Imagine a 21st century version of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, amplified, elevated, and super-charged by visions of the future, contemporary cosmology, science fiction, theories of evolution and time, and both Eastern and Western philosophy, with a significant dose of modern positive psychology thrown in for good measure.

Mind Flight is a personal and philosophical narrative, from time past to time present and into the time of the far distant future. It is a story about the quest for wisdom, the pursuit of enlightenment, the search for love, and the aspiration toward a inspiring vision of the future. It is an encyclopedia of ideas, philosophical, scientific, and spiritual, a weaving together of a personal narrative with an intellectual odyssey that explores a multitude of theories and thinkers from across the great panorama of history and reaches out to the great cosmic futurist visions of tomorrow.

Why search for wisdom and enlightenment? The pursuit of wisdom and enlightenment is critically important to living the good life - to realizing what is best in us, to giving meaning and purpose to our existence. Wisdom answers the question of how to live; enlightenment answers the question of what to live for. They are the key to a preferable future, both within higher education and society at large - the keys to the realization of love. This main argument and central stream of thought evolves through the book.

The autobiographical narrative spans over forty years and moves from an old industrial town in the wooded hills of New England, where weightlifting and fist fighting define human virtue and value, to the great sunlit expanse of the southwest. Beginning with the youthful stirrings of philosophical enlightenment during the era of the Hippie Revolution – of sexual and spiritual freedom, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix, of existentialism and self-actualization psychology, and the evolutionary metaphysics of 2001: A Space Odyssey – the storyline moves to the icy lands of the Midwest and the deep philosophical study of the nature of reality, science, perception, and the limits of human knowledge. There is the explosive emergence of Beethoven and classical music in the young man’s life; his embrace of the fantastical realities of science fiction that unsettle everything. A decade later, there are several ill-fated excursions to the Rockies; an unnerving experience with sensory isolation tanks that leads to a collapse into near oblivion; the discovery of the Taoist Yin-Yang - the grand pattern to it all; and encounters with madness and God, both in and out of a mental hospital. The journey eventually leads to the mystical deserts of Arizona, a strange new land of intense heat, surrealistic blue skies, and cosmic starry nights, where the significance of the future, virtue, and wisdom are discovered, giving meaning and direction to life. The quest is not, however, without disruptive though ultimately creative jolts of anguish and despair, villainy and betrayal, that energize and transform reality.

Order and chaos; good and evil; truth and beauty; passion and reason; eternity and time; creation and destruction: all these archetypal themes of life and existence are explored and engaged, both personally and intellectually. Philosophy, science, psychology, myth and religion, music and art, the value and meaning of education: all form major areas of inquiry within the book. Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Wells, Stapledon, Freud, Sartre, Gibson, and Borges, among many other significant writers and thinkers, are examined and debated.

Mind Flight passionately delves into the nature of knowledge and reality, freedom and personal responsibility, evolution and reciprocity, the meaning of the good life, and the great puzzles of mind, self, and consciousness. Grounded in the wisdom of the past and the new insights and ideas of contemporary thought, Mind Flight reaches out into the dazzling possibilities of the future. It sets sail into outer space, contemplates robots, androids, and aliens, travels to multiple ends of time, and jumps into alternate realities to resonate and connect with a Neanderthal man. All of this is part of the story, part of the quest for wisdom, enlightenment, and love, part of the journey into the future.

The Time of Your Life and the first six chapters of Mind Flight can be accessed on the Wisdom Page.