Part 3: Philosophy in a travel book?
Life is filled with preoccupations: the latest fad of pop culture, which team will win the Cup and the prestige value of one’s material possessions. There’s often little time to talk about the really big picture.
That’s fine. The details of human culture are fascinating. I love football and if people get off on nice clothes and cars, good on them.
French-Atlantic Sunset
But I only get one chance to live and I’ll probably only get one chance to write a book. I was born in an era during which we have the opportunity to think about the context of our lives in a more complete way than ever before: the magic beneath the madness of this world and rhythms in its hustle and chaos, and I want to talk about those things.
The Jolly Pilgrim is jam-packed with information, but I’m not claiming access to privileged data. Everything I use is in the public domain and available to anyone who can read. Our ever-improving understanding of the universe is throwing up lots of insights. I’m just synthesising the into an up-to-date world view.
Some of the information I needed to give the reader is academic and initially esoteric, so I needed a human-interest vehicle in order to deliver that information. What better arena for those sorts of ideas than a true story of global adventure? That’s why I used the travel story as a vehicle for philosophical ideas.
Travel and philosophy – links
- Travel, philosophy and optimism (article for The Actuarial Post)
- The book’s main philosophical positions
- My intellectual influences
Praise for the end product:
His underlying theories on humanity,
and how we are really all much better off than we think we are,
gives the reader plenty of new insights into the human condition.
- Georgina Norton, reviewer, Leeds Student
Writing a travel book – menu:
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2: Conceiving the idea
- Part 3: Philosophy in a travel book?
- Part 4: A Year in a Shed
- Part 5: Binding Travel and Philosophy
- Part 6: The Road to Publication
- Part 7: Post-Production
- Part 8: Networking
- Part 9: The Publishing Deal
