The idea for the name came from Waking Life, by Richard Linklater. Like the film’s protagonist, who wanders from dream to dream, engaging in a series of philosophical conversations with strangers while discerning whether his experience is real or just another layer of dreaming, I too felt called to converse with human beings to pose, aloud and together, the question of what it means to live a waking life.

Since Waking Life was already the name of the film and a festival in Portugal, I went for Waking Youth. I saw—still see—myself as part of a new generation who’s seeking to live by more conscious social scripts than the ones handed down by most of the elders of our western civilization.

The more I grew up, the more I realized that my living questions had less to do with age and more to do with a way of being; with a practice of existential curiosity, of intellectual courage and spiritual discernment. Why are we alive? What life am I here to live? What work is mine to do? And who are we being called to become as a collective?

I tried, for a moment, to resignify the podcast’s name. The “youth” part of Waking Youth could be a metaphor, yes. I’d heard the idea before and liked it, that as a civilization we are in a developmental stage akin to adolescence. Even now, I read the tweets of some of the leaders of our institutions and think to myself: Are these guys thirteen?

I pitched this new meaning of Waking Youth to listeners and guests: we are the ones in our western culture seeking to live into our wiser maturity; the ones who think it’s time grow up. And each time, I felt a little more contracted, a little less convinced. Too… complicated. Too… disrespectful to thirteen year-old boys! Plus, most people still assumed it was a youth-focused project.

Six years after I started Waking Youth, the time has come to evolve it’s name. I brainstormed. I reached out to friends. I distilled the essence of what I feel drawn to research again and again, through podcast interviews, through writing, through educational programs, through life in community: consciousness? maturity? self development? social transformation? One word kept coming to mind: wisdom.

After many lists, conversations with humans and robots, and domain checks, the name became obvious: Wiser Now. Like me, Waking Youth is older and a little wiser. It’s more careful with terms like “waking” and “awake”, which have not only become clichés, but also carry cultural baggage in a polarized society quick to dismiss (when not mock) anything that sounds “woke”. It’s curious about people’s stories of becoming: how they became wiser than yesterday, and how they continue to be invited to mature. It longs for a wiser collective reality, a wiser civilization, a wiser world. In other words, it’s most interested in cultivating the kind of presence, authority, and compassion necessary to navigate the pain and paradox of life without growing cynical, detached or insane. Wiser Now. What do you think?

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What to Expect

The name of this project has changed, the work I feel called to do hasn’t. Even though I believe a wiser life is one of less expectation and more surrender, you can expect to see more of what you’ve seen here until now:

• Podcast interviews with human beings I consider wise in some way; conversations to accompany us in our pursuit of wisdom. I’m currently preparing a series of episodes on the topic of community, including a conversation with former member of Tamera and activist, Martin Winiecki, as well as with the wide community of .

• Essays, or what I’m now naming Field Notes, my lived and written experiment with truth and wisdom. Expect musings on life in community, writing, collapse-readiness, culture, and more.

• Online Integral Yoga classes held every Wednesday at 8.30am Portugal time and Saturday at 9am, where we ground our pursuit of wisdom in the body.

• Online and in-person programs where we explore the questions that connect and animate us together. In the past, I hosted a book club around ‘Letters to a Young Poet’, and an in-person retreat based on the book ‘Let Your Life Speak’. I’m now sketching an online program that brings some of my favorite books into conversation with one another, combined with introspective communal practices to help us listen louder to our inner teachers. I’d love, for example, to put Rilke and Parker Palmer in conversation: about vocation, about solitude and community. Let me know if it resonates.

What else? I’m currently living in—and helping set up—Mosaic Village, a small intentional community of eight adults and six children, all of us called to create a culture more courageously grounded in love as practice. It’s not always easy to show up for all my personal and professional commitments when so much of my energy is invested here—strategy and governance meetings, work on the land, emotional circles that are both confronting and deeply life-giving. I’ll be sharing more of this journey, sometimes in writing, sometimes through audio or video, as a way of making sense of my experience, for myself, and anyone who’s curious to join me.

If you’d like to follow this community adventure more closely, and to have access to more intimate essays and news from me, please let me know by leaving a comment or writing me an email. In addition to offering monthly podcast interviews and written updates, I’m testing a paid subscription and would like to offer it for free to founding subscribers like you as I figure out exactly what is valuable to share.

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Excited to step into this next chapter of Wiser Now with you.

With love,
Carlota

The impulse to write had visited me months prior, when I didn’t know where to turn with my existential restlessness and desire, other than the blank, non-judgmental page. Where to turn with a more gluttonous part of me who wanted what I wasn’t supposed to want. I was in long-term partnership with a man back then, a man I still love and with whom I had a wonderful, life-affirming relationship. Still, I found myself fantasizing—in my mind and on the page—about my best (woman) friend and former lover, knowing that both of us were in monogamous relationships.

From that impulse was born a short story. One which I shared with my former (woman) lover, who shared it with her partner, which made me want to be honest with mine and share the story with him too. To say the least, it was awkward. Not only had this impulse thrown me into a rabbit hole of difficult conversations and the study of alternative relational models—it wanted me to keep digging.

I tried to find a way out. I tried to convince myself of my lovely life: my lovely stable communication job, my lovely monogamous relationship. But that impulse began revealing itself as the voice of my truer self. A voice that kept whispering. And then not only whispering. Eventually, it spoke through the vocal cords of a human being—a man. A cocky and sensitive and unfairly sexy creature I wasn’t supposed to want; I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with; I wasn’t supposed to risk my entire life with my lovely partner just to try and discover what damn assignment I had with this other man, who had kids, a mess of a relational life, who lived in another country. Why, voice? Why, impulse to write? Why me?

By then I knew I couldn’t not listen. I couldn’t not keep writing. Its will surpassed my own, and it was my task to move through this unfolding—alongside myself, my partner, my almost-lovers—and document it as devoutly as I could. So I did what I had to do. In January 2023, I didn’t leave my job to write what the voice was showing me wanted to become a novel. But I didn’t search for a new one because of it. It was time to put the writing thing at the center of everything and discover how this long fantasy—of being a writer and living a truer life—felt in not-so-fantasy-like life.

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I’d heard interviews about the time it took to draft a novel—a couple of months for some; for others, a couple of years. Sally Rooney drafted her first in three months. Rachel Cusk, two crazy weeks. I anticipated falling somewhere in the middle. Sure, I was a non-native English writer. Sure, I was a twenty-five-year-old business school graduate who’d never read the classics. Sure, I was the daughter of engineers, military officers, and public servants with little connection to the arts. But if there was one thing I knew, as a former volleyball player competing above my age level, it was discipline: showing up, doing the work.

The first draft took seven months, from January to August 2023. During this time I lowered my expenses to the minimum. I relied on the generous support of my family, my partner (the same partner with whom I was risking my future to write this book). I set my alarm before dawn every weekday and brought my yawning self to the keyboard even when I had no idea what I was doing—which was most days. I began couples therapy with an expert in CNM. I worked on my relationship—both with my partner and my self—which meant neither leaving him nor abandoning my need for relational freedom. I listened to every writer interview I found on the podcast. I read more than I ever had. I studied. I realized how little I knew about the craft I wanted to integrate as my own beyond vomiting cheesy half-truths onto the page, half-truths that despite my incompetence still wanted to be expressed through me—me—why me? At least I had a manuscript now. Not so much a good one. Not one I could show a living soul. Not one that was true—for I hadn’t yet lived enough—but it was something.

The second draft took eight months: from September 2023 to May 2024. I was more confident then: about my creative process, my vocational choices, my semi-open partnership, my identity as a writing apprentice. I began taking some freelance communication gigs, realizing that if I wanted this novel to be any good, it would probably take time. My partner encouraged me to spend some months in the Portuguese countryside, in solitude, focused, since I was privileged enough to do so. It was a good idea. After the Christmas holidays that’s what I did. I brought my favorite books and Mrs. Coruja with me (meet her in the image below). I surrounded myself with printed drafts, fluorescent highlighters, Post-it notes on the walls to keep me motivated. I spent nearly half a year like that. I wrote until one day I was finished: the day I cried rather dramatically on the grass outside, kneeling into the sunset, for I could not believe I’d crossed to the other side whole—and still partnered, still in a lovely, even better relationship, now open. I sent the manuscript to trusted writer friends, and . I send it to an experienced editor, . I returned to the Spanish capital where I was based. I waited for feedback.

