Saturday, August 1, 2009

Mindflight: Wisdom, Enlightenment and the Journey of Life

It has been an eventful summer. Tom and I presented at the Science, Wisdom, and the Future Conference in June and the World Future Society Conference in July, relishing the opportunity to engage in dialogue with some great minds, including (at the first conference) Riane Eisler and David Loye; Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution and his wife and science-writer Connie Willis; "Voluntary Simplicity" pioneer Duane Elgin; and the ever inspiring Barbara Marx Hubbard, among many others. Check out my article on Duane Elgin's presentation. More on the World Future Society Conference in a blog to come.

The most significant event of the summer though is the premiere of Tom's new book Mindflight: Wisdom, Enlightenment, and the Journey of Life, which is being serialized on Copthorne Macdonald's The Wisdom Page. The book is what Copthorne characterizes as a quest-for-wisdom-story. It is also a rollicking personal history which intertwines a comprehensive overview of the main currents of Western philosophy (and some Eastern concepts too) with accounts of the variously funny, painful, and perplexing events that fired a life of the mind in one man over a period of forty years. Here in its debut you will find a description of the book followed by the prologue and the first chapter. Subsequent chapters will appear on the first of every month for the next twelve months.

This is an important and timely book, one that addresses the challenges facing all of us in life as we head into the strange and turbulent waters of the future - the heights to which we may soar and the depths into which we are plunged. But like life itself it is funny, engaging, surprising, and mystifying. A highly personal account, its publication has been an intimidating and frightening propostion for both of us. But here you have it. We stand naked before you. We would be interested in your reactions, comments, and thoughts on these first sections.