Bøger af Alistair J Sinclair

The will to live makes life worth living. It keeps us going when the going gets tough. It is the inner strength we summon up when we really need it. This book offers a systematic guide to the principal reasons why we live and why we are here. It contains a wide range of possible answers to the question 'What are we here for?' A list of 36 answers is arranged and analysed systematically. We all face the problem of living and of making the most of our lives. The more answers we consider, the more we can see the possibilities of life and living. Thus, the aim is to bolster the will to live and build up the inner strength needed to combat the self-deprecatory and suicidal responses to life to which we are all prone if we lapse into a negative frame of mind.

The Way of Togetherness is about getting ourselves together, getting our social lives together and ultimately about getting everything together. It is a guide to achieving the wholeness and unity needed to get through the precarious passage of life and make the most of it.The very idea of togetherness is indispensable for our future. Unless humanity stands together, it may not have a future on this planet, and may not deserve one. Moreover, a world falling apart is full of people falling apart, and hating each other, with or without cause. All these negativities come together as the world spirals into growing conflict and an arms race. As isolated individuals, we can do little about this, and as self-indulgent, lazy individuals we can do even less. But there is no imaginable limit to what we can achieve if we all act together for our mutual benefit. Note on the Symbolism of the Front CoverThe image at the centre of the cover is of a three-year-old boy on the beach at Carnoustie laughing at his father paddling in the water. That image is of the author of this book. The two tartan stars depict the Sinclair tartan. The star on the left is the plain Sinclair tartan and that on the right is the hunting Sinclair tartan. These tartans are nineteenth century inventions. In fact, the Sinclair clan was known to the Highlanders as 'the carles wi' the breeks' who did not wear the kilt and were not Gaelic-speakers. The problem of The One and The Many goes back to the Greeks. One thing decomposes into many things, and many things coalesce into one thing. It is impossible to pin them down. But the interaction between the two is crucial to the Way of Togetherness. We move forward by alternately analysing and synthesising things - taking them apart and putting them together. This is the dynamism of the Way of Togetherness that points towards a better future by ever-increasing reconciliations between opposites. 'It is the way to the stars' (sic itur ad astra - Virgil, Aeneid, Book 9, line 641).

This book is about promoting self-improvement through wisdom. It seems to me that a healthy dose of self-improvement is needed in an age in which selfishness and self satisfaction predominate. People are not improving themselves when they go to extremes in search of enjoyment for its own sake. Opiates, alcohol, eating disorders, sex addiction are among the excesses and extremes to which they are driven in a culture that gives them no boundaries to what they can or cannot do. Also, as a species, we need to get wise to what is good for us. We can better save the planet by living wisely and by using our resources more wisely and thoughtfully. Above all, we need to emulate the sages of the past who teach us home to be sagacious.The book rounds off with a contrast between the wise and the wicked, namely, two case studies. The first case study is about a close relative of mine who was as wise as wise can be. He was true gentleman who lived a wholly creditable life. In his own modest way, he left the world a better place than it was before. The second one is about an employer of mine who later defrauded his fellow businessmen out of ten million pounds. No one knew about it till he walked in front of an articulated lorry - it was the way he chose to get out of the mess he had created. He escaped justice and left his widow and children penniless and homeless. This occurred many years after he fired me for challenging his autocratic style of doing business. My experience of him suggests that he did not have to follow that path to ruin and discredit. He could have done better.

This book comprises a miscellaneous collection of my papers and articles published or submitted for publication in American journals and magazines from 2009 to 2012. This edition also contains my paper on Henry Ford: The Visionary Humanist. It argues that Ford was largely responsible for the consumer society of the 20th century because he reacted against the social darwinist views of Andrew Carnegie which served to perpetuate poverty and class distinctions. The contents are all on the subjects of humanism and religion. Some are revised substantially from their original form. Their arguments follow on from those in my two published books: What is Philosophy? (Dunedin Academic Press, 2008), and The Answers Lie Within Us, (Ashgate Publishing, 1998).