It’s January 2026. The third and current draft has taken me, so far, one year and four months. I had finished the manuscript in the Portuguese countryside but the story wasn’t done with me yet. My alpha readers had enjoyed the ending but it wasn’t my ending. The voice wanted me to leave my lovely open relationship. It wanted me to leave my home in Spain. To return to my country of origin. To end alone (or as a dear friend likes to put it: all one). What began as a short story in 2023—and a call to open my relationship—has since become an initiatory journey to open my entire life. I’m still grappling with what that means. I sense it has something to do with control, or more specifically, with its release. I sense it has something to do with a spiritual kind of authority—the one hard-earned through direct experience, courage, surrender, discernment, failure, more failure, and self-reflection. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that authority and author share the same root. Perhaps, at the deepest level, my call to write—to be an author—is a call to become the authority of my own life.

The plan for the novel—yes, because I’m still into planning—is to finish before the flowers begin to reveal their colors here in Alentejo where I’m now based. That’s how I’ve motivated myself over the years: setting a deadline, pretending I’d be over then, working hard, occasionally distracting (or motivating) myself with a Substack post, defining the next deadline, and failing again. But the other thing this writing journey has been teaching me is to focus less on the object—the lover I can’t have, the perfect open relationship, the finished manuscript, the agent I haven’t landed, the publishing deal—and more on who I’m becoming through the process; trusting that what belongs to me is already strolling, equanimous and unbothered by my impatience, in my direction. However long that takes.

That’s it for today. In case you’re searching for ways to motivate yourself to keep writing—or listening to the voice of your life—here are some books that have kept me company along the way:

Letters To a Young Poet
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Several Short Sentences About Writing
The Situation and the Story: the Art of Personal Narrative
To Show & to Tell: The Craft of Literary Non-Fiction
On Becoming a Novelist
Mornings with Mailer: A Recollection of Friendship
A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course In Miracles”
Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative

With Love,
Carlota

“We did not ask for this room or this music; we were invited in. Therefore, because the dark surrounds us, let us turn our faces toward the light. Let us endure hardship to be grateful for plenty… We did not ask for this room or this music. But because we are here, let us dance.” - Stephen King

Maybe, had I opted to pursue such a strategy, this project would have garnered greater popularity by now. Maybe not. Instead, I decided to create this Substack and dedicate less of my hours collecting the words of others, and more time struggling to craft and share my own with the petite yet much-appreciated and thoughtful audience that you are. Yes, you.

Anyway, I’m not here to discuss communication strategies today, nor my reluctance toward mainstream social media, although I intend to do so soon enough. What I want to tell you is that I’ve been thinking about the quote above, and a variation of it once shared by a friend. In my friend’s version, life was compared not to a room but to a party. Building on King’s quote, he envisioned something like this:

“We did not ask for this party or this music, but because we are here, let us dance.”

I suppose I’ve been pondering this quote for a variety of reasons. One is that, as an introvert, I have never loved parties too much. They often leave me feeling drained. Fortunately, much like in life, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no need to force myself to enjoy them as more extroverted individuals might—dancing and speaking loudly at its epicenter. I’ve granted myself permission to retreat in a cozy corner in the margins with a fellow deep thinker to ramble about everything and anything. Perhaps Substack is such a virtual place for many of us.

Another reason is that, as a young adult, I sense that this party I’m arriving at—the party of modern civilization—is drawing to a close. And not only is it ending, it is more and more morphing into an apocalyptic and rather somber after-party. The drugs that fueled its ecstasy are running scarce, but folks keep dancing and raving, licking leftovers, even fighting for them—killing for them—, hoping desperately the party will go on forever.

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Of course, I feel left out. Folks are clinging so tightly to this fading party that, even as introvert, I can’t help but wonder what all the stubbornness is about. Yet, for the most part, I struggle to understand why we aren’t just calling it a night and planning for a different, more wholesome one tomorrow. Or better yet, planning for an on-going celebration that isn’t dependent on the massive consumption of substances that wreck both us and everything around us. Yes, I’m mostly thinking about fossil fuels now, and so much more.

I stumbled upon this idea—that the ‘party’ of our modern civilization is already collapsing—in Jem Bendell’s book Breaking Together: A Freedom Loving Response to Collapse (which you can access online for free here). If you aren’t familiar with Bendell, he’s a first-world professor turned third-world farmer. Those are his words, not mine, by the way. For over twenty years, he worked as a professor of Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cumbria, as well was as a consultant and strategist in sustainable business, finance, and communication for clients ranging from UN agencies to international NGOs and the British government. In 2017, following a sabbatical dedicated to studying the latest climate science, he released the Deep Adaptation paper which went viral and is credited with inspiring the growth of the Extinction Rebellion movement.

Put as shortly as possible, in Breaking Together Bendell argues that not only will our modern civilization soon collapse, it has already begun to do so, and the sooner we accept that, the better. Why is our civilization already collapsing? Well, just as a bicycle needs momentum to stay upright, he writes in the introduction, so too our societies are dependent on the continuous growth of the mass consumption of products and services for the stability of our economy. The problem is that for that growth to take place, more and more of our already scarce natural resources have to be exploited, and more emissions have to be released into our atmosphere, further warming global temperatures. No, we haven’t figured out how to significantly decouple economic growth from resource use and increasing emissions yet, and there’s little evidence that we’ll be able to do so.

Moreover, several indicators of people’s quality of life around the world, from health to earnings, education and life expectancy have been in decline since 2016. The renowned UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, co-negotiated by our most recent guest Tatjana von Steiger as a Swiss representative, show no sign of success, with only 15% of them on track, and many regressing. Yup, party pooper!

To be frank with you, a part of me is relieved this party is ending. The brief taste I had of it so far, hasn’t fulfilled me all that much. Growing up in a bubble of ridiculous material privilege compared to the rest of the world, I often felt alienated. I tried to be interested in the things folks implied we should be interested in: chasing after svelte physiques and trendy clothes, handsome popular boyfriends with flashy cars, lavish vacations abroad, and fancy corporate careers. Inside, however, all I cared about and longed for was the non-physical, the existential: love, genuine connection, liminal ideas, freedom, meaning, transcendence. Perhaps I’d feel differently had I come from a less financially-secure background.

And although I’ve felt much more at home in the world since then, having made the sort of friendships that feel like family, with beautiful and inquisitive humans from all over the globe who share many of the same ideals as me, recently, I had—am having—a similar experience of disconnection. I feel frustration and rage, despair even, towards the lack of discourse and meaningful action among mainstream public spheres—from our media to our policymakers and businesses—regarding these issues.

The height of my disconnection, however, occurred a couple of weeks ago during a gathering at some hipster brunch spot with some friends. Amidst avocado toasts and specialty coffees, I shared with them some of the contents of the book I mentioned earlier, Breaking Together. At first, they listened attentively and even posed a question or two. And then, suddenly, almost synchronously, as I went about my ramble on meaning post-civilization collapse, they all escaped to their phones. Perhaps because the prospect of a life outside the paradigm that still runs most of our lives was too discomforting. Perhaps because they received an important message, I don’t know. What I do know, is that day I felt sad, alone in my grieving. Why aren’t we talking about this stuff more?

My intention is not to judge anyone here, especially not those I hold dear. If only because I often observe the same cognitive dissonance in myself, when one moment I’m studying weighty tomes like Breaking Together, and the next I’m flying to Amsterdam to meet friends at hipster brunch spots, or turning on the heater instead of reaching for a sweater. Of course, we fool ourselves: it’s exhausting to care so much all the time!

Following this incident, I had a chat with one of my friends, who works in corporate sustainability, and asked them bluntly: “Aren’t you worried? Do you realize how dire things are, and how they're just going to keep deteriorating?” Their reply went something along the lines of: “Yes, I know that it’s pretty bad. But honestly, I don’t know what else I can do to make a difference, and dwelling on it incessantly seems pointless. So, I just try to enjoy my life as it is.”

It’s a good question: What can we do about it? I believe Bendell is onto something. Often branded as a ‘doomster’ by mainstream media, he has reclaimed this label for those willing to confront the collapse of our civilization already underway, to then embrace a new way of living altogether. A ‘post-hipster’ lifestyle, he contemplates, where instead of indulging in ever-more-expensive smashed avo toasts at cafés, we grow our own avocados and strive for the freedom of all beings from the structures and mental models that have desacralized life on our wondrous planet. I leave you here his own articulation of what it means to be a doomster:

“Although many people are breaking apart into self-righteous factions, many people have been breaking together, whereby they allow the upsetting situation to break down their old habits, so that they become more open-hearted and open-minded in how they live their life, including the way they relate to other people. As a result, they are dramatically changing their lives to prioritise creativity and social contribution. They are worrying less about their career, their financial security or following the latest trend. They are helping those in need, growing food, making music, campaigning for change and exploring spiritual paths. That is happening because they have rejected the establishment's view of reality and no longer expect its officers to solve any of the worsening problems in their society. After decades of greed, hypocrisy, lies, corruption and stupid policies, they are no longer waiting for any elites to rescue the planet. As they let go of false hopes that they will be saved, they can move through grief and begin living creatively again, with an awareness of how every day is a blessing. This doesn’t mean they don’t grieve, worry or feel sad and angry, but that their feelings of wonder and gratitude about life don’t immediately trigger those other difficult emotions or keep them stuck there. Instead, they are living life more fully, according to what they value. It is precisely because these people regard modern societies to be breaking down that they are living more freely. They need neither an underground bunker nor a fairy tale of a better tomorrow as they live, today, for truth, love and beauty. Who are they? I call them doomsters. I am one of them. Perhaps you are, too?” - Jem Bendell, Breaking Together

There’s plenty more I’d like to share about this wisely apocalyptic book, but I’ll wrap up here for today. Perhaps some of you have already surrendered to endless scrolling on your phones. If not, I’d love for you to drop a comment and share your thoughts. Do you believe our civilization's party is already coming to a close? Are you relieved by its end? What sort of post-collapse future animates or alarms you? Would you consider yourself a doomster?

