I wanted to be a writer for my whole life, even before my teens. When in high school I did a lot of work with the drama club and a local community theatre, I had the idea that I would become a playwright. Of course, things change as we grow older. In my third undergrad year at the U of G, while studying Drama, I suddenly realised I was not a very good actor. I had also discovered philosophy, and discovered that I was good at it, and enjoyed it. Then everything changed.

Although my doctoral thesis was on ethics, history of ideas, and in environmental thought, I have also conducted research in various other fields, taught courses in different fields, and I have frequently worked in interdisciplinary teams. At NUI Galway I was part of an interdisciplinary research unit called "The Environmental Change Institute", which consisted mostly of scientists. In fact I was the only arts & humanities scholar at the time. It was a very productive time for me, both intellectually and personally.

Since graduating and returning to Canada, I've taught at four Ontario universities as a sessional lecturer. I also had a summer job as a researcher for the Aboriginal Policing Directorate, a section of Public Safety Canada (a Canadian national government ministry). I was given the job of investigating and reporting on Aboriginal people's traditional, cultural, and spiritual values, in relation to peacekeeping and police work. Of course, I learned a lot more about Aboriginal culture during this time. I now regard the time I spent on this job as one of the most transformative occasions in my life.

I'm proud of much of the "pagan" writing that I have done in the past. Yet I now want to write on topics that matter not just to pagans, but to the world. "The Other Side of Virtue" was also written with that wider audience and larger purpose in mind. Its broader themes, such as the transience of existence, the moral significance of the earth and of death, and the crafting of a worthwhile life, for instance, are themes that every person must consider, not because he or she belongs to some relatively-small (and easily ignored) religious sub-culture, but because he or she is a thinking and feeling human being, with a life that is configured by the Immensities. I'm planning all my future writing projects with this aim in mind.

This passage from the Preface to Loneliness and Revelation expresses why I think this direction is important:

...our world has fallen deep into the worst economic depression in almost a hundred years. Despite huge government "bailout" payments, and the confident pronouncements of politicians, real signs of recovery are not yet apparent. A severe (and under-reported) planet wide food shortage is in progress. The extreme storms of global warming and climate change are displacing or killing millions of people around the world. The price of the most important energy resource, petroleum, continues to inflate rapidly, contributing to world poverty. Fundamentalist forms of religion are veritably feeding the flames of fear, xenophobia, racism, sexism, warfare, and international terrorism. And deadly pandemic diseases, such as AIDS, continue to ruin whole societies, especially in the world's most populous and poorest countries. A kind of hopelessness and despair is settling on many people, even in prosperous countries. More people in Canada, the USA, and Europe die from suicide now than from traffic accidents. One of the philosophical results of this situation is that social and political principles which were once treated as iron-clad laws of nature are increasingly coming under scrutiny and doubt. Some have been plainly refuted by the facts. Yet it is precisely in such times of crisis that people examine and re-think their first-order beliefs. As the philosopher Hegel wrote: "Minerva's Owl spreads her wings by the fall of night." My duty, as a philosopher and as a thinking human being, is to contribute to this re-thinking process in a useful and enlightening way. I hope to help people think and speak peacefully, rationally, and productively with each other about what human life's true priorities should be. My hope is that if we can do this, then we will prevent crises like these, or respond to them better, and create more socially just societies, and live more fulfilling lives.

By the way, I also wrote a novel. But the manuscript sits on my shelf. I've never put much effort into getting it published.

Although I wish to uphold a high standard of intellectual and scholarly excellence in my written work, I also want my books to be accessible to as many readers as possible: straightforward, non-technical, yet intriguing and enjoyable. I wish to write in a style that upholds high standards for philosophical value, yet I also wish not to sacrifice artistic value. Reading philosophy should be pleasurable, as well as thought-provoking. Moreover, I have chosen to publish my books with reputable trade-paperback publishers, instead of with academic publishers, in order to reach a wider audience. Besides, after all, Socrates taught philosophy in the public domain: at market places, in the democratic assembly, in public streets, and at dinner parties in the homes of his friends, not in a school. I will not be any less of a philosopher if it turns out that I don't find a career as a university professor.

Still, this plan of action for my life and for my writing career has its challenges. Very, very few authors are able to make their living entirely through their book royalties and public speaking fees. My books are not so popular that I could charge a three-digit figure for a public speaking gig. I will almost always have to have a day job. Indeed, I have been able to write six books in as many years in part due to the generosity of friends and family members, who enabled me to live in low rent situations so that I could work a low paying part time job, and work on my writing the rest of the time.

Publishing in today's trade-paperback market also means that I have to do a lot of my own publicity and event planning work. The industry is changing, and mild-mannered introspective and bookish people like authors are almost compelled to become extroverted high-energy salespeople (not an easy thing for many of us, and certainly not easy for me). Publishing in the trade-paperback market also means that my books have to compete on an equal footing with other, more popular and better known books which do not aim for the same philosophical standards, and may even offer nothing but vague emotional gratifications, pseudo-scientific or pseudo-historical escapist fantasies, or even plain lies. Such books persist in the market because they exploit people's fears and gullibilities, or they give people the feeling of being privy to special knowledge, or they provide a temporary and equally illusory sense of power and superiority. But in my view, the correct response to this situation is to write better books.

Therefore, in my books, there are no secret codes, not many "how-to's", no 21 Lessons, no mantras to mindlessly repeat, and no clubs or organisations to join. I am just one writer, after all. And I do not claim to be a guru. Instead, in my books you will find ideas, arguments, propositions, poetry, short stories, portraits of life, facts and information from the most reliable sources that I can find, questions which I take to be socially important and thought provoking, and above all, an invitation to enter into dialogues and conversations with me as an author, and with other readers, and with other people wherever you live, and with the world as a whole. Books are one of the ways in which people talk to each other about the things that matter. I strongly believe that the most important of our ideas are the ones that emerge from such conversations, and that good-hearted and clear-thinking people, engaging each other in open and honest dialogue, can solve the biggest and most serious of our problems.

Of course, you are still most welcome to send a copy of my book to Oprah Winfrey, or to Jon Stewart. Maybe one of them will invite me to appear on the show. A man can dream, you know...