Abstract
Andy, your contributions are singular. When I think of writers exploring ecology, the environment, and ecopsychology, you are one of the first names that come up. I have been looking at some books that are important to me lately—Neil Evernden's The Natural Alien (University of Toronto Press, 1993), for example, or writings by Carolyn Merchant or Paul Shepard or Jack Turner. I include you in that group. I fashion myself as a sort of bridge person in this area, and work like yours provides a solid footing for me to be a connector, to be a bridge. I could not do what I do without work similar to yours. I think of a bridge as an instrument, a connection that can bear strain, and the more solid its anchor, the farther it can span and the more weight it can bear. So, I just want to thank you for what you have been able to accomplish, for example, your new chapter in the upcoming Ecopsychology: Science, Totems & the Technological Species (Kahn and Hasbach, Eds., MIT Press). I am not sure how long it takes you to create these writings, but they are really impressive.
Andy Fisher: Well, I appreciate what you are saying there, Thomas. I like that image of the bridge, for sure.
EP: Thanks Andy. To get into things, I want to hit on an evocative idea to give readers a flavor of your work. In your upcoming chapter, “What Is Ecopsychology? A Radical View,” you differentiate—and I may not do justice to your language—between psychology in the spirit of ecology and psychology in the spirit of environmentalism. I think that is a very subtle but important distinction that often gets glossed over within ecopsychology, which has been fashioned as a bridging of psychology and environmentalism, and also in the larger environmental discourse. Could you speak about what you see as the difference between those two kinds of alignment?
AF: Well, I think it really goes back to the graduate work I was doing right at the moment that I left environmental engineering, which was very much in the mode of mainstream environmentalism, and the kind of ideas that I was encountering in the graduate program at York University in Toronto, where I was studying with people such as Neil Evernden and John Livingston.
There was a very clear distinction made, originally by Murray Bookchin, I think, between ecological approaches and environmental ones. It really goes to the root of the idea of ecology, which is the relationship between organisms and environments. It seemed to me, and still seems to me, that environmentalism focuses on the environment and not so much on the human organism. So that leaves a division between ourselves and what we call the environment, which is, in a way, a bit of a nonsensical word, because without the organism, it does not have any context itself. So, when you put the organism back into the environment, for me that is, in a way, what makes for ecopsychology, because that opens up all this psychological and spiritual subject matter all of a sudden. Whereas if the environment is separate and we are just sort of managing it at a distance, then that is a whole different kind of psychology for me.
So, when I say psychology in the spirit of ecology, I am really going for the radical inclusion of ourselves within the more-than-human world or within the environment, the internal relationships between the organism and the environment, which is the whole territory of the psyche or spirit in my way of thinking.
EP: Thanks, Andy. That is helpful. To follow up on that point, you speak in your writing about this idea of “turning the psyche inside out.” I think that could be a challenging idea for people, and I think it gets to the heart of what you are talking about, as well. I am curious if you could speak a little more about what you mean by turning the psyche inside out, what this would mean for our daily living—and right now, I am thinking of David Abram's work and his recent Becoming Animal (Pantheon, 2010). And, anticipating our later conversation, what does this mean for a practicing psychotherapist?
AF: Well, that is a phrase which comes from Abram and the psychologist James Hillman. Those two figures seem to use a lot of language in common, even though they come from different traditions, David from the tradition of phenomenology and Hillman from archetypal psychology. However, they both get at the idea that the Western tradition of thought is very dualistic and that the psyche is located inside ourselves somehow, and then that leaves this objective world outside of ourselves which is devoid of psyche. So, if we are trying to link psyche and nature, we cannot do it by using that kind of conceptual environment.
So, “turning the psyche inside out” means that we recognize the psyche in the world and recognize that psyche is instilled or evoked or emerges from all these relationships that we are engaged in, and that those relationships go beyond the human realm to include our relationships with the more than human. Both of them (Abram & Hillman) use the idea that the psyche is not so much in us but that we are in the psyche, which is a real radical shift in how we conceive of the psyche. As you say, it changes everything in terms of how we work as therapists or psychological thinkers, and it also changes the nature, in my view, of the way we think about politics and everything we are doing in the world.
