Auspicious Thoughts, Propitious Mind

Intriguing down to earth practical philosophy that paints a perceptive view of what much of life is all about.

About The Book

'Auspicious Thoughts, Propitious Mind'

def: auspicious, propitious - likely to turn out well, on track, promising.
This is a book that all the family can enjoy. It is about human relationships, hopes and fears, about making decisions and how thoughts and feelings can take control, interfere and misdirect our life. It is about how our habits and customs manifest our primordial animal origins, and how society is driven by primeval tribal instincts, including an inborn instinct that asks, 'Is there an after-life?'

Richard Camden begins his book by discussing the raw essence of life, its origins and its meaning and purpose, and what of our animal origins have survived in mankind today. In his second part, the reader's attention is drawn to our moods and how they influence our behaviour and the decisions we make. This leads on to the third part, called, 'All That We Are,' and looks at who and what we have evolved to become, our characteristics, as individuals and our interactions as groups and nations.

In his fourth part, the author broaches the subject of a moral compass, and highlights some of the well-known guidelines from the scriptures looking at their relevance today. In the fifth part, 'Where Did It All Go Wrong,' the chapters look at man's ways of vindictiveness and ambition, that give others a bumpy ride through life. Our reactions and accommodations to that are explained in the sixth part that sets out how we can use our minds in a flexible way, especially regarding the causes and faiths we choose to adopt. In his final part, Richard encourages readers to keep life simple and always aim for a sound mind and healthy body.

Beautifully presented, this book makes good reading. It is a cheering, thought-provoking and intriguingly different book that due to its considerable useful content, begs to be re-read, studied and retained for reference, and for others in the family to read and think about the way we live, our relationships, hopes and fears, and making decisions work, as well as asking, 'How is it some just seem to sail through life?'
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Genre

This is a work of contemporary philosophy that is intriguing, well-balanced and comprehensive. Richard Camden focuses on the very human and natural desires for achievement, contentment and understanding, and why morals (virtues) and ethics are worthy ideals. Richard discusses the meaning and purpose of life, the strengths and weaknesses of human qualities, and the role played by society. He looks at how beliefs influence lives, and rationalizes some well-known religious precepts. Of interest to many readers, Richard Camden's book will have its greatest impact on those with ample life still ahead of them. His literary style is pleasing and at times is deliberately quirky, with some humour.

About The Author

Richard’s perception was acquired at the School of Experience, and now of an age in his 80's, ranks as a graduate of the University of Life. But in this fast-changing world, has any of that any value still? Only the reader can decide the answer to that. Although a Christian by faith, Richard says he remains deeply suspicious of religion and religious practices.

In his book Richard offers the reader a line of thinking that is akin to the 'Man on the Clapham Omnibus.' That person, he or she, is a notion adopted by the courts as a legal-fiction to help the court arrive at a judgement on what can justly and reasonably be expected of anyone's conduct in their dealings in life, that person being a fair and average person of sound mind. This thinking reflects the down-to-earth, common sense practicality and pragmatism of the man-in-the-street; but there are times when Richard’s alter ego asks a question that neither he, nor life, as yet, have an answer.

Richard writes in a practical and thought-provoking way on a wide range of matters that will be important to many who wonder 'what life is all about.' His interest in the 'psychology of self' began in his 50s. He researched the subject further and began compiling notes for his book just prior to the new millennium. It was completed and published 20 years later, in 2019.

With a degree of insight, Richard draws on his life's career of working with people and their animals as a veterinarian. His real-life experiences come from being an employer and founding partner of a professional partnership that became an SME of up to fifty staff of young men and women. He was able to observe their tribulations and worries, their stresses, marriage and relationship breakdown, even, sadly life’s disasters of divorce, miscarriage, abortion and suicide; and for him, all that, plus the worldly issues of Employment Law, and Health & Safety matters as they developed between the thirty years from 1970.

Read Auspicious Thoughts, Propitious Mind

Auspicious Thoughts, Propitious Mind is for those who worry or are just curious to understand life, others and themselves better, and for those whose role it is to help them achieve that.

This book can help satisfy a yearning and enquiring mind on many matters of importance in the reader’s life.

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Awareness

With awareness we are in the command position of the advancing voyage of our life, avoiding going 'off-track' due to the pitfalls, off-sets and any fog we meet. Looking forward, it is best if we say, 'There is no such thing as fate.' What we leave behind may be called fate, but we look back only to take a bearing.

We will feel better if we can stop thinking in terms of 'right decisions' and 'wrong decisions.' Being of sound mind, and considering the options before us, we can only ever make a decision believing it to be a good decision for us at the time, however much we may think we are making it for others, we are not. So, our decisions will be good decisions and only later, perhaps, some will turn out to be 'not so good decisions.'

We can see life all around us, that special admixture of the living, dead and dying. We can see the new, and the 'what was once' new, degrading with catabolic entropy, while at the same time, life synthesises anew and in abundance, as a counter-balance. And we know that the essence of that life is the Force of Goodness, that is God.

Only a very few special people in our life will ever be worthy of our trust. And when we have placed that trust, is all then well?

What is it, in essence, that separates us from the animals? It surely is, in all essence, ‘The gift of imagination and the means to communicate it.’

There’s a downside to just about every splendid invention, not intrinsic but extrinsic by the machinations and perversions of mankind.

We have two minds, each mostly doing their own job, but with overlap, and with an agreed position on which mind overrules the other, when ‘needs must’.

It’s best for us all if we say, ‘There is no such thing as fate, and no force for evil, and certainly no such thing as an honour killing!'

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Book data – ISBN – Copywrite – 40 chapters/preface/intro/epilogue – 500 pp. – 210,000 words - 20 years in writing