Warmly,
Carlota

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P.S. I’m aware that even contemplating the notion of civilizational collapse is a privilege. Many folks in less fortunate geographies are already living through the end of their world in heart-shattering ways. Others have bills to pay and are stuck in jobs they find meaningless, unable to afford quitting for now. If you find yourself in the latter category, Bendell wrote a helpful piece on navigating life as a doomster in such circumstances.

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Our most recent interview was with Tatjana von Steiger, a former diplomat who represented Switzerland in the negotiations of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

It’s fascinating, to me, to put this interview in conversation with Jem Bendell’s book, Breaking Together. Recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, after multiple visits to Davos, Bendell is now skeptical of such high-level bubbles. He claims that many in influential positions perpetuate vague hope, shielding people from the harsh reality of our worsening situation.

During our chat, Tatjana did touch on the term - hope. Perhaps her actions speak louder than her vocal cords, as she’s now on the ground, with fellow changemakers in Kenya and other labs of the foundation she works for, Wyss Academy for Nature, supporting communities directly addressing climate change.

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Tomorrow I’ll be returning to civilization, and since it’s rainy and chilly outside, now feels like the appropriate time to terminate my Substack procrastination.

Since January, and our (reluctant) exploration of callings with the social justice activist Ashanti Kunene, I’ve released two podcast episodes. One with Alexia García, a football lover and activist, who introduced me to the transformative potential of sports when viewed through a social lens. And the other one with Maria Almeida⁠, a journalist at Fumaça, the award-winning media organization she co-founded during her twenties, whom I inquired about, beyond her personal history, the state of the media and alternative business models for the industry.

Perhaps what binds these two conversations together, beyond the same gender of the guests in a week that celebrates womanhood worldwide, is that the two humans interviewed are exemplary embodiments of the “waking youth”: the youth that is already awake, and living the question of what it means to approach both our personal lives and vocational fields with greater wisdom.

I hope you enjoy them.

Warmly,
Carlota

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1. Football for Social Impact with Alexia García

While the connection between football and social impact might not be an immediate one, in this episode we listen to the story of becoming of ⁠Alexia García⁠, a football lover and activist, who will show us their joint potential.

Alexia is a player, coach, director of business development and project manager at ⁠Dragones de Lavapiés⁠. Located in the Madrid's most diverse neighborhood, ⁠⁠Dragones is a grassroots football club on a mission to promote social integration, equality and respect through sports.

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Spotify | Apple | Youtube

2. Toward a More Thoughtful Approach to Journalism with Maria Almeida

What is the role of stories in shaping our understanding of reality? What is failing in our current media landscape and what might alternative models look and feel like? Who are the people experimenting with them and what do they value? These are some of the questions we contemplate with our guest ⁠Maria Almeida⁠.

⁠Maria is a journalist at ⁠Fumaça⁠, an award-winning media organization based in Portugal she co-founded in 2016. With a focus on thoughtful investigative audio journalism, Fumaça covers themes spanning from the personal to the political, including an extraordinary series on the Israeli occupation of Palestine (mostly in Portuguese).

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I’ve tried different approaches, as I often do: begin with a skeleton of ideas and progressively add more articulated meat to it; let my perfectionism loose and scribble whatever comes without judgment. I’ve tried drafting in the late morning, when I usually craft these posts. I’ve tried writing first thing after waking up and late at night.

After meeting a dear friend, whose presence has a way of suspending my intellectual rambling to invite me to inhabit my body more fully, and two spontaneous chill-out yoga sessions on my current room’s floor, I’ve at least understood why I seem unable to cross this to-do from my list: anxiety, a weight on my shoulders. My emotions are swirling inside my stomach as it might be a washing machine.

And when such a state prevails, it becomes very, very hard to be honest in my creativity. I resort to half-truths and clichés. I become obsessive, trying to rush to some final draft when I don’t even know what I want to say. And since, at least to me, writing is all about truth-telling, well, here I am, discovering it as I type each word. Is this true? So far, yes. Let’s see if I can make it this time.

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The intended theme for this piece is that of callings, be they professional careers or more existential vocations. This was the focus of my recent conversation with Ashanti Kunene, a social justice activist and an artist, whom I'll tell you more about in a second.

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a calling can be understood as both the profession in which one customarily engages, and a strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action, especially when accompanied by conviction of divine influence.

Metaphysical conversations aside for today, some people feel called to become doctors, others humanitarians or artists of some kind. There are also more subtle callings: a powerful desire to have children, or to devote one’s life to stillness and contemplation.

Ashanti’s calling, for example, seems to involve using her powerful voice to start difficult conversations about privilege and systemic oppression, discrimination and inequality.

I like her definition of calling, which she briefly shared throughout the episode: that which keeps coming back to us, whether we like it or not. For her, a calling is not something one chooses; it chooses us. And the only job required of us is to surrender to it.

Perhaps, another reason why I keep struggling with this post is because I haven’t made up my mind about the topic of callings yet.

At some level, I resonate with the idea that, if we pay attention, life nudges us in particular directions. In my case, the unfolding of events in my short existence seems to guide me towards writing. Listening deeply to people. Weaving stories that make us think, and feel, and take action towards kinder and wiser ways of living.

I've ignored this calling of mine at times, opting for more corporate, less artistic pursuits. I still doubt it every day. And yet, the impetus to return to my creativity is undeniable. If I don't write, if I don't do these interviews, like Ashanti put it in our conversation, I have no peace. I feel empty, that my life is more dull, less meaningful.

At this level, the term ‘calling’ not only seems important but vital: trust the knowing in your gut, keep doing what you feel you should be doing beyond the clichéd societal conditioning. In the end, if we don’t do the thing that we feel called to do, the thing that brings us to life, no matter how unusual to the eyes of others, no matter how many other jobs we have to take to keep afloat, no one else will do so for us.

And yet, at another level, I find the notion of an ultimate vocation oppressing. First, because many people don’t feel called to do something in particular. Although that might have to do with the repression of intuition and one’s authenticity—I don’t know.

Secondly, the concept of calling risks reducing our complex human experience to a static personal branded headline that fits a LinkedIn bio. Or worst, to 30-second formulaic videos of gurus explaining their ultimate missions on this Earth - missions revealed to them after a terrible period of depression, which the audience might skip if only they enroll in their three-week life-altering online course.

What if I change my mind tomorrow about what I want to be doing with my time? Like it has happened to one of our guests recently, Mariana Martins, who after initiating a career in academia as a historian and launching a debut novel decided she wanted to venture into corporate life. We contain multitudes, after all!

And as I try to find clarity (and an end to this newsletter), a metaphor comes to mind: writers Edward Lawrence Doctorow and Anne Lamott have compared the process of writing a novel to driving a car at night. While you can only see as far as your headlights, you can make the whole trip that way.

Perhaps, instead of overthinking our way to discovering our one and only calling destination, instead of waiting for a perfect vision of the road, we can focus on the couple of meters projected by our tiny headlights—the light of our intuition. Turn on the windshield wiper if it’s raining. Trust that somehow we’ll get there. Wherever there is. For whatever purpose. Maybe we’ll even remember to turn on the radio, or Spotify, and enjoy the ride.

Warmly,
Carlota

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Here’s our interview with Ashanti Kunene. I’d planned to provide you with a proper introduction to the important work Ashanti does, as well as more insight into the Boom Festival, the event where our paths crossed.

Due to the unforeseen shift in this newsletter's trajectory, instead, I’ll encourage you to listen to the podcast intro below. There, I explain in detail why I invited Ashanti after witnessing her powerful talk at Boom where she courageously called the audience out for their privilege, urging transformational festival goers to take more action towards building a more loving world.