If the world is animate in some fashion, if it has got psyche, then this raises ethical issues about how we treat the world, because the world is now this ensouled place, and the whole industrial capitalist view of the world is that the world consists of inert raw material for us to bulldoze around and reshape and turn into products. However, if the more-than-human world is imbued with psyche, and if our own psyches are entangled in all of that, then it means that we have to be thinking about and acting toward that world in radically different ways.
EP: As you speak, I think that there are two sides to “turning the psyche inside out.” On the one hand, I think it could be risky in the sense that you have to really let go of your boundaries and surrender into a larger world, and it may feel as though there is a lack of control in an egoic sense. However, I know for many people that would be the whole point, that surrender. Can you speak to that, the literal, experiential sense of this turning inside out, and what would be the first step for someone to try that out?
AF: Yes, what comes to mind right away for me is the School of Lost Borders in Southern California, where I did some training as a vision fast guide. Their whole notion is about losing your boundaries. So in terms of first steps, I think that kind of experience might be a good one, because it gives the whole experience ritual containment, where you are guided through a process of softening those boundaries and allowing yourself to come into a relationship with something that is more than human in a way which holds those fears. For most people, a vision fast is a death and rebirth experience, and so that fear which you speak of is very present. As I say, the ritual containment creates a space to work with that fear and to come out on the other side with a different sense of yourself and a different sense of the world.
EP: That is well said, Andy, and gets at what I wanted in this conversation, to have you speak from a practitioner's standpoint—in terms of how you facilitate this work with people. I want to hit on the idea of the “radical” in your work. That signifier has been something that you lead with in your writing, and I believe I understand why. I also know that currently, at least in the United States, the term “radical” has been negatively framed. It could be off-putting for people. So, I am wondering about why it is important for you to stand for the radical position and if there are ways to circumvent a reactionary framing of that term in, say, a community conversation.
AF: Well, I just do not see any way around the word, myself. Ecopsychology really came out of the whole radical ecology movement, and I think it is a bit dishonest, in a way, to dodge the word. I think I would rather just go straight at it and talk straight to people about the deeper dimensions in a way that makes just really good sense, so that it is clear that we are not terrorists. In this regard, I think it is really just a rhetorical challenge, as I talk in my book about the rhetorical challenges of ecopsychology, to make these really radical ideas very sensible or, to be able to persuade people that there are just these deeper issues, and that is all the word radical means. It means to go to the roots. If we see that our world is in a great deal of trouble and we can point to some of the ways that maybe there are these deeper dimensions to the issue, then that is reclaiming the idea of radicalism in a way which does not have to be so threatening, I think.
As I say, a great deal of literature I draw on comes out of radical traditions, and to skirt the idea that that is what is going on, that just does not feel right to me. So, I keep coming back to this idea. The first book I wrote, Radical Ecopsychology, was basically a worked-over version of my doctoral dissertation, and it is a fairly high-altitude book and not really all that accessible even for undergraduates, I gather. So I have it in mind to write a more popular text that would maintain these radical ideas while addressing them to a more mainstream audience and using a particular kind of rhetoric which works from what we can all initially agree on. Then if we just keep taking these little steps, where each step makes sense, then we wind up in much more radical territory, but in a way that we can see the line of development in a way that is convincing. So, I think that is another project that I have on the go. However, that is the way I am choosing to handle the challenge which you raise.
EP: Thanks, Andy. I am looking forward to the work that you are envisioning. I will say, tracking your writing onward from the Radical Ecopsychology text, through the chapter in Ecotherapy, and then this upcoming chapter, I feel as though it has become easier to understand what you are doing, and it is not at that high-altitude level that you described in your earlier text.
One of the reasons that I liked what you wrote in the Ecotherapy volume (Buzzell & Chalquist, 2009, Sierra Club) is that you had talked about your sense of place, your home, and your community. This radical stuff really became quite commonplace and quite a part of daily life. Maybe this is the time to touch on that, because this is not just an intellectual or philosophical exercise; this is about living a meaningful, happy, and healthy life. I had a chance to visit you and your wife, Jill, in your home in Brooke, Ontario, a year or so ago, and see the beautiful garden that you have and get a sense of the community there. How is your home? What is planted in your garden? How is this season? What are some of the community events that you are involved in right now that flesh out your more scholarly or kind of academic work?
