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 book is about our disposition and personality, and our thoughts and feelings that can interfere and misdirect our life and our relationships with others. It is about how our habits and customs reveal our primordial animal origins, and how society is driven by primeval tribal instincts, including inborn instincts that ask, 'Is there an after-life?' and, 'Why is it some accept and others deny the existence of God?'

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

The literary style is pleasing, with witty asides thrown in, and at times is deliberately quirky. The genre is contemporary and up-to-date sitting comfortably between non-fiction and fiction. The content embraces broad aspects of practical psychology, philosophy, sociology and religion. Richard's emphasis is on the power of goodness, like a force, and on the happiness that goes with personal fulfilment (eudaimonia). He looks at relationships and the roles both large and small communities play in our lives, and how faiths and beliefs influence our conduct, not always for the better. Richard rationalises how our behaviour patterns, not only as individuals, but in groups and even as nations, reflect the character traits inherited down through the centuries since the time of our primitive ancestors.

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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Mindfulness and Eudaimonia

Mindfulness is a requisite of Eudaimonia, which is a philosophy that brings us to the concept of self-actualisation. This is the process by which we become everything we can that is right-minded and worthy. Eudaimonia implies a state, both physical and mental, in a person who is aware of, and conscious of, their choices for good feelings, their positive optimistic yet realistic outlook, their wise understanding and opinions, their objectives and goals, all virtuous, and yet adopting a flexible readiness to change those things in the light of later developments when perceived to be for the better.

So, not only mental, as in having a disposition, but physical too, being aware through mindfulness of their situation, the why, when and how, but also, with awareness, how that may be bettered. Physically, too, as in the state of their body, flesh and blood, looking after its health and fitness as a well-maintained machine, as best possible, given any restrictions.

The simple and simply expressed ideas in Auspicious Thoughts, Propitious Mind prompt the reader, particularly the younger readers, with all their life ahead of them, to study and to benefit from the concepts of eudaimonia, and so to enjoy their way along life's voyage, moving on, happily, towards fulfilling their ever-expanding potential.

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!'

Follow Richard Camden

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