Interview with Daniel Ferris Braun
– © 2004 Andy Mickel

Q: You have consciously and passionately taken a path in your own life devoting an enormous amount of time to writing and teaching -- all aimed at directly helping to improve people's lives. In the last 4 years you've reached out to men in the local men's work communities (New Warriors, monthly Men's Brunch, etc.) and have built connections which are both supportive and challenging to you.

During this time, you've pointed out to many people in classes and your personal life-coaching that there's an important thematic analogy coming out of the film "The Matrix." What is the significance of this analogy that serves to teach us about our own ways of thinking, or, as you put it, about our own management -- or mismanagement -- of our own mental maps?

Daniel: In one of the early scenes of The Matrix, the heroine, Trinity, says the following words to the hero, Neo, after he asks "What truth": "... that you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell, or taste, or touch... a prison for your mind."