AF: Well, yes, we have got our vegetable garden in, as usual. The main event this year was that we started beekeeping. It was a very sort of wet and cool start to the year, so we got off to a bit of a slow start, because the bees were slow off the mark. However, that has been a very magical and wonderful addition here. So, Jill and I, as you know, are developing this little homestead here, and we have got a fairly large vegetable garden. Now, we have added the bees, and I am still wanting to plant an edible forest and really develop this place as a very ecologically rich and productive place and have it as a place where it works on so many levels, as a place where we can feel grounded and connected as people. I toyed with the idea of working as an academic but decided in the end that I just needed to root myself in one place and find a community in which I could work on the ground with some of the ideas that I have been playing with. As you say, bringing the work into the world as something that is lived, not just thought about.
So a part of that for me—and this ties into my work with Jill, who is a yoga therapist—is really thinking about how, if ecopsychology is a kind of psychological politics trying to create subjective conditions for an ecological society—that is how I discuss it in that chapter in the Ecotherapy book—then how are we doing that here?
One of the ways I like to answer that question is that what I am trying to do here is put myself in the ballpark of an ecological society. You know, what would an ecological society look similar to? How can I approximate that now, and how does that push me, or how does that push Jill and me as a couple? So, can this be a place where we bend out of the normal ways of working as therapists and try to work in almost a community psychology way, where we all care for the soul of the world, tending to the human life cycle and integrating this with tending the larger natural world. Can we develop forms of practice that really move in that direction?
So, Jill and I do wilderness work with people every spring and fall, and it is very long-term work, but we feel it moving in a way where there are people who we have taken out on fasts for 7 or 8 years now, so there is sort of a community of people forming who have been doing this work with us and are thinking about the world differently. We do not have it all mapped out ahead terribly well, but we are just trying to take these steps and see where they go and see at what point we feel secure enough to let go of the ways we have been practicing into new territory, where we may not make a whole lot of money, but where we are moving in these directions that look similar to more of an ecological kind of society than the kind of society we have now.
EP: Thank you, Andy. I really love the idea of the eco-community psychology approach. We just got approval for a 10-credit Ecopsychology certificate at the counseling program at Lewis and Clark Graduate School, and I have been thinking a lot about how we are going to do that program. It is designed to allow master's counseling students complete a license track program, and receive in-depth training in ecopsychology, so they have a foot in both worlds and they can practice and get a job and do ecopsychology. Our classes include an opportunity for an outdoor quest. So, I think this is inspiring, and I think you also speak to the challenges of doing this kind of work as a practitioner. It is a risk. People are forging new ground. There is no prebuilt market for this kind of thing.
AF: It is true.
EP: Yes. One of the things I enjoy about these interviews is asking about people's backgrounds and their family of origin. One of the exercises I do with students is what I call an eco-genogram, a family tree that focuses on environmental identity and role models which people have had regarding their connection with nature and environmental beliefs or behaviors. When you think of an eco-genogram for yourself, are there certain people that stand out in your family or your upbringing as being important role models for you or cultural influences or precursors to your adult work?
AF: Yes, there are. I do not know whether you know this, but I teach a course in ecopsychology at the University of Vermont, and I do a similar exercise there with my students, but it is probably not as formal as yours. It is an ecological autobiography, where I just list a number of questions to cue students to think about different areas of their childhood life.
In my own autobiography, I really think about two main currents. So, the first is really the most obvious one for ecopsychology, which is all the experiences I had with my family outdoors. My parents were both mountaineers and rock climbers, so I just have these incredibly fond memories of time spent in the Rockies and in the Adirondack Mountains and all these other hilly places. I still really love the whole look and smell of climbing gear. It just seems to have got really imprinted on me somehow. We spent a lot of time outdoors, in general. My mom always had a Peterson's field guide to the flowers out, and she would be sitting in a ditch somewhere trying to identify a flower, and that is just a very strong memory in my mind. I do not think that there is any doubt that all these kinds of experiences shaped me on a very fundamental level. As I say, that is the kind of experience that most sort of lines up with the research on what is in the background of people who go on to become environmental activists.
