Publisher's Synopsis
The first three sections of this book give different perspectives on life found in Philosophy; Psychology and Science. Each one starts with a brief overview followed by an initial chapter introducing the remarkable individuals who created each perspective as this helps to bring their ideas back to life in today's context. Then there are 3 or 4 chapters explaining their ideas with an appendix at the end containing some additional notes. You are shown these ideas in the form they were originally expressed as this makes you focus on some of the deeper values that tend to get drowned out in today's world. The author suggests that this process is important because looking for yourself at these ideas automatically makes you shape the personal values that you will carry through life. The final section strengthens this process by pulling together some of the common themes threaded through these three stand-alone perspectives. For example, thousands of years ago the ancient Greek philosopher Plato conclude that behind our space-time universe is a more fundamental layer of reality outside time (the realm of Being) containing pure unchanging templates which he called forms. He believed that we have an unconscious link to these forms which can be strengthened with guidance and effort. Then, in the 20th century, the Swiss psychiatrist Dr CG Jung independently concluded that we all share a common layer of the unconscious (the collective unconscious) outside time. He believed that this layer of the mind is populated with templates, which he called Archetypes, and he also suggested that we can build a stronger conscious link to them. Today, scientists are developing even stranger theories about alternative universes and additional dimensions of reality with some of them returning to Plato's original ideas. The book follows these threads of thought further to develop a wider and more integrated picture of concepts like time; freewill; intuition and even beauty. This wider picture of life may still seem a little abstract, so in the last chapter the author uses some practical examples from his life to show how these ideas might be relevant to you. By using some of the main cultural milestones of the last 2,500 years to walk through these perspectives the book also gives a broader view of the flow of human culture. Unfortunately, when people lose this sense of perspective they can see their lives in isolation without a cultural context. Throughout history this has led some people to believe they are at the climax of society's development where mankind's journey ends, but life always goes on and the journey always continues. Academics have also seen their subjects in the same way believing they knew pretty much everything there is to know, but then the next great discovery shows how wrong they were and the journey continues again. A wider view of our cultural and academic development encourages us to see it as an unfolding story that still has a long way to go with new ideas that will change our understanding of reality in ways we can't predict and probably can't even imagine. The book illustrates just how radical these new ideas might be with some current proposals in quantum physics and evolutionary biology. Giving greater shape to your personal values by looking at all these ideas will also clarify your priorities in life. Knowing yourself better in this way not only helps you to make better decisions but it also gives you the inner strength to avoid being swept along by events as they unfolding around you. To put it another way, this wider perspective and inner strength gives you the resilience to keep smiling when things go wrong. In previous generations this process used to be seen as "building character" but today we tend to see it in terms of mindfulness. It might even help you see some of our traditional views of religion in a more positive light.
