Interview with Carlos Miceli

As the result of some matchmaking by a mutual reader, I conducted an email interview with Carlos Miceli from Owlsparks, a blog dedicated to discussion around ‘realistic happiness’. Carlos has recently relocated from Argentina to Australia but was was nonetheless generous with his responses:

Do you believe freedom is the natural state or a modern privilege?

Some months ago I finally watched The Shawshank Redemption and it made me think: “Man, we sure underestimate our freedom…” But it’s important to define it first. IF we’re talking about the freedom to go wherever we go, do or say whatever we want, then yes, I think it’s fairly new. It’s so new that some people still don’t have it.

However, when we analyze freedom, again, from a more realistic point of view, we realize that we are not as free as we think. Otherwise we wouldn’t have so many people hating their jobs, their spouses, their cities and more. Real, pure freedom is frightening. Like I said on a recent post, we don’t want (or have) freedom. We just want some wiggle room.
Read the rest of this entry »

Issue Four: a sneak preview

Most of the content for our latest printed edition, Issue Four: the Mauvaise Foi Issue has been received and the editing process has begun.

There are some excellent essays in this issue, and it’s been especially fun to return to a more esoteric style after the practicalities-orientated approach of Issue Three.

The content of Issue Four looks something like this:

– Editorial: For Madmen Only (Robert Wringham)
– The Bad Faith of beach holidays (Tim Eyre)
– How to rewrite your script (Neil Scott)
– The Catholic Worker Movement (Tom Mellors)
– Neuro-Linguistic Programming (Matt Caulfield)
– How to use a library (Rob Westwood)
– Reclaim the Fluchtverdächtiger (Robert Wringham)
– Nothing but time: vagabonding with a young family (Stephen Barry)
– Citizen’s Income (Sam Nair)
– Escaping Distractions (Neil Scott)
– The road to Auschwitz (David M Gross)
– When my will wouldn’t (Ishmael Gradsdovic)
– On Running (Jonathan O’Brien)
– Please shop responsibly (Samara Leibner)
– It’s the little things (Shanti Maharaj)
– How I trumped Bad Faith and quit my day job with three emails (Jon Ransom)
– Mauvaise Foi comes to Busytown: a fable (Robert Wringham)
– Filling the void (Robert Wringham)
– Title TBC (Fabian Kruse)
– In Sickness & in Health; A Study of Three Poor Men: Flaubert, Sartre & Myself (Reggie C. King)

Of course, some of these titles will seem mysterious now. You’ll have to wait for the issue’s release to see what they’re all about.

Issue Four will be released officially on 16th August. Early orders (including subscriber and contributor copies) will be shipped on the same day. To pre-order (or to buy back issues and subscribe), visit our online shop.