Ashanti holds various titles (as the multitude she is), among them that of social justice activist, decolonial dialogue facilitator, poet, director of pedagogy at Culture Hack Labs, founder of Learning 2 Unlearn, and occasional painter.

In the episode, we explore her personal history growing up in South Africa. We delve into Ashanti’s involvement as a student leader in the 2015 protests ‘Fees Must Fall’, an experience that deepened her commitment to social justice.

We also discuss whether the use of psychedelics is inherently alienating or if it can support our individuation. And how an intimate experience with death and suicide might open us to the beauty of the universe. Finally, we touch on the role of intuition in our lives. And how Ashanti summons the courage, with varying degrees of reluctance, to live out her (current!) calling.

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Imagine this: You’re at a party. You’re not enjoying yourself—you’re a lifelong introvert and you only came because your friend insisted. The music is not your style. The atmosphere feels insincere. Most people seem phony. You’re bored. Then, a stranger strikes up a conversation, saying, 'Isn't this party fantastic? The music is incredible!' The conventional response would be a polite agreement, or even a courteous disagreement. Instead, you candidly express your actual feelings. You admit you’re having a terrible time. Reggaeton isn’t your cup of tea, much less small talk. But you’re game for a more profound interaction if they’re into it.

Or say you’re at a job interview and the recruiter asks you why you applied. You could go with the standard answer, emphasizing alignment with the company's values and your skills meeting their requirements. And, since they asked, you also confess that as a recent graduate struggling to secure a first job, you’re seeking something you don’t dread and that provides enough income, at the very least, to cover rent. Plus, they were one of the few positions that didn’t ask for a cover letter.

Or let’s imagine you’re radically honest with your partner. After being quiet for weeks, you finally tell them that their toothpaste-squeezing technique drives you mad. Why don’t they just press the tube from the bottom and close the cap when they’re done? And now that you’re being honest, you admit you aren’t really into the monogamy thing. In fact, you've even found yourself in a state of ecstatic aliveness after flirting with one of your exes on Instagram.

While a radically honest reality may be distant for some, for others it's a part of their everyday existence. Our guest this month is the filmmaker Caveh Zahedi—a radical honesty advocate. If you're not already familiar with Caveh, he’s the mind behind The Show About the Show - a meta-TV series in which each episode is about the making of the previous one.

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What fascinated me about The Show About the Show went beyond its innovative format. It raises profound questions about the boundaries of radical honesty and free speech. In each episode, Caveh guides us through the behind-the-scenes process of crafting the prior episode, openly sharing in blunt monologues everything from his artistic intentions to his intimate fantasies, often involving cast members or fans of the show, and even the resulting conflicts within his family dynamic. This prompts us to ponder: When does our commitment to honesty intrude on others' privacy? And when might our pursuit of freedom potentially hinder the freedoms of those we love?

While The Show About the Show may stand as one of Caveh's most renowned works, his autobiographical and unabashedly honest style has been a consistent thread throughout his career. In 2001, he released In the Bathtub of the World, a personal favorite of mine, where he recorded a year-long video diary. In 2005, he put out I Am a Sex Addict, a documentary that lays bare his battle with sex addiction, shedding light on its toll on his mental well-being and personal relationships. And the list goes on with more recent projects like his latest podcast, Recording Myself And Everyone Around Me All Day for 365 Days Was Destroying All My Relationships So Now I'm Doing a Daily Audio Journal Instead.

I invited Caveh because in a world often characterized by a claustrophobic obsession with political correctness, his ideology urges us to confront important questions concerning morality and ethics.

One of his central pet peeves seems to be the convention that we must avoid hurting people. In our interview, he shared:

‘Oh, you shouldn’t really hurt people’ - to me that’s an absurd statement for all kinds of reasons. There’s a kind of assumption that is shared, and really what it usually means is: try not to hurt people overtly and right away; maybe let the hurt happen later and let it happen subterraneanly; don’t upset anyone is really what is come to.

Aligned with the author of Radical Honesty, Caveh thinks that moralism—the code of conduct dictating what's deemed socially acceptable—can often impede personal and collective spiritual growth.

What does this mean in practice? To return to the examples shared earlier, being honest with your partner about their suboptimal toothpaste technique would allow them to be aware of it in the first place, and, hence, have an opportunity to correct it. Similarly, while your revelations regarding your interest in alternative relational styles might initially cause discomfort, hopefully, they can pave the way for a constructive dialogue where both of you explore the underlying causes of that discomfort and find ways to navigate it together. Ultimately, strengthening your connection. In Caveh’s words,

Honesty is my version of morality. I think we don’t know what anything is for or what it will lead to, but we do know what’s true for us. And if we know what’s true for us, the right thing will happen because it will be from truth. Whereas now… most of us don’t say what’s true for us. Instead, we think about what we think should happen or what should be or the result we want… We don’t do what’s true. And people end up together who shouldn’t be together. All kinds of neuroses happened that don’t need to…. And I think if everyone was just more honest, everyone would be a lot happier. People would learn more and grow. Most of the etiquette and kindness are just preventing us from growing. It’s all just to slow down spiritual growth really. And I think honesty speeds it up.

While I personally feel the need to balance radical honesty with radical empathy (i.e. considering my choice of words and tone when telling my truth), since there’s already too much un-kindness in the world, I think there’s something refreshing and worth considering in the radical honesty ideology.

The invitation for this month is to live the following questions: What if I’m radically honest with everyone I interact with? What are the boundaries that I personally feel comfortable with when it comes to radical honesty? Is radical honesty a moral compass that resonates with me?

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Here’s my conversation with Caveh Zahedi. Besides discussing his ethical ideology, we delved into his choice to pursue art studies over political activism, even though he views his films as inherently political. We also explored his insights on how individuals might grapple with the decision to adopt art as a way of life.

Warmly,
Carlota

P.S. I’m currently piloting a monthly online hangout: a laidback, unrecorded gathering where we can freely exchange ideas and experiences tied to the themes explored in the podcast and newsletter.

The upcoming session will revolve around RADICAL HONESTY and is scheduled for next Tuesday, October 26th, 2023 from 6 to 7 pm Madrid time. If you want to join, simply reply to this email. There’re only 3 spots left!

If you possess such a device, I dare assume you have some level of privilege. You might have hustled for it, had it handed over, or a blend of both.

And if you’re based in the global north, your privilege score just got a little chubbier. And the list goes on if you’re white, male, straight, financially comfortable, non-disabled, fit, stereotypically attractive, identifying as cisgender or monogamous.

If you’re reading this, maybe privilege is a word you know intimately. One that weighs in on your decisions of where to live and work (if to work at all), and how to show up in your world.

Perhaps you feel comfortable with your privilege. You’re grateful to yourself, for lifting yourself up from wherever you came from. Or you are appreciative to those who bless(ed) you with an easier life as you figure(d) out your place on this strange floating planet.

Or perhaps privilege is a word you avoid—one that makes you feel somewhat uncomfortable. Guilt might creep in as you wonder if you really deserve all these perks. Shouldn't you need to work harder for stability? Put in the hours, earn your keep, understand what life truly entails for most people?

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Wherever you fall on the privilege spectrum, today, I’d like to share a thought that has been swirling in my consciousness lately: privilege as a responsibility, or rather, privilege as response-ability.

Think about it: someone who is responsible is, by definition, someone who, savior complexes aside, has an ability to respond.

In the midst of the daily whirlwind, it’s easy to forget our good fortune—get caught up in to-do items, shopping lists, WhatsApp messages, Instagram scrolling, clients’ demands, you name it!

The bigger picture can get a bit blurry. Suddenly, we stop noticing the homeless person in our street, that friend struggling to find a job, that acquaintance who, to everyone’s surprise, fell into a depression. Not to mention our relation to the rest of the Earth’s population!

So, what if, instead of burying the awareness of our privilege somewhere to be forgotten, we keep it close, letting it gently push us into action, wherever we can, whenever we can?

And I’m not talking about quitting your studies or your job and dedicating your life to a humanitarian career (though, as you can read below, that’s exactly what our guest this month did).

Showing up can be as simple as pushing for better conditions at your workplace (as discussed last month with Rebecca Seal), picking a company that is not harming the environment, calling discrimination out, or listening more deeply to someone’s troubles.

After all, what makes privilege problematic is not that you or I get to enjoy life’s pleasures, it’s that not everyone gets to do the same—hence, the responsibility to do something about it.

Warmly,
Carlota

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This month I conversed with Amanda Huits, who early on in her life decided to take responsibility for her privilege and dedicate her career to humanitarian work.

After visiting her mom’s original home in a favela in Brazil, Amanda, born and raised in the Netherlands, ventured into studies in International Relations and, more recently, integrated the Learning and Operations team at GPPAC (Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict), the world’s largest network of civil society organizations across the globe.

