I know. You don’t expect to see a naked man on THIS blog. Naked Maggie Gyllenhaal is far more likely but I’m a bit enamored with Colin Wright (and Adam Lambert) so here he is.

Colin is living life, both on and off line, the ARO way: authentic, relevant and organic. He’s the man behind Colinismy.name sustainable design studio and Exile Lifestyle, his vagabonding, location-independent lifestyle blog.

I’m a whore for people who live non-traditionally. If they can mix it with business, it is an ARO moment.

Some things Colin and I share:

1. He whittled down his possessions to 50! (I want to!)
2. He lets his readers vote every 4 months on his next travel location. (I have readers!)
3. He’s a Capitalist and a Humanist (caps his), and more. (I’m a humanist!)
4. He loves sustainable design (me too!).
5. He also runs an e-publishing design firm called ebookling (I LOVE THAT NAME) that he has big dreams for.
6. Clearly he likes to be naked. And so do I.

Here’s the interview:

Where’d your fearlessness come from? Especially in business?

Part philosophy and part experience.

I’ve got a good deal of Stoic in my personal philosophy, so the idea of lows being just as valuable as highs plays a big role in my decision-making.

On that same note, I’ve had several businesses fail in a very epic fashion, and after you’ve been on starvation rations and had your name dragged through the mud a few times for your failures, there’s not a lot left that’s too terrifying; just different degrees of uncomfortable.

I guess in a way I’m comforted by the fact that I know I can make a 6-figure income, and no one and nothing can take that away. So what if I make a huge miscalculation and lose everything? I’ve worked my way up from $4/hour before, and I can do it again.

What’s the worst that could happen?

What are your thoughts about online authenticity? How naked do you want to be?

I’m all about authenticity online, though I’m a brander so that should be expected.

The ideal brand is all you, not a fabrication. Branding merely organizes what’s important about you so that you can communicate your ideology to others faster. To NOT be authentic is just bad practice (and unfortunately all too common, online and off) and results in a confusing message and less impact.

I’m willing to be as naked as I need to be (in some cases, quite literally) in order to surround myself with the most brilliant, ambitious, game-changing people possible. This is why I started my blog, and to do otherwise would really be shooting myself in the foot.

And, to be perfectly honest, I’ve tried doing it otherwise and I just can’t…it’s not how I operate. I can’t get excited about projects that my name doesn’t have a stake in. I like the idea of constantly investing in my personal brand so that whatever I want to do in the future I’ll always have a head start. To not be transparent in my dealings and activities online would be to not reap the benefits of my actions as completely as I could be.

What makes you and your work relevant?

I think that’s a question for my readers!

That sounds flippant, but it’s really true. To me, my work is something I do for fun and in order to improve myself; to expand my horizons and gain new insight and to have an excuse to do crazy stuff that I would have trouble explaining to people otherwise.

I’ve had readers email me and say that I’ve helped them change the course of their lives, while others have insisted that I’ve expanded THEIR horizons and opened up some new path they didn’t even know was there.

I personally think that the role I play is the same role so many people have played for me: a catalyst. Just knowing that I’m doing what I’m doing has led people to make decisions and changes in their lives that they’ve known they should make all along (or opened their eyes to options they didn’t realize were there, but needed a kick to notice), and I’m thrilled to play that small part in their lives. I’m honored, actually. Every single email I get like that makes my day.

Who are your online/offline heroes?

Let’s see….

My parents have played a huge part, of course. They’ve always encouraged me and made sure that I knew if the worst should happen I’d have a place to come home to, not to mention the fact that my love of reading was instilled by them.

There are numerous philosophers and writers who have influenced me; way too many to list here, but books in general have taught me so much.

Seth Godin’s work has definitely helped me come to the realization that you don’t have to play dirty to succeed in marketing and branding.

Richard Branson’s entrepreneurial methods are inspiring. As someone who delves into different industries with each new business, I am absolutely fascinated by his overarching business methods.

I also tend to surround myself with these really brilliant people. Some are bloggers, some are entrepreneurs, some are just really brilliant folks living normal 9 to 5 lives. Regardless, though, they all keep me on my toes, keep me thinking and questioning, and keep me sane, knowing that there are other people out there who care as much about having a life worth living as I do (whatever they might do with that life).

What’s a book that changed your life?

Atlas Shrugged. The Objectivist philosophy that’s being conveyed is imperfect (as philosophies tend to be), but through this book Ayn Rand put into words so many things that I’ve always felt but didn’t know how to convey. A big part of who I am now came to be after reading this book.

