1) Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into writing?
I was inspired to go into psychiatry 50 years ago after reading a book by Carl Jung. I realized that he was applying clinical insights from his practice to construct a philosophy of human nature. So that is what I have been doing all these years.
2) What inspired you to write your book?
Ever since I retired 17 years ago, I have been writing dense philosophical essays that people had difficulty understanding. When Chat GPT-4 first became available about a year ago, I realized that here was a tool that could help render my writing into something anyone could understand, and then last October, when DALL-E-3 integrated with Chat GPT-4 I decided to illustrate my revised book.
3) What theme or message do you hope readers will take away from your book?
The most important theme is to humanize severe mental illness by demonstrating that they are pathological exaggerations of everyday emotions we all know intimately. Just as important is that mental illnesses become “emotional fossils” that illustrate how our emotions and motivations evolved through the ages. Mental illnesses are a way we can empathize with our evolutionary past, like a sacred mythos.
4) What drew you into this particular genre?
My writing has always been philosophical. I am after the truth of “why we became human,” which is the name of my blog site.
5) What social media site has been the most helpful in developing your readership?
Blogs like Anthony’s have been extremely helpful.
6) What advice would you give to aspiring or just starting authors out there?
You just have to love the process of writing itself. If you love it, keep doing it and it will reward you one way or another.
7) What does the future hold in store for you? Any new books/projects on the horizon?
I just made a full-length movie out of “The Evolution of Human Motivations” https://youtu.be/sq9DNpiI9zQ. Next, I am thinking about trying to write a version of our “inside” evolutionary journey for young adults, or, alternatively, in the form of an epic narrative poem, like Homer’s Odyssey and the Iliad.
About the Author
In 1971, as a surgical resident in New York, I realized my true calling lay elsewhere. Inspired by Carl Jung’s integration of medicine and philosophy, I pursued psychiatry in Washington, DC. My journey led me to working in a maximum-security prison, where an inmate slashed my face with a razor blade dramatically shifting my focus to immersing myself in Darwin’s works. This sparked my dedication to evolutionary psychology/psychiatry, participating in its early development in the late 1980s while managing a hospital-based psychiatric practice.
A pivotal moment came around 9/11, reading E.O. Wilson’s words on humanity’s need for a sacred narrative, igniting my mission to forge a “new mythos” of human nature. My work focuses on interpreting major mental illnesses as disorders of evolved emotions and motivations, supported by mainstream scientific findings in psychiatry and human evolution. Recently, technologies like Chat GPT-4 and DALL-E-3 have helped visualize these concepts. My e-book, “The Evolution of Human Motivations, An AI-illustrated Odyssey,” available on Amazon, encapsulates this journey.