However, what I try to stress in my own story is that there is this other current, as well, that is less obviously connected to ecopsychology, though I do wonder how common this sort of experience might be, and where really, I do not think, there is a lot of research—not that I have seen, anyway—and this has to do with some trauma which I experienced at a very, very young age in my life. You know, lately I have been making a point of talking more about that, because I think it is important to acknowledge it, though I do not really get into a lot of detail talking about it, because it happened at a very young age, and it is kind of hard to explain. However, I think that what matters is that this trauma I experienced really left me in a place where I think I had to make contact with the world again on a very elemental level, and I have always been attracted to places where the elements kind of stand out really stark—just kind of bare rock and windswept trees and waves crashing on cobbly beaches. These are all images in my mind from my childhood.
It was as if I needed to just find my way back into the world by going to these very barren, elemental places. Fire, too. I was very attracted to fire, and I actually remember playing with matches in the washroom in Grade Four, and I got caught and had to go to the principal's office. However, there was something that I was doing as a kid. I obviously did not know what I was doing. It was just that I would get this sense of peace or aliveness or just attraction to these elemental dimensions of reality. It is only later in life that I figured out that that was what I had been doing.
In terms of my later life, I guess, what this did for me was create a great sense of loyalty in me to this other-than-human world that had been so important to, really, my emotional survival as a kid. However, I also think that having been traumatized created a certain, I like to say, attunement in me so that I am just very intuitively aware of the everyday violence in our world and the lies and the false stories that we tell ourselves. I think this has a lot to do with my being a radical of sorts, because the mainstream world just looked so often wrongheaded to me and self-defeating, and to be engaged in all these sort of subtle and not-so-subtle violences.
I am a bit nervous saying things like this, because it is easy to say, “Well, he is just projecting his childhood trauma onto the world, and he just has to go off and get a session,” whereas I think our wounds really do attune us in a way, so that there is truth in what we see through our wounds and things we would not perceive otherwise. I think the archetypal psychology tradition has been really useful this way in validating that point, that our wounds attune us and that when we go into those wounds and imagine from that place, then we can find truths we would not otherwise know.
EP: Thanks, Andy. It is profound, and I appreciate you sharing it. My gut reaction is not to get too intellectual about what you said, because I think it stands on its own merit, particularly in terms of this idea of turning the psyche inside out. It sounds similar to the world was there for you to turn to, and that was a resource which you had. It was not just the small psyche, this beleaguered psyche, and I imagine that a number of people can identify with what you described, both the experiences that you had, how you coped with them, and also being sensitized to various kinds of violence or wounding. It is well said.
AF: Thank you.
EP: It can be challenging for students moving into this work, given the subject matter and its inherently radical (and thus risky) nature. I think you have a beacon, a stalwart person who has stood for your values and articulated them quite well. Can you share any key mentoring experiences or turning points that enabled you to move forward or freed you to do your work?
AF: I think the main turning point in my life was probably when I was crashing out of my career in environmental engineering, and it is a bit of a story, but in a roundabout way, I came across some mentors. I was taking some time off work, because I was so depressed at the time, and decided to go for a walkabout in Scotland and Wales, which is where my family roots are, and I found my way to this place in Wales called the Center for Alternative Technology. In the bookstore there, I found the Devall and Sessions book on deep ecology (Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered. Gibbs M. Smith, 1985); I had never seen anything similar to this, and it was a real eye-opener and exactly what I had been looking for on this little walkabout.
That led me to the writings of Neil Evernden and John Livingston, who are professors at York University in Toronto, which is where I was living at the time. They really spoke so directly to me and really opened my eyes to this whole other radical way of thinking. I am constantly hearing them within myself to this day, just the way they approached environmental thought, as they called it. I was really just kind of desperate for that kind of thinking at the time, so on the spot I decided to quit my job and to go and study with them.
When I got to York—I mean, it was interesting in that Neil and John's writings have inspired me so much, but then when I got to York, there was probably a philosophy professor named Sam Mallin who had the greatest influence on me. He was just a very kind person, a very good teacher, and he let me sit in on graduate philosophy courses, even though I had no background in philosophy. I do not claim any great mastery of philosophy, but whatever I have learned started with Sam, and I do not see how I could have really developed the kind of ecopsychology that I am trying to develop without him, so I am very, very grateful to him.