This blog is about being authentic. But it is also about business. And thus, I split it up again.

The decision has been hard. Very hard.

I’m glad to put my personal stuff back over here because I don’t have to think so hard over there. I love just popping on and saying “read this”, “watch that”, or “let me bleed emotionally in front of you in the hopes that you will learn faster than me!”. It’s how I started blogging.

But then I built an online business and how much ME to share got confusing. How to divvy it up got confusing. Frankly, my highest traffic has been split between business and personal posts. But, after consulting with the Queen of Red Shoes and Her Knight-in-Wordpress armor, I decided to reside in two distinct locales.

And then I had lots of conversations with Josie, who is training to be a therapist, and who was (rightfully) worried about just how transparent to be online. So then I started worrying about that too because I’m studying to get into grad school for the same damned thing.

If you Google me, I am in an odd assortment of places. I don’t mind this but some of these places would be off-putting at best to a therapy client (!).

Before I combined blogs, I consulted (via quick emails, comments) with Danielle LaPorte and Colleen Wainwright, two ladies that I felt had mixed the personal with the professional well. They both understood my concern:

I’m a bleeding heart liberal. My dad calls me a communist. I remind him I’m a socialist. Some of my clients are, or might be, incredibly conservative. And I have to earn a living.

And they said it was a personal decision.

I would NEVER hide my politics, gender, partner, etc. for money.

The question came down to interest.

Are the people who want to hire me interested in my love life?

Probably not. They might be interested in my writing ability (that is a big might) but are far more interested in how I can save them the pain of the behind-the-scenes tech stuff.

And even as I write this, I feel a bit sick. Because many of my most loyal readers and friends come here, not there, for my thoughts on these human foible issues. That blog is more “me” than this one because it encompasses the many things I care about: design, spirit, sex, love and Mad Men.

So bear with me friends. I would imagine in the next 2-3 years, this whole thing will be completely different. But hell. Will we even be blogging then?

POSTSCRIPT: Today, the day after I published, I found these two posts via Twitter:

vlog post via @fabeku: You can be all of it

post via @jmoriarty: Bland Romance – Losing a client but regaining some perspective

Clearly this topic is one that many, many of us (judging by comments elsewhere) struggle with and, well, some just don’t. So. These two boys have just caused more head spin for me. Thoughts?

Most of these are pretty low key and lovely:

kd lang’s version of Hallelujah

Michelle Featherstone “I’m There Too”

Melody Gardot “Worrisome Heart”

Grace Potter & Nocturnals White Rabbit

Roison Murphy “If We’re in Love” (and anything by her live)

Cinematic Orchestra “To Build a Home” (stunning)

Dinah Washington & Max Richter “This Earth”

Skunk Anasie “Squander”

David Gray “Draw the Line”

St. Vincent “Paris is Burning”

Related:

Lady Gaga, Oprah and My Own “Ah Ha!”

On Parenting, Possibility and Patti Smith

Folks. I woke up this week. I’m flooded by what I’ve discovered and it has freed me in a way that isn’t easy to express because I suspect that I’m in a small, lucky, sometimes cursed group of people.

I credit this book, The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness, for what may be one of the most pivotal changes in my life. It is the section on “restlessness” as a type of loneliness where I recognized me. I can’t copy it all here so I’ll do my best to summarize an eloquent writer’s words:

Many or most of us suffer from a type of soulful loneliness, even when we are deeply loved, because we have felt a fully evolved, higher level of love via spirit. We’ve been “kissed by God” and in most of us there is a memory of this that causes all other love to pale in comparison. (Page 54 of the hard cover).

My sister and I have what we call the “love dream”. Unlike a sex dream, the love dream (with a stranger or a friend or a celebrity-the object is not important) leaves you bereft upon awakening. I’ve been blessed/troubled with these my whole life (because this is a serious post I will wait til another time to amuse you with the objects of my affection). I’ve laid in bed and cried because I could not reach that ethereal partner. As in-love as I’ve been, except in a few fleeting moments of physical intimacy, I’ve never experienced said “love dream” in reality.

So. You are my earthbound love interest. Poor you.

You simply cannot compare. Sorry. I’ll beg, cajole, nag, cry, grovel, yell, scream, pout, woo, rationalize, educate you to DEATH trying to get you to conform in some way to this level of love I’ve experienced.

And you just can’t. And you get exhausted and defeated because

It is never enough.

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it 1000 times in variations.You can never do enough to please me.