Youth Shoutout

This month’s shoutout goes to the Earthrise Studio. Founded in 2020 by Alice Aedy, Jack Harries, and Finn Harries, they’re an impact-driven media company for people and the planet.

I’ve been following their work for a bit. It’s inspiring to see them evolve, expand their network, and reach important voices in the activism space such as David David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg.

They seem to be up to something, blending impeccable branding with engaging storytelling and important climate-related messages.

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A situation that could have resumed in seconds, if only the student simply put away their device, escalated to a visit from the school’s principal, who, unfortunately, was not ultimately entitled to confiscate the phone. In the next class, the student was on his phone again.

The teacher’s major concern is that kids are losing their ability to focus, read, be patient, and do hard things. He shared a disheartening statistic that only 19% of grade four students in South Africa today read for meaning.

This got us thinking about the role of social media in shortening the attention spans of younger generations and, perhaps more significantly, our patience spans and ability to choose delayed gratification over instant pleasure. Dopamine hits, activated by the content algorithmically targeted to us, become a habit, a daily necessity. And when we are called to choose between watching one more TikTok video or returning to that long book / boring work task / teacher speaking, we choose the former.

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Regarding patience, I don't know about you, but I've witnessed our generation's impatience, my own included, especially in the professional realm. We (in our privileged corners of the world, at least) grow up in a culture marked by an obsession with therapy and self-improvement. We are told that we are special and that we deserve things and that it is our right to fight for our dreams. And often, we come to the working place with this inflated ego—this sense of entitlement—when, a lot of the time, we don't yet deserve the recognition and validation we seek.

Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of positives to self-belief and the pursuit of personal development. We are already asking ourselves important questions about what we want to do and who we want to be, questions that perhaps our parents and grandparents only posed much later in life. We are challenging organizations to attend to their work culture, think of brand values, improve salaries and conditions, and be better for the environment.

And I also don't ignore the pressure of our hyperconnected world. A world where we are now competing at the global level. A world where education, degrees, certifications, skills, and knowledge are more accessible than ever. A world in which it is increasingly harder to stand out! Perhaps we are impatient because there is no time to be wasted.

And yet, I hear the stories of my predecessors, the struggles they endured, from years spent working hard to get that first big promotion, or to build a solid clientele, or to hone their craft, and can't help but think about how we are being unreasonable with our demands and timelines. We want mastery and recognition now. Rushing our way to adding fancy, qualitative, inflated adjectives to our bio descriptions. Aiming to become experts in our field yesterday, to start a podcast teaching others how we "made it" tomorrow. We ignore life's timing. Sometimes—most times—there are no shortcuts to maturation.

So, dear reader, the living question for this month is: how do we escape the instant-gratification traps in our day-to-day, and unlike that student, put away our phones, to make space for more patience and character-building practices that will support us in the long run?

Warmly,
Carlota

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To explore the question above, I sat with the best-selling author Rebecca Seal. Together we explore the journey that hides beneath the word best-selling to remind us that, more often than not, we can't bypass our way to crafting our ideal professional reality.

Rebecca is the author of "⁠Solo: How to Work Alone and Not Lose Your Mind⁠" and over ⁠a dozen cookbooks. She's also the host of the ⁠Solo Collective Podcast⁠ , which I highly recommend to anyone working alone. As a freelance writer, she has written articles on food, drink, and lifestyle for numerous prestigious publications including The Guardian, The Observer, and The Financial Times.

A spoiler for the ladies, when inquired about what words Rebecca would share with her younger self, she told me - 'Try and figure out getting to a place where you are not always thinking about how you look because I think that was probably the most preoccupying and disabling thing that I had going on and continue to wrestle with now…'

Youth Shoutout

As I try to make the Waking Youth project more representative of the youth around the world, this month's shoutout goes to Nhlanhla Ndlovu, the founder of Hustlenomics - a start-up founded in 2015 innovating in the affordable housing industry.

Born and raised in Soweto, a township in South Africa, for a great deal of his life, Nhlanhla shared a living space with twelve family members. Tired of his conditions and lacking financial resources to contract builders, he moved to an informal and unsafe shack in his backyard, like many of his neighbors. Eventually, however, he joined forces with friends, skilled in plumbing and carpentry, to replace the shack with a quality and durable structure.

This newly formed team started assisting with small-scale affordable housing projects in Soweto—the idea for Hustlenomics was born. Today, with a bold business model and an innovative interlocking brick technology (that you can learn more about on their website), they provide both an income and a more affordable and sustainable housing option to families in Soweto and across townships in South Africa.

More recently, as I deepen my writing practice, I deliberately return to this exercise of mine—and potentially of all of us—to develop an autopsied dictionary to rely on. For instance, not long ago, I learned that the meaning of autopsy extends beyond the examination of a body after death to determine the cause of death, to signify the act of seeing with one's own eyes (auto + opsis).

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Today, I feel inspired to exercise with you with a buzzword of our times: success. Why, you may ask? Well, I suspect that, like me, you want to be a successful individual. And yet, the conventional definitions of success we often hear in the public sphere sometimes fall short of encompassing our diverse longings for achievement.

Let’s get our virtual hands dirty and see what this word is about.

I usually start the exercise by mentalizing the potential formal definitions of the term I’m dissecting. In the case of success, I intuit it relates to achievement, and more specifically, the attainment of wealth, fame or social recognition. What do you think?

Then, holding the old big block on my lap (I like the international Merriam-Webster dictionary), I verify its meaning. Here’s what I read:

1a: a degree or measure of succeeding.

Isn’t it clarifying when definitions use words from the same family of the term you’re checking to define it? Let’s continue, shall we?

1b: a favorable or desired outcome
also: the attainment of wealth, favor or eminence

Somewhat related to my anticipated definition. Onward:

2: one that succeeds

Thanks!

3 obsolete: outcome, result

Intriguing that the most encompassing meaning is now obsolete. Let’s check the etymology of the word to understand its context more profoundly:

Latin successus, from succcedere

And if you check the definition of the latter, you’ll read:

to follow after another in order
to turn out well
to attain a desired object or end

For the sake of intellectual indulgence, in the sentences that follow, I'll entertain the latter, more classical definition of success. Which, untouched by contemporary reductionisms, simply signifies to follow through on your chosen path.

I appreciate that this definition doesn't default to a specific predetermined path, i.e., the attainment of fame, money or wealth.

And if the aspiring successful individual is lucky—and deliberate enough—they might even get to decide the path for themselves. In this case, what deems them successful is the completion of their chosen course, as opposed to leaving such judgments to external eyes and criteria.

Let’s examine an example:

A creative writer wrote two books, none of which were published. 

Well, if the writer is on a path to commercial success, then sure, they failed to succeed in their desired outcome. Now, if the writer intended to write two excellent books, if the books' craft is any good, independently of whether or not the books got published, the writer might have succeeded indeed.

So, the question here is: what path do you want to walk, towards what end goal, and perhaps most importantly, who’s defining it?

Warmly,
Carlota

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Aligned with the theme of revisiting success, this month, I conversed with my friend and yoga teacher Joana Leite de Castro.

Her desired outcome, working for three years as a global marketeer at a US multinational pharmaceutical company in her early twenties, was to become the CEO of Coca-Cola or Google.

Not long after, however, Joana realized she was unfulfilled. She quit, packed her suitcase, and ventured to Africa to build a school from scratch with a friend.

She spend the following three years traveling the world, until, eventually, she settled in Porto, her hometown, slowly but surely, walking the path toward becoming a yoga teacher and the founder of the Shambho Yoga Studio.

Together we unpack Joana's story of becoming to discover insights and better questions to accompany us on our own journey of living into maturity more wisely.

Sometimes, in the midst of such inquiries, my grandma would interrupt the person speaking: 'You're such an idiot, aren't you?' The rest of us, silent.

No, this is not a story about verbal child abuse. For my grandma, idiot signified one who entertains original ideas. For us, being called an idiot was the best compliment she could give us.

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Fast forward to now, as I read the book Psychopolitics by the philosopher Byung Chulan Han, I found myself revisiting these lost memories. It seems that Han and my grandma are in sync. In one of the short book's chapters, Han draws attention to the vital role of the idiot in our society.

Han defines idiot in the original sense of the term as a “private person” who stands in the margins of the mainstream; someone who is not entirely integrated into the fabric of society; someone who's able to critically digest the information circulating in the public sphere and point alternative paths forward.

Why are idiots pertinent today? For Han, because they’re an endangered species!

He argues that neoliberalism has become so prevalent that even folks who seek self-improvement do so, not to become better—more actualized—idiots, but to become more marketable entrepreneurial projects of one.

