I had a lot of fun doing this interview for a radio station in Connecticut today.  Here's the audio stream (I edited out the three songs they played during the interview).

I've been thinking a lot over the past few days about the idea of contentedness.  Since the rise of Facebook and the overwhelming popularity of social media, I wonder sometimes the extent to which our lives are affected by being constantly "plugged-in" to each other.

I remember, not many years ago, feeling much more isolated.  If I was busy with a hobby, reading a book, taking a trip...it never crossed my mind what all of my friends would think.  But a scary thought occurred to me the other day: if I do something now which, for whatever reason, is not posted on Facebook, is not written about on my blog, or does not end up in the podcast...do I feel as if that activity has equal value?  Scary thought. 

More specifically, I'm wondering to what extent we "social-networkers" are even starting to unintentionally filter our behavior based on this.  If I spend a day reading a book or hiking a mountain, only nobody knows about it or cares, am I just as content?  Do I end up choosing not to do things which unplug me from the network and have no relation to the network?  Am I trying too hard to somehow validate what I do, what I think, and who I am externally?

Maybe we'll talk about that next week in the Podcast (haha, I'm sure you see the irony in this).  By the way, there won't be a podcast this week.  We just felt like taking a week off. 

On this important 12th episode of The Abscondo Podcast, we bring together all of the concepts we've been discussing and define, more precisely than ever, what we mean by an "authentic life" and why we feel it is such an important topic.

We open the show by describing why we think you'll find this topic important and relevant.  From there, we get into the 4 basic principles that we can follow to create conditions in our lives so it is possible for our unique, authentic selves to be developed and nurtured.

After more than 5 years writing about these topics on this blog, I feel that it is finally possible to draw some conclusions, to tie all of it together into a coherent set of consistent ideas and principles.  I have also begun a series of interviews as a guest on other podcasts and on radio shows to discuss the subject-matter in this episode. 

In future podcasts, we will get into many of these concepts in more detail and, of course, also go way off-topic from time-to-time!  But we felt it was time to define all of this much more precisely, to speak from the heart and to speak from experience.  We hope you find some of the ideas helpful, or at least mildly interesting...or at the very least offensive!

I got up at 5:00 this morning to do my first of many, many podcast / radio interviews.  I'm introduced just a few minutes into the show.  Click here and play the show called "The Opposite of Failure".

You can also find the Witulant Internadio Webcast on iTunes and download it there.

The topic of this Friday's podcast is fundamental to the idea of seeking an authentic life.  In fact, it isn't possible to achieve a lifestyle that is more authentic unless we are willing to always question and resist authority.

Authoritative power is creeping into our lives in so many obvious forms (government, schools, church), and oftentimes in more disguised forms (corporate media, corporate influence over government).  We explain the belief system known as Anarchy, which is not a desire for chaos and lawlessness; rather, a constant questioning of the legitimacy of authority.

Part of today's show also deals with alternative forms of media (non-commercial media).  For those who are interested, I promised to share a few examples of anti-establishment media:

News:

Democracy Now!

The Real News Network

Music:

KEXP is a good example of commercial-free radio that plays music far more interesting than what you'll hear in the commercial radio.

Film:

Go for independent films, or if you're more interested in documentaries that explain some of these ideas, try: Manufacturing Consent (Noam Chomsky) or any film by Michael Moore.

Books:

As far as non-fiction, try:

"When Corporations Rule the World" by David C. Korten

"Shock Doctrine" or "No Logo" by Naomi Klein

If I were to provide one recommendation for a work of fiction, it would be "The Joke" by Milan Kundera.

Limitless options...where to begin?