When I read Father Rolheiser’s words, I wept copious tears. When I read them aloud to one of my objects, I wept again. I can barely keep from weeping now, frankly.

THIS is why I feel let down. THIS is why I suffer chronic loneliness. THIS is why I’m constantly seeking the romantic love of a lifetime…and why I can never really find it except in a spiritual capacity within myself.

I think some of us have a stronger memory of our love relationship with God/spirit/Universe. We can still feel it on a deeper level than others. This is me. I’ve been labeled a sensualist and an empath and once wrote Diane Ackerman about this sense of loneliness which she graciously responded to with a “yes”, she feels it too.

I feel free. I feel blessed. I feel a sense of understanding and acceptance I’ve never felt before. I’ve released the fantasy while retaining hope of a strong, healthy, committed human relationship and recommitted to focusing on my self and my spiritual life. Have you been “kissed by God”?

Related:

Authenticity and the Struggle of Relationship

Serendipity…

It was. I get so caught up in being online, I forget how to be me. Don’t you? When I say this, I mean, for me, time to step away from the computer (really 40+ hours per week spent staring at this screen?) and most screens of any kind and to just “be”.

I am addicted, truly, to the online world. I don’t think it is too unhealthy, but it has its moments.

I must step away. And I did. This weekend. To a tiny lake up north with a group of people I really didn’t know in a tiny trailer with a newer friend. Fireworks across the lake, a sky crammed with stars, perfect weather and one Great heron skimming the water. I touched “spirit” and it touched my right back.

Yes, I compulsively checked my iPhone but the signal was iffy so it didn’t do me much good. Next time I go, I’ll take more books to curb the occasional twitch to be busy. But mostly I sat around campfires, and napped, and chatted, and swam and laughed. And ate really good food. It felt like a real vacation and not 2+ days.

I came back today, filled with juice, ready to write, connect and design while I listened to music. Revived. Amen.

Photo from here.

Mini-diary available here. Found via Ali Edwards post here.

I love the idea of journaling. I’m terrible at doing it. I’ve had long spurts of a love affair with my gratitude journal and, at least once a week when I’m nowhere near it, I’ll think “I should start my gratitude journaling again”. It sits beside my bed. At bedtime I fall asleep in about 2 minutes. So.

I also have random thoughts, what are almost mini-stories sans plot that go on in my mind. Sometimes these end up as poems like musings about a bus ride. I have one stored in my head about a very old man I saw in the drive-thru at a Dairy Queen in the middle-of-nowhere Kentucky, imagining that his wife died and that he was lonely and that the young girls and his evening’s twist cone at the DQ were all that kept him going.

I like the idea of storing snippets because so many of them are forgotten quickly. Barbara Kingsolver refers to this in one of her memoirs as “chasing dust bunnies”. Here and gone in a teensy little lightning flash moment.

Anyway, no real point of this blog post. Checking out Nia tonight if my energy gets me there. Not having energy and being aware that I want to do something akin to dance is the motivator. Plus this looks really really cool:

I’ll confess. I do a few things really well. One is sleep. At bedtime, I can be out in 2 minutes or less. I’m the envy of my insomniac friends and lover. I flip over to my side from my back and presto! My body knows it is sleep time.

The other thing I do really well is write. NOW WAIT! I’m not saying I’m a really good writer. What I’m saying I do really well is write…as in the words come forth and I don’t have to “toss and turn” over them. Honestly I think that some of this comes from writing poetry since age 7 with no intention of ever becoming published. For me, writing a poem has always been an attempt to capture a moment. It was, and still is, a form of journaling for me. And I rarely edit. If I have to over edit a poem, it becomes more self-conscious and generally not much better.

The same, for me, is true with blogging. I do not wrestle. I write when I feel compelled and the words generally spew forth. Yes, I hit the backspace button and will delete or add a line here or there, but for these posts, they are generally done in 10 minutes. Finding a great photo takes longer.

Why? Because I know it will NEVER be perfect. Nevah evah. The idea is to share a thought with a reader or two. Maybe more. Hopefully it will resonate. If not, that’s ok. Moment saved. For what? I know not. But, while I get excited by a large number of readers, I blog for the passion of it and am not defeated by a day of 5 versus 60. I know there are a lot of phenomenal writers competing for your attention because they are competing for mine.

Writing for clients is much more labor intensive because there are little or none of my own feelings in a post. Thoughts don’t flow from my brain to my fingertips.

Perfectionism kills authenticity. Let your words flow and fly, people! We want to know who you really are.

You can read all about it here.

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep in your heart the miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.”