of the brushstrokes, the buried trauma in medieval farm landscapes. He narrated a portrait of a 19th-century noblewoman like it was a telenovela. Every gallery became a stage.

We gaze at a painting of the Virgin Mary, her eyes unnervingly askew—one peering heavenward, the other sizing up the viewer like a suspicious merchant. Tomasz, ever the visionary, steps forward with a flourish.

Tomasz (rapturous): "Behold! Her dual gaze bridges the mortal and divine—a masterpiece of cosmic duality!"

Weronika cuts in: "Or the artist sneezed mid-brushstroke."

I, on the other hand, felt like Mary was judging me.

Tomasz clasps his hands, undeterred, imagining celestial choirs. Weronika rolls her eyes, picturing a painter with a shaky hand and a deadline.

By the time we reached the 3rd floor, Weronika and I were wheezing with laughter, tripping over ourselves and hiding from the guards.

We stumble out of the museum light-headed, exhausted, elated. We were supposed to go home and study when Tomasz fell into one of his moods. I turn to him to make a joke and his face was suddenly dark and distracted. He abruptly walks off without a word. His broad shoulders disappear around a corner. Weronika sighs. “So it goes.” The two of us try not worry, and wander around the city in search of grapes and espresso so Weronika could make her favorite ice cream dish. Cut grapes, strong coffee poured over the top. When we get back, Tomasz is up and running again. We close the blinds, curl up on the futon, and watch Tomasz’s favorite show, letting him narrate every scene as we dozed off.

It feels like a Sunday in college. When the pressure lifts and the day blooms into something lazy and luminous. We were fools. Lucky fools.

We didn’t know how rare that rhythm was. How short-lived.

In hindsight, it felt too easy, too synchronous. And life doesn’t let that go on for long.

It took me a while to understand the relationship between Tomasz and Weronika. There was obvious chemistry—intellectual and comedic and emotional—but also something opaque. They weren’t a couple. At least, not in the usual sense. They didn’t flirt. But there was a magnetism, and a kind of commitment. I could see that their friendship had shape-shifted over time.

Later, Weronika told me how they met.

“That was really funny,” she said. “Because we met through Tinder.”

Tinder. Of course.

Tomasz, she explained, had been on some kind of bored, horny, academic rampage–sitting around with his friends, sending out opening lines that were nothing but philosophy.

Not compliments or jokes.

Metaphysics and ethics.

Husserl. Kierkegaard. Heidegger.

He’d open a conversation with something like: “The essence of consciousness is intentionality.” And then…wait.

Most people tried to play along, respond with their own pseudo-profound statements. And that was the real comedy for Tomasz.

But Weronika wasn’t most people.

“But I remember I, I asked Tomasz, if he was doing anything else besides citing wise people?’”

That was her first message.

The academic equivalent to questioning your virility. Cuts you right down to size.

And just like that, something sparked.

Of course, Tomasz does a lot more than cite, and this he quickly proved to Weronika. They started talking. About art, ideas, and history. A whirlwind intellectual romance all through Tinder messages. At the time, Weronika was out of the country, showing her animation at a festival. Sunburned, exhausted, running on fumes.

“When I came back, he was already waiting for me on the street. I looked out the window and saw him there. He looked like Tomasz, but younger—nervous and crazy at the same time. But also, kind of sweet. I thought, oh god, he must be crazy or r—-----.”

“But then we went for a walk… and I thought, okay, he’s definitely crazy and r—------. So he’s definitely going to be my friend.”

Even that took time.

“I think for him, it was kind of surprising. He just wanted a summer affair. But then he realized he was becoming my friend. And I think he just freaked out.”

They stopped talking for six months.

And then—picked up again. As if nothing had happened.

From the outside, it wasn’t hard to tell why they’d been drawn to each other: two intellectual powerhouses, their minds constantly firing.

But it was harder to tell why they kept orbiting each other. Their personalities didn’t match. They irritated each other constantly.

“He was such a dick sometimes, And I promised everyone I wouldn’t talk to him anymore. But…”

“But those were just moments. And they were important too. Because before I met Tomasz, I had no aggression in myself. I couldn’t deal with anger. And Tomasz… he had so much expression. It gave me a safe place to feel that. I was sure that even when I was fighting with him, I knew he was still there.”

Maybe that’s it. That knowing.

That no matter how weird or difficult or maddening it got, the connection was still intact.

I can’t help but think of Hande, whom I’d just left. Her face in front of mine, on that couch, and the way we’d moved from flirtation to some other kind of learning, a much deeper curiosity. These are the kinds of connections no one really talks about. The ones that fall through the cracks. Too particular and unconventional to find their way into movies and TV. It’s not the rom com, it’s a personal compact.

Of course, there was another side to Tomasz.

Even early on, it was obvious. You couldn’t help but feel it. There was this… pull in him. A kind of gravity that could turn lightness into lead.

“He was always fighting for something more than he had, But also—there was something inside him, against him. And he couldn’t always fight it off.”