According to such logic, personal development (and tools such as mindfulness, meditation, breathwork, etc,) is put at the service of gaining a competitive advantage in the neoliberal game. The ultimate motivation is to generate enough capital to retire early, or to finally be in control of one’s time, or to become one’s own boss.*

The blind spot of this line of thought is that one can never really win the game. Capital becomes one’s new invisible boss—one’s almighty god. After all, more capital equals more commitment, more responsibilities, less freedom.

At the same time, Han draws attention to the endless amounts of data and content being generated on a daily basis—think Instagram pics, Twitter updates, health apps, and the like—leading to a culture of “transparency”, “democratic communication” and “self-expression” that, to him, look more like a culture of surveillance and self-monitoring.

Han worries that such culture further promotes the extinction of idiots—an extinction accelerated by the attention economy that governs the social media landscape (as portrayed in the documentary The Social Dilemma and the book Digital Minimalism).

“Today, it seems, the type of the outsider - the idiot, the fool - has all but vanished from society. Throughgoing digital networking and communication have massively amplified the compulsion to conform. The attendant violence of consensus is suppressing idiotisms.”

So, confronted with today’s reality, what would an idiot do? Probably, an idiot would simply return to the innocent question of why—Why work for more and more money if that money does not equate to increased levels of well-being or social change? Why engage in infinite scrolling? Why contribute to the proliferation of distraction?

Han provocatively proceeds to define intelligence as the ability to choose-between. His point is that “intelligent” folks still operate within a pre-defined logic or framework. Their thinking is not free; it's context-limited. Hence, the idiot—excluded from such logic—is above intelligence, above an unquestioned logic.

"Intelligence means choosing-between (inter-legere). It is not entirely free in so far as it is caught in a between which depends on the system in operation. Intelligence has no access to outside, because it makes a choice between options in a system. Therefore, intelligence does not really exercise free choice: it can only select among the offerings the system affords… Accordingly, intelligence has no access to what is wholly Other. It inhabits a horizontal plane. In contrast the idiot has contact with the vertical dimension inasmuch as he takes leave of the prevailing system – that is, abandons intelligence.

Though I found some of Han’s arguments somewhat exaggerated, his overall reasoning is relevant. Now, the ultimate question is: if you were sitting at my grandmother's table in today's neoliberal culture of distraction and perpetual self-optimization, would you be one more intelligent cousin in the room, or would you be my grandmother's elected idiot?

Warmly,
Carlota

*For more on this, check Slavoj Zizek, Herbert Marcuse, and Ronald Purser’s McMindfulness.

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In this spirit of idiotism, for this month's podcast episode, I conversed with Mariana Henriques Martins – an idiot with an academic background in History and a fiction writer who more recently transitioned into corporate consulting in London.

As we keep exploring the question of how we might live into the maturity more wisely, one of the themes that is, in my opinion, central to such exploration is the one of professional choices.

Mariana is a deep thinker who published her first book, The Voices—an existential journey across the multitudes contained in our internal worlds—at the age of twenty-four.

I interviewed Mariana to learn more about the thought process that led her to idiotically immerse herself in the alien reality of corporate life to form a more first-person opinion of our contemporary reality, a move aligned with Fernando Pessoa's piece, The Anarchist Banker⁠.

Youth Shoutout

Before you go, I'm excited to introduce Waking Youth's most recent rubric highlighting the extraordinary voices of the youth across the globe. This month, the shoutout goes to the idiots Tristan Harry and Aza Raskin, who timely shared a presentation on the ethical and existential challenges AI poses to our species.

Standing on the shoulders of their previous documentary, The Social Dilemma, they return to the public sphere to not only inform the public about the dangers of AI but, more importantly, to inspire us to take action to steer it in the right direction, which in this case looks more like standing still.

More often than not, when I read or hear the word happiness in some podcast episode, article, or social post, resistance takes over my body. Even more so when happiness is portrayed as a means to the end of a more productive hence materially successful life. Am I alone?

I gravitate more toward concepts such as fulfillment, enjoyment, resilience, ethics, and character. Mostly because happiness as a term feels vague.

Despite my skepticism, I still catch myself spontaneously using the term: 'Are you happy with that choice? Are you happy in that relationship? Are you happy with that job? I'm happy to hear from you!'

What is it, then, about the stickiness of this word? It seems rather intriguing that we use it so ubiquitously as a life compass without fully understanding or agreeing on its meaning.

In 2022, when I was working for the IE University Center for Health, Well-Being & Happiness, hosting the Resetting Homo Sapiens Podcast, I had the chance to sit with some of these questions with Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi, in the context of the center’s annual happiness week. 

Ibrahim is a visiting professor at IE University and an Associate Professor at the California State University of San Marcos. He holds a Ph.D. in Modern History from Oxford University on the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait.

How does a specialist in History and Conflict Management end up on a podcast about happiness?

As a professor generously involved in student life, Ibrahim reached out to me after listening to our podcast episode with student Nata Bulleishvili, who courageously shared her experience of attending the 12-step program as an addict in recovery. If a student goes that vulnerable, then it is my duty to do the same, Ibrahim thought. So he decided to be the first professor to open the mental health dialogue in the first person. 

I recall being surprised by Ibrahim's genuinity. He was not one more mentor talking about why happiness is vaguely important. Instead, he boldly unpacked the importance of embracing melancholy toward a more profound experience of well-being.

As you can listen to in the episode, Ibrahim kindly shared some of his experiences with trauma and therapy. His hope, he tells us, is to let students (and humans) know they are not alone—share tools to help us manage our inner worlds more wisely—inspire us to attend to our mental health, one of today's pandemics.

Like many of us, Ibrahim's childhood is marked by trauma with capital and lowercase t. After years of emotional repression, a therapist changed his approach to personal management by challenging him to apply his intellectual abilities to his interior life. And so, as the good academic that he is, he did.

In this context, Ibrahim recommends Maybe You Should Talk to Someone⁠ as a transformative piece of writing with plenty of insights about the power of therapy and the human condition. Lori Gottlieb, the author and main character, is a therapist who herself seeks therapy. I admit I devoured this book in the lead-up to my interview with Ibrahim. It’s both moving and hilarious.

What follows is a couple of highlights from the interview:

• The (un)usefulness of happiness as a concept. Namely, how it has more to do with an overall sense of fulfillment than transitory happy feelings;

• The importance of meeting one's shadow toward a more integral experience of well-being. A beautiful documentary (on Netflix) - Stutz - covers this theme, starring Jonah Hill with his therapist Phil Stutz;

• The ingredients for a fulfilling life, with passion (in the classical definition of the term passio = suffering) at its epicenter. In others words, the importance of finding something to suffer for as Ibrahim found teaching;

• Ibrahim's personal experience with psychotherapy;

• Some resources to manage melancholy including Vitor Frank's book Man's Search For Meaning⁠;

• A few comments on why and how to find ethical motivation on a planet in crisis. 

I found the last highlight particularly resonant and relevant. I asked Ibrahim whether he thinks there is space for happiness in the face of a dooming planetary future for our generation. As a History professor and earthling, Ibrahim believes that, while the state of our world is historically unprecedented and particularly depressing, if we are to find any sense of fulfillment in our lifetimes, we must try to be part of the solution to our global crisis, not because our actions will alone save the world, but because it's simply the right thing to do. He points to Don't Look Up as a movie that poignantly captures the zeitgeist of our generation.

As covered in previous newsletters, this seems like a wise call: make one of our life's purposes about doing some kind of good in the world; use our feelings of grief, despair, and rage as fuel for taking courageous action; find the balance between passionately engaging in social change while also taking time and creating space to disconnect and recharge and reset over and over again. And, like a trickster, find joy in the process, throwing martyrdom and nihilism out the window. Why? Well, what's the more fertile alternative?

Enough existential rambling for today! I'll be back next month with a new episode.

Warmly,
Carlota

It has been a while since my last newsletter. The past few months over this side of the screen resembled a juggler's prep for a more challenging circus show, struggling to find the agility necessary to get more-than-usual balls moving without any of them falling on the ground.

This metaphor captures the essence of today's exploration more than words can ever.

In previous newsletters, I have introduced what seems to be the double task of our coming-of-age generation. On the one hand, we are expected to cross typical rites of passage such as finding a fulfilling job or creating a successful business, mating with a decent enough human being, potentially getting married, having kids, buying a house, or insert-cliché-or-rebellious-counter-culture-alternative-of-choice. On the other hand, we are obliged to confront an unprecedented planetary crisis and our role in it.

Such an existential puzzle can be made more complex if one is animated by the arts or any kind of creative pursuit: should I apply my vital energy to doing some kind of good in the world, follow my bliss, or sell my soul to the devil to make a bunch of money to then do whatever I want (perhaps finally pursue one of the first two options)?

In the spirit of such inquiry, I interviewed Giancarlo Canavesio to unpack his rather refreshing path.