Just maybe a couple more people. I have not had a huge number of mentors, but there has always been somebody who was always there in some way along the way. Robert Greenway stands out for me. We had some contact when I was doing my master's work, and he was very, very encouraging, so I asked him to be the external examiner for my PhD defense. As it happened, on my way to the defense, I bumped into him at a restaurant on campus, and I just remember being really nervous. However, I am talking to him, and he says to me, “I really like your book.” That really struck me, because he was talking about my dissertation, but he was already calling it a book. Ever since then, he has just been a really encouraging figure for me. Robert does not publish much himself, but he makes comments here and there that I really try to pay attention to, because I think he has a great heart, great stories, and a lot of interesting experience. So, his thoughts are coming from a really good place. We still chat by e-mail, and I hope to visit him on his farm sometime in the not-too-distant future.
Then, in terms of my more recent thinking, there is a fellow named Joel Kovel, whose work I drew on quite a lot when I was writing my dissertation. You have mentioned your students and hearing these stories as being valuable to them. With Joel Kovel, I had been reading his stuff, and just on a whim, I decided to e-mail him. He e-mailed me right back and said, “Well, do we know each other? But anyway, yeah, you know, this is what is going on for me.” He sent me a couple of chapters from a book he was working on at the time, which became The Enemy of Nature (Zed and Fernwood, 2002/2007). I wrote back comments to him on those chapters, and he was really taking me very seriously as a colleague. That did something wonderful for me at the time.
Then, I sent him a copy of my dissertation, and he wrote back comments—very, very thoughtful comments on my dissertation before it got published as a book. In a way, I still think that I am trying to follow through on some of the advice he gave me. You know, that was over 10 years ago. So, I am still slowly working my way through eco-socialist literature and critical social theory literature, and I kind of sense—we have not had contact in ages, but, I still sense him egging me on as a kind of interlocutor in my thinking. So, Joel Kovel is a very strong figure for me, even though, as I say, I have had little contact with him. It was that moment of sending an e-mail to him and then getting a whole interaction going with him that was just very, very fruitful for me.
EP: Thanks, Andy. I can identify with those few-minute exchanges in life that stay with you. Another point I think is so important and gets lost in this work, particularly when you move into the wider field of what I would call environmental psychologies, broadly, environmental psych and conservation psych and all these different perspectives, is the need for mutual respect and collegiality, and recognizing that we are all in the same team. That makes a huge difference in understanding people's ideas and learning from them. Others have done that with me, and I try to do that with students as well. At this point, I wanted to check in with you and see whether there is a point that you want to get to in our conversation, or some other area you want to flesh out.
AF: When I think of the work you are doing—I mean, a moment ago you spoke about the importance of respect and collegiality, and in one of your questions you sent to me over e-mail, you mentioned the idea of a “big tent”—I think this is probably an area where we have a little disagreement, so I do not know whether that is something of interest for you to chew on a little bit here.
EP: Sure.
AF: In terms of that question you sent me, I was thinking, what is the image here? What I came up with is the idea not so much of a big tent but a kind of a campground. I guess I am arguing for ecopsychology to have its own tent, and rather than a big tent, we need a campground. We have our tent, and the environmental psychologists over there have their tent, and we can go visit their tent. However, until we have really clearly differentiated ourselves as a field, which I think is an ongoing task, until we have done that, it is hard to respect our differences, because we have not clarified the differences.
For me—and I do not claim to speak for ecopsychology—I am purely presenting my view of the matter, but my view of the matter is that it is really these radical questions which are the core of ecopsychology, and that in my mind is what differentiates ecopsychology. With that differentiation for me comes a lot of clarity about what is and is not ecopsychology, and then we can engage in these dialogs with that clarity. As I say, it is not that I am trying to impose that point of view, but it is what makes sense to me.
EP: Yes. I am glad you brought that up, and I really like the campground-versus-big-tent metaphor. It is interesting, because when I used the phrase “big tent” in my message, what I was actually meaning was a big tent for ecopsychology itself. I was not thinking of these other perspectives. So, let us follow up on that a little bit. What would it mean to be in this campground—which I think is an apt metaphor on a number of levels? How big is the ecopsychology tent? Let us try that one out. I think this is still an ongoing, formative discussion and debate within the ecopsychology community. How big can ecopsychology be, and are there different kinds of ecopsychology? We know there are many kinds of psychotherapies, and many kinds of theoretical perspectives within clinical psychology. You have people that work on a behavioral level, an archetypal level, an interpersonal level, a cognitive level, and at the level of mindfulness. And the research shows that these approaches have merit for different people and different issues, and that it is goodness of fit which is often important in psychotherapy outcomes.