I never knew exactly what that “something” was. It didn’t have a name. Or maybe it had too many. Depression? Addiction? Paranoia? A history neither of us could fully see?

Whatever it was, it turned Tomasz into a swinging pendulum. Some days, Tomasz was luminous—full of theories and impressions and wild connections. Other days, other moments, he shut down.

There was no pattern except that one mood followed another in a long, winding series.

Weronika stayed close through all of it.

She could’ve left. There were so many exit ramps—his moods, his volatility, the sheer effort of staying in his life. No one would’ve blamed her.

But she didn’t.

I wasn’t privy to their fights. I only saw glimpses of the anger, thoughtlessness, and blind lashing that went on, but I could imagine it. I could imagine the two of them after a long day, Weronika exhausted at the kitchen table, Tomasz still stomping around without knowing what he was yelling at. She pleading with him to calm down, drink some water, give it a rest. The noise just going on and on, none of it making sense any more. Sometimes he’d reach these states of pure tension that would leave no room for reasoning. As strong as his mind was, it wasn’t strong enough to defend against itself. The sun would go down, and the night would stretch interminably. And at sunrise, voices hoarse, they would curl up and fall asleep, nothing resolved, nothing solved, only endured.

“I was finishing my PhD, he was starting his. He had problems with addiction. It was a stormy time, for both of us.”

And still, she stayed.

There was no social contract to bind them.

But there was a strange commitment.

I suspected it had been forged in those moments when someone is hardest to love.

There were long phone calls that went on for hours. The talking would subside. Imagine a splitscreen: Tomasz in Krakow and Weronika in Poznan, three hundred miles apart, going about their day. They would make their separate meals and read their separate books, with the phone on speaker next to them, hearing the mundane sounds of the other person’s meal or the pages of the other’s book, the typing of keys as they wrote. In this way they lived together, not chasing a high but sharing the most mundane aspects of their days.

And when the restlessness would come up, and the anger and the feeling that life really does suck most of the time, this too would be said into the phone.

They dated other people, lived their own lives, and yet the bond they shared was so particular and subtle that it almost put those other relationships to shame. They had learned that it wasn’t through sex they could best share themselves, but through pain and constancy.

For Weronika, at least, Tomasz became a three dimensional mirror.

“We have our ups and downs—I mean all the time. But I think maybe in a way, that made me feel safe. Because I have those ups and downs inside me all the time. And I felt that I finally found the external context in which I don’t feel like a stranger.”

That line stuck with me: “I don’t feel like a stranger.”

She didn’t mean safe like stable. Or comfortable. She meant safe in the sense of seen.

There was something about Tomasz that matched something in her. He embodied something she had inside, and made it physical and visible.

“He had this rich, external expression, I feel the same, but inside me. I think partly I needed him—as a part of me—to show all those things to the world. Of course in a different way, and in a way we were completely different people. But there was this strange similarity.”

It wasn’t an easy friendship. But it was theirs. Built from argument, and contradiction, and a kind of fierce respect.

And it endured. Even as they changed cities. Even as they changed shape.

As I took my leave of Tomasz and Weronika that first time, I felt that there was something unfinished. Like there was a mystery between them that I wanted to share in, but hadn’t yet been inducted into.

I’d wondered what we had, and whether it could last. I needed to see them again. That much was clear to me. Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, or does it?

One year later…

I pull my bag from the car and stand at the crossroads of Mleczkowo, Poland. Crossroads might be generous—there was one road, and it forked. Behind me, a tiny general store with plastic crates of empty beer bottles stacked by the door. In front of me, the village’s shrine: a statue of Mary, hands folded in prayer, enclosed by a decorative gate barely taller than a boot. Yellow and peach streamers fluttered from the fence posts toward the pedestal like tiny sunlit threads.

No one else in sight.

This morning I said goodbye to Hande, that strange girl whose eyes I stared into. My teacher.

I look at the Mary statue, and then to the right. A large white cottage with weathered red shingles. That has to be the place.

There’s always a little bite of anxiety when seeing someone again after a long time. It’s a kind of performance anxiety—not just will they like me, but will we still work? Friendship chemistry isn’t guaranteed. People change. And sometimes the reaction just doesn’t hold.

It’s even trickier when it’s a trio.

Out of the cottage leans a girlish figure.

I wave.

She waves back.

That’s it for this episode of Go and Find Out. We’ll pick up the story with Weronika and Tomasz next time. Thanks for being here with me—seriously. It means a lot that you’re here, listening to this story.

I’d love to hear from you—thoughts, stories, weird travel tips, whatever’s on your mind. Drop me a line at goandfindoutpod@gmail.com, and I’ll do my best to write you back.

This show is created by me, Jonny Wright, with music by me unless otherwise noted.

If you’re enjoying the ride, follow along so new episodes come straight to you every other Thursday. And hey—if you’ve got a second, leaving a quick review or rating really helps spread the word.

But more than anything, I hope this episode sparked something—however small.

A question, a dream, a reminder that your life is still unfolding.

The only real adventure we have is right now.