On the 22nd episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am joined by Craig Slee, who is a disabled writer, consultant, and theorist dealing with mythology, magic, culture, and exploring life through the lens of landscape, disability, and fugitive embodiments. He has contributed essays and poetry focusing on the numinous and disability to various anthologies and has also co-facilitated seminar series at the Dresden Academy for Fine Arts, including one on Ableism and the Arts in 2022.

In this episode, Craig takes us on a journey from burning out from trying to be “normal,” living with a life-long disability, exploring other ways of being and existing, developing a deeper awareness regarding the subtleties of life, pain, and suffering, and ultimately to discovering vitality and aliveness in living his own good life.

There is plenty to take from this episode in terms of guiding you to pay attention, developing a more subtle awareness, and the significance in our inquiries of sensing the world without labelling it, and what all this may lead to in terms of finding other ways of existing.

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Running Order:

02:00 What is going on that we don’t notice?

03:34 Burning out striving for "normal"

07:37 What we don’t notice outside of the “norm”

12:58 Cultivating a deeper awareness of pain / Sensing not interpreting or labelling the world

17:40 Subtleties in awareness alters relationship with pain

21:19 When the general narrative of illness and recovery doesn’t apply

26:57 Disability doesn’t have to be suffering

32:59 Exploring other ways of existing and consciousness

38:49 What is truly internal and external?

41:09 The role of magic / “the occult” - the hidden experience of knowing

47:55 There are multiple ways of knowing and experiencing the world

50:20 Burning out with trying to be normal

54:59 Shifting experiences and behaviours with self-investigation

57:55 Vitality, aliveness, and not knowing

1:01:22 What is a good life for Craig?

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