So is it possible—and this is where I have pushed on the field in my own small way—is it possible to have different kinds of ecopsychology? Can we can have a radical ecopsychology that seeks fundamental sociopolitical, spiritual change and also have a conventional ecopsychology that utilizes mainstream techniques, cognitive behavioral techniques, or things similar to that? Is that possible?
AF: Well, as I say, what defines it for me are these radical questions. You know, we can say, how do we integrate psyche and nature? If we ask that question, then we are going to run right away into this whole dualistic tradition in Western thought that keeps these orders of reality separate or dissociated. That is what Robert Greenway ran into back in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was articulating some of these ideas. That is why Robert really framed ecopsychology as an attempt to overcome dualism or to find a language that could unite mind and nature. When you do that, then that takes you into all this philosophically radical territory.
So, these opening gestures of ecopsychology by Greenway or Hillman or Shepard, for me, all these people, their opening moves, their original gestures were straight into the radical territory. So for me, that has always been what the field is about, and I just cannot see it otherwise. If somebody wants to work in a CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) way, but is not keen about integrating mind and nature, if you are not looking at…Well, the example I use in the chapter that you read was socially based—what is it called—the social marketing?
EP: Community-based social marketing?
AF: In community-based social marketing, they use tools of behavioral psychology and social psychology to persuade people to turn down their thermostats and use their recycling box and all that. All of that is good stuff to do, and it is in that environmental mode that we talked about, where you are not looking for internal relationships between psyche and Earth. So, in my mind, it is not ecopsychology, because it does not have that ecological dimension. When it does have that ecological dimension, then it just kind of automatically turns radical. So, I would differentiate between something similar to community-based social marketing and ecopsychology. I think of the former as more a form of environmental psychology or conservation psychology. I am not trying to dismiss those other modes. I am just trying to be careful with differentiation so that we are clear about our philosophical and political commitments.
EP: That is a good point, and I think this is going to be important to think about, when training counselors, for example—that they have a tool belt of techniques and approaches to draw from. Here, I am thinking more in terms of individual work with people versus broader behavior-change programs. Many counselors are integrative. They have a main way they work, and then they pull in techniques or other theories to help serve a range of people. I can imagine that a small piece of the ecopsychology project is to have these perspectives and tools being used by people even if they are not fully working from an ecopsychology platform. Could someone in ecopsychology, truly working toward this radical change, also rely on techniques drawn from other fields, even the more dualistic ones? That is the question which I carry. I think you touched on it earlier when you described how your practice is evolving and the different kinds of clients whom you serve.
AF: Maybe just one last quick point is that I do agree that there is a whole continuum of approaches or modalities. Certainly, that is the way I practice, you know, depending on what fits the client. So, I think we can agree there.
EP: Yes. In the future, I would like to put out a call for a campground gathering with a lot of big tents. I have been lucky enough to gain colleagues and friends doing environmental psychology and conservation psychology kinds of work, and as I get to know them, I don't find a lot of agreement in their tents, either. In fact, there are often stark differences, and even animosity between individuals who are holding up what they consider to be an environmental psychology perspective versus a conservation psychology perspective, for example. That is a longer conversation. It is very difficult when you try to describe an entire campground, because each of those tents is very complicated and has an interesting family lineage. That comes out in the journal a little bit, in these different kinds of papers that we publish.
Andy, a closing question: I am hoping to get outdoors with my family this weekend here in the Pacific Northwest. I am wondering what you will be doing later today, after you leave this call.
AF: Well, I am going to have some lunch, then inspect the beehives, and head into town for a music festival. We have got a free music festival in Perth every July, and it is a real highlight of our summer, so we are off to that.
EP: That sounds like a great midsummer activity, Andy. Thank you so much for the call. One of the great rewards for the hard work I do on the journal is the luxury of having these conversations with people whom I care about and value in terms of their work and contributions. So, thanks again. I will leave you the last word.
AF: I just really appreciate the opportunity myself, Thomas. I think we have some small disagreements over what is or is not ecopsychology, but I have always really appreciated what you are trying to do with the journal and the spirit you bring to it, the respectfulness and the inclusiveness. So, I have been really happy to have the opportunity of doing this interview with you today.