I ran into Giancarlo's profile as I found myself in a rabbit hole of Daniel Pinchbeck's digital records, finally landing in a podcast episode of Mangu.TV where Giancarlo interviewed Pinchbeck.

Giancarlo's profile intrigued me. How does a promising investment banker based in London and NYC transition into alternative film production and regenerative hospitality and agriculture? Perhaps the fact that he's the same age as my parents further sparked my interest. I'm more accustomed to interacting with settled middle-aged human beings than jester-inspired profiles who turn their life around after plant-medicine-induced spiritual awakenings.

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One of the details that arose my journalistic curiosity was that Giancarlo more seriously ventured into filmmaking with Mangusta Productions around 2006 after an ayahuasca ceremony that shifted his life view, yet, he did so while keeping his investment activities on the side, at least for a couple of years. 

A folk myth that often gets passed on from ear to ear is that if you want to be successful in the arts or some kind of creative pursuit (entrepreneurship included), you should give up everything to dedicate your complete focus to fulfill such ambitions. Giancarlo seems to think differently and more safely.

As Elisabeth Gilbert does. As we explore throughout the podcast episode, in her book Big Magic, Gilbert walks us through some of her life decisions as a human being with the stubborn dream of being a writer. In the book, she explains that it was clear from an early age that while it is absolutely essential to her sanity to write every day, she would never dare to stress her writing to make a living.

Throughout her 20s, for instance, as she improved her craft, she made a living waitering tables and bartending. She confides she carried around a notebook to write down ideas for her books inspired by deep thoughts she overheard from her clients' drunken confessions. The point here is that Gilbert never intended to become a published, successful, or well-paid writer. Her intention was simply to write. Period. She did what she had to do to make this a reality.

As to the matter of doing good in the world, she admits her skepticism toward creatives who are primarily moved to change the world through their creations:

Whenever anybody tells me they want to write a book in order to help other people, I always think, Oh please don’t.

Please don’t try to help me.

I mean it’s very kind of you to want to help people, but please don’t make it your sole creative motive, because we will fill the weight of your heavy intention, and it will put a strain upon our souls (it reminds me of this wonderful adage from the British columnist Katharine Whitehorn: “You can recognize the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of others.”

I would so much rather you wrote a book in order to entertain yourself than to help me. Or if your subject matter is darker and more serious, I would prefer that you made your art in order to save yourself, or to relieve yourself of some great psychic burden, rather than to save or relieve us.

Ok, so we can strive to create a career path similar to Giancarlo where we follow our creative curiosities, work to make money, and venture into regenerative projects in a parallel or asynchronous fashion, hoping to one day converge the three. Or we can listen to Gilbert's lead and become a devotional creator, making enough money to survive and create for our own enjoyment, not burdening ourselves with the task of saving the world through our creations (though, Gilbert is openly involved in multiple charitable projects when not writing books). What else?

I admit that I idealistically aspire to combine all three: pursue my creative longings, do good, and hopefully walk toward material prosperity.

Daniel Pinchbeck's work is an intriguing example of the integration of a life of service and creativity. However, I suspect he would claim he's not necessarily prosperous, materially speaking. From first-person explorations of psychedelics to more grounded investigations on how to drastically reengineer our society towards regeneration (see How Soon is Now: A Handbook for Planetary Change), Daniel embodies the archetype of the outsider artist, in the most moral sense of the term, chasing an existence of inquiry, social critique, contemplation, and self-actualization.

Similarly, though I suspect more prosperously, Krista Tippet, the founder, and host of the On Being Podcast, is a terrific case of personal talent combined with extraordinary discipline that continues to give birth to life-affirming public service. After graduating from her master's program at the Yale Divinity School, Krista had the idea to develop an oral-history project that would later evolve into a groundbreaking radio program and podcast in the US, gracefully bridging spiritual discourse with everyday affairs and hard science.

As much as I love investigating paths such as Pinchbeck and Tippet's, what I'm unsure about is whether, even if a considerable amount of human beings build a lifestyle around all three pursuits (doing good, following creativity and making money), that is enough to tackle the inertia of the environmental gloom already initiated by our species. Two reasons swirl inside my brain:

1) Even if we become more environmentally conscious in terms of how we live and work together, comfort and material prosperity, as we know it in the West, are still unsustainable at the global level (having in mind that such comforts should be equal for the eight billion human beings that exist in our planet today).

2) Even if we radically reengineer our lifestyles worldwide towards wealth redistribution, equality, and sustainability, it's already too late to reverse the mess we have collectively activated.

At the end of the day, however, I lean toward more productive approaches to life, work, and regeneration. Joanna Macy has extensively written about this in her books, including Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're In Without Going Crazy. Her thesis is that if we listen to the cry for help of our planet and do work that is contributing to the rebalancing of our living system in some kind of way, we can find a tremendous sense of purpose, more significant than any money-driving career could ever offer us. After all, we are one with the planet.

Few people seem willing to directly and exclusively engage in environmental activism, though. A useful in-between are examples of responsible initiatives and enterprises such B-Corp, Tony Chocolonely, Patagonia, and so on. I have worked on some myself, as some friends do. Overall speaking, from my biased research samples, people who work with or founded social businesses seem to be one of the happiest psychographics. I hope to return to this topic in future newsletters and podcasts.

Anyhow, our worlds and longings and chances and opportunities are too relative and context-specific to make any universal, yes-or-no conclusions about what is possible or not possible when it comes to building a personal and professional life where doing good is compatible with pursuing our creative curiosity and making money.

As usual, I would love to listen to your thoughts and experience on this.

Warmly,

Carlota

P.S. I intend to re-commit to a monthly frequency from this newsletter on. I'm currently on the search for new voices and themes. Please leave a comment or send me an email with your suggestions on what to investigate next.

I’m thrilled to share that for this month’s podcast episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jorge Ferrer, author of Love and Freedom: Transcending Monogamy and Polyamory and Novogamia: Más Allá de La Monogamia Y Del Poliamor. 

In previous newsletters, I've mentioned that I ran into Jorge’s research a couple of months ago in the ManguTv Podcast with host Giancarlo Canavesio, as I spontaneously found myself returning to the exploration of the theme of open relationships as both an intellectual fascination and personal curiosity. 

If you are not yet familiar with Jorge’s background, he has dedicated more than twenty years to the study of spirituality and relationships. Originally from Barcelona, Jorge is a former professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he completed his doctoral research and served as a chair of the department of East-West Psychology.

Currently based in Ibiza, Jorge continues to write, give talks and workshops, and provide relationships and psycho-spiritual counseling to individuals and couples. Though his academic books are (in my opinion) refreshingly accessible, Jorge is more recently committed to bringing his message to more general audiences. His latest book Novogamia is an excellent example of such efforts, as it delivers the same messages shared in Love and Freedom in a more visual and playful manner. 

In the spoken words that follow, we dive into Jorge’s work on relationships, more particularly the waking up moments in his life that motivated his professional inquiry; the definition and intention behind the term he coined - novogamy - inviting us to create novel ways of relating to one another beyond the binary monogamy-polyamory; as well as some practical advice on how to experiment with alternative relational modes responsibly. A warm thank you to all the readers who submitted their questions to Jorge. We did our best to answer all of them!

My hope is that you take with you some actionable insights that assist you in the process of cocreating relationships that support your flourishing in whatever shape or format suits you best.

As usual, feel free to leave a comment below. What intrigued you throughout the episode? What is your experience with alternative relational modes? Of course, if you’re feeling shy, you can always send me a private email. Thanks to the survey from last month’s newsletter, I know that at least 40% of you have, at some point, desired to explore non-monogamy 😌

Warmly,
Carlota

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P.S. A big thanks to Jorge for, beyond the beautiful insights shared, his matcha-tea-powered effort to connect despite a cheeky cold that visited him on the day of our interview!

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Black or white. Right or wrong. Good or evil. Left or right. Boy or girl. Gay or straight. Monogamous or polyamorous. There is so much data for our brains to process in this strange universe that it seems that one of our coping mechanisms is to simplify reality in binaries. 

Yet, what if, instead of protecting us in productive ways, such simplifications impede us from fully experiencing the rainbow of endless possibilities of our post-modern times?

My invitation today is for us to transcend, or at least suspend, binary thought tendencies for a couple of minutes, more particularly in the context of gender identity and romantic relationship types.

So, let’s start with gender. If you have been following the Waking Youth Podcast for a while, you might remember our past conversation with former lawyer and writer Yang-May Ooi. Together, we read and deconstructed Yang May's early expressions of tomboyishness, which later on contrasted with her performances of femininity throughout her college years as written in her beautiful book Bound Feet Blues: a Life Told in Shoes, where she admitted having created a more gender-conforming high-wheeled alter ego (aka Winnie) to temporarily flirt with alpha males and, more importantly, explore the boundaries of the fluidity of her being.

This time, two years later, I decided to interview my friend Esaú Gozalor with whom I have shared numberless ramblings about both gender and relationships. Two conversations in particular motivated me to invite him to the podcast. One where he shared his decision to identify as both he and they on his (or their) LinkedIn bio description. Another one where he confided to me that he had opened up his relationship. Check out the full interview below (kudos, once more, to our Music Audio Producer and Editor Carlos Sierra for the great work). What follows is the research that led to the podcast episode.

The first time I seriously contemplated the idea of gender non-binarism was throughout a Feminism Course at IE University with my esteemed professor and mentor Celia de Anca. Celia introduced the class to the work of Judith Butler in the context of the third feminist wave, Butler being one of the movement's central figures. There was something in Butler’s unconventionality that intrigued me.

In Gender Trouble, they propose we open new avenues of expression to be more inclusive of folks that neither identify as women nor men and, instead, see themselves in the shades in-between or beyond.

To legitimize the creation of more inclusive gender categories, Butler sagaciously challenges the widely adopted assumption that sex is a static condition of a body, suggesting instead that such categorization is, at least partially, socially constructed, as explained in her talk Why Bodies Matter.

“If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.”
― Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

What does it mean that sex is socially constructed? It means that “sex” is not a fact or “a real thing in the world”. It means that we define and create “sex” only in relation to and interaction with one another through regulatory norms and reinforcement of those norms throughout time.

For instance, even though Westerners, like me, would quickly assume that the female body parts that are universally sexualized are breasts, bums, and so on, we need not visit another planet to meet a tradition that sexualized women's small feet for an entire millennium.

If we recognize that sex is, at least partly, a social construction, then there is no reason why we should not 1) resignify both sexual and gender categories, and 2) create new categories altogether to reflect the particular experiences of diverse peoples.

“If there is something right in Beauvoir's claim that one is born, but rather becomes a woman, it follows that woman itself is a term in process, a becoming, a constructing that cannot rightfully be said to originate or to end. As an ongoing discursive practice, it is open to intervention and resignification.”
― Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Ok, so even if we understand that gender (and to a certain extent sex) is culturally and socially constructed, then why not simply expand (or alter) the definition of what it means to be a woman / man or feminine / masculine? It is conventionally accepted by now (I hope!) that girls can wear blue and boys pink. That men can wear make-up and that women can wear pants. Why go the extra mile and create new categories altogether?

Well, because we are failing to create categories for all kinds of folks: intersex folks, androgynous folks, people who were assigned a certain gender or sex at birth yet, at their core, do not identify with such category, in sum, people who want to evolve unjustified or reductionist default modes.

To go back to our exploration of direct experiences, for Esaú, while we should continue to stretch such definitions so that they are more inclusive of diverse gender experiences, identifying as they goes beyond wanting to "just" temporarily borrow elements or expressions typically associated to a certain gender. It's about being free to move across a spectrum or even transcend it to identify with something more essential. To quote them, ‘This is the part that we get a tiny bit into spirituality….’

Coincidently, as I devoted my free time to the contemplation of the wonderings mentioned above, I ran into a podcast episode in the Mangu Tv Podcast where host Giancarlo Canavesio sat with Jorge Ferrer, a writer, former professor at the Californian Institute of Integral Studies, and spiritual teacher. Jorge generously and brilliantly contributed to the field of relationships proposing that in the same way that the transgender movement overcame the gender binary, a “parallel step can-and should-be taken with the relational style binary.”

He coins the term novogamy to transcend the often tainted terms monogamy and polyamory. An act of anarchism to dismantle the default structure of binary romantic relationships. A word that signifies a new way to look at relationships, a more open one, where couples are free to create their own agreement according to their ever-changing needs.

Standing on the shoulders of Jorge and others who came before us, in the second part of the conversation, Esaú and I acknowledge the similarities of the desire to transcend binaries in gender, relationships, and sexuality. The glue tying all three together seems to be the motivation to commit to open communication, self-expression, freedom, and exploration.

In this line of thought, we dedicated part of our discussion to the connection between language, culture and perceived realities. Our conclusion was that humans evolved to develop language and categories to self-organize, supposedly, more efficiently. It's comforting to not have to talk through every detail of life together. Social scripts emerged to dictate what's expected of the role of woman and man, father and mother, husband and wife, and so on. Naturally, as we evolve, we want language to evolve with us. We want the freedom to create the relationship dynamic we desire and deserve. Including relationships with ourselves.

As much as I would love to now dive into the topic of romantic relationships and tell you about novogamy, the term coined by Jorge Ferrer to invite us to transcend binary thinking in relationships, I will restrain myself from doing so since….drum roll, please… Jorge will join us in a couple of episodes to share his insights on the matter!

In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to give you the opportunity to pose your questions to Jorge. So, dear friends, after all our conversations about open relationships, this is your chance to query a mature adult who has been actively dedicating part of his life to this matter. Link to send me your questions here.

If you wish to first dive deeper into Jorge’s work, I personally recommend you check out the English, more academic version of his work, Love and Freedom: Transcending Monogamy and Polyamory, or the more accessible Spanish version Novogamia: Más Allá de la Monogamia y del Poliamor with some juicy additions, including practical advice on how to overcome jealously and engage in transorgasmic sex.

And, since I'm already opening the conversation, I thought it would also be fun to scan our position regarding gender identity and relationship types. I'll share the results anonymously in future communications. Reply here now. 

Finally, regarding the question that often knocks on our door once we start getting too deep into any topic: in the grand scheme of things, why should we care? Aren't discussions about gender and relationships holding us from having "real" debates about social change and regeneration?

Put shortly, how can we create a better tomorrow if we don't accept how we individually and collectively experience, express, and love ourselves today? I will keep challenging similar objections in future newsletters. For now, I leave you with the reference of Tamera, a free-love commune in Portugal committed to the exploration of the thesis proposed by one of the co-founders of the initiative, Dieter Duhm: ‘There can be no peace on Earth as long as there is war in love.’

Warmly,

Carlota

P.S. I will come back shortly with some mind-stretching queries. In the meantime, you have plenty of rabbit holes to dig into in the links included throughout this newsletter.

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In my first college year abroad, in-between two am philosophical conversations with my roommates and semiotics assignments, one of the movies that touched me profoundly was Waking Life by Richard Linklater.

More than feeling particularly identified with the main character, what animated me about this art piece was the existential wandering of this earthling who kept realizing that what he thought was waking reality was, in fact, a dream, inside of a dream, and yet another dream… you get the idea.

The trippy ambiance of the movie makes us question whether we can truly know we are not just sleepwalking through what we think of as our waking states. The thing about dreams is that while we're in them, they feel like waking reality. 

Having felt such a similar phenomenon - of waking up to a truer reality - at different stages in my life, particularly when I dropped out of college in Porto, interrupting the social script that had been invisibly prescribed to me after nineteen years of numbingly living in the same bubble to study abroad, Waking Youth seemed like an accurate descriptor of my more recent efforts to not fall back into sleep.

As to the Youth part of Waking Youth, as a youngster in my twenties, Waking Youth speaks to the particular experience of the literal youth who is currently transitioning into adult life and facing its "typical" challenges (i.e. getting a decent job, building a career, buying a house, creating a family) to, not long after, realize such pursuits are in a way pointless or silly when we acknowledge the current state of the planet…

(I’m curious to know if you experience this phenomenon or if I’m generalizing a personal experience. Feel free to answer in the comments section or send me an email).

Running the risk of over-stretching a manufactured meaning yet protecting myself from attributing an expiration date to this project's message as I become a fully developed adult, Waking Youth also signifies an intentional initiation of the collective adolescent-like consciousness of the human family into a more mature stage of development.

I first read about this idea in Krista Tippet's work, then in Daniel Pinchbeck's books. If we consider humanity as a single entity, we would be on a developmental stage comparable to that of a human in their early twenties. Sometimes we're incredibly sharp and ingenious. Others, we're plain dumb and immature. What if we turned this into an opportunity for growth?

So, while we are already awake at many levels, much like the guy in Waking Life who becomes aware he is sleeping, the Waking Youth Project represents an invitation to interpret the current planetary crisis as an opportunity to become the "critical yeast" that wakes up from the current collective sleepwalking to discover (and create) a new base reality.

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Ok. That's about as meta as I can go without stealing too much of your precious time.

As promised, here's the link to the new podcast trailer. A big thanks (again) to our Music Audio Producer, Carlos Sierra, for the patience and excellent work.

Warmly,

Carlota

P.S. Next month, I'll send you the first episode of Season 2, where I interview my friend Esaú Gozalor about gender and relationships beyond binary thinking