⭐Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tour Kick Off⭐The Bronze Scroll by Paul Donsbach and Alia Sina #Adventure #Romance

The Bronze Scroll, An Adventure-Romance Novel Based On A True Story Solving The Greatest Mystery of the Ancient World…

By Paul Donsbach & Alia Sina

KNIGHTS OF THE LOST TEMPLE: THE BRONZE SCROLL, Adventure/Romance, 300 pp.

The authors of The Bronze Scroll are excited to announce the publication of their first book in the Knights of the Lost Temple adventure-romance series. This groundbreaking novel, co-authored by Paul Donsbach and Alia Sina, tells the story of Sam Romero, an investigative attorney who has uncovered and solved hundreds of high-profile corporate crimes and scandals. But nothing has prepared Sam for the mysteries of his latest investigation—an ancient treasure map stolen by corporate thieves, an Israeli land-permitting official murdered, and a local reporter kidnapped and held hostage by a rogue executive, Roy Griffin III. Racing against the clock to rescue the beautiful reporter, Rebecca Schreiber, Sam has only hours to prove that he can solve the mysteries of an ancient bronze scroll and find the Temple treasures hidden during a time of war.

“We want to surprise our readers with stories of making the ‘impossible’ become real,” said co-author Mr.  Donsbach.  “The world is truly ours to remake with a vision of unity, diversity, and inclusion. Through our fictional characters, we will work to show that “ordinary” people can accomplish seemingly miraculous feats through friendship, inspiration, and love. In fact, history teaches that this is the only way that positive change happens. “

Remarked co-author Alia Sina on creating their book: “While on our own separate journeys, we found ourselves working on a story that flowed with ease given each of our strengths that complimented one another in the world of fiction. We each were working on our own novel and, at the suggestion of our moderator for our writers’ workshop, we began working with each other. What was intended to simply be an “experiment/project/let’s see what happens” turned into a commitment we both developed to the characters and their story. As a fan of supernatural suspense novels, and now as an author, it never ceases to amaze me how real the characters could become. Having written my first novel with Paul, I feel the characters waiting to continue their story.”

A New-Age Journey of Discovery: For their first novel in the Knights of the Lost Temple series, co-authors Paul and Alia chose the so-called Copper Scroll (which is actually made of bronze) as a central element in the characters’ story. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in a desert cave in the 1950s, this artifact is a treasure map listing tons of gold and silver hidden at vaguely described locations that scholars had given up on deciphering. As a supposedly “unsolvable” mystery, the Copper Scroll would serve a symbol of the discontents of modern life, in which the great, achievable dreams seem to have already been accomplished.

There was just one problem. The Copper Scroll wasn’t unsolvable after all. As Sam and his friends work to decipher this ancient treasure map, its mysteries unravel one by one. By searching for the listed treasure descriptions in the e-book version of the ancient historian Flavius Josephus’ writings, Sam and his friends discover that most of the treasure sites involve metaphors or legends important to the leaders of the Judean provisional government at the outbreak of the Great Revolt in 66 CE. They realize that this treasure map must have been made for a peace speech before the Bronze Gate to the Jerusalem Temple in May of that year, in which one of the leaders (probably the chief high priest) urged negotiations with the Romans to end the revolt.

The high priest’s speech would have begun with treasure site 1—seventeen talents (about 900 pounds) of gold and silver hidden in the Valley of Achor. This matches the seventeen talents of gold and silver that Josephus recorded as being stolen from the Temple by the Roman governor, triggering the revolt. As the high priest would explain to his audience, the Valley of Achor was a biblical location where a thief was executed for stealing gold and silver from the Temple. Having condemned the Roman governor in this manner at the beginning of his speech, the high priest would move on to the other metaphors in the treasure sites listed on the Copper Scroll, including the 900 talents (sites 3, 56 and 58) that Josephus identified as the annual taxes paid to Rome by Judea and the other Jewish client states, and the 300 talents of gold (site 47) that Josephus described as being allocated by King David for his son Solomon’s use in building and furnishing the inner sanctuary of the Temple.

A Sacred Relic of the Exodus from Egypt: As they decipher this ancient treasure map, Sam and his friends realize that the 300 talents of gold that site 47 says were hidden underground on the west side of the Pool of Siloam match another legend of hidden Temple treasures being recorded on a bronze scroll. They learn of a legendary account in the so-called Treatise of the Vessels of a bronze scroll being made during a time of crisis, as a permanent record of King Hezekiah, or one of the other listed leaders, hiding the Ark and the gold from Solomon’s Temple in an underground cistern near the Gihon Spring (the water source adjoining the Pool of Siloam), to be revealed at the time of the Messiah, son of David.

But, the characters wonder, is this what treasure site 60 means when it says that the Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) is the “deciphering scroll” explaining each of the hidden treasures? After all, its famously enigmatic epilogue (chapter 12) cryptically refers to the Exodus story (almond blossoms and locusts), the Tabernacle (a silver cord and a golden pitcher), a spring and a cistern, and “every hidden thing,” to be revealed at the time of judgment. Could this be a secret biblical code recording that the lost Ark and the gold from Solomon’s Temple were hidden in a underground cistern by the Pool of Siloam near the Gihon Spring?

A Time for Peace: As the adventurous Bronze Scroll novel moves toward its surprise ending, the characters decipher more of the Copper Scroll’s metaphorical treasure descriptions (including the cursed son of King David at site 48, the Samaritans’ version of the lost Ark legend at site 57, and the bronze sacrificial altar at site 59). Using mysterious spiritual powers that he has long resisted, and the protection of a secret knighthood that he discovers, Sam must learn the scroll’s remaining mysteries before Roy makes good on his threats. He must learn the explosive truth needed to save Rebecca and, in the process, uncover the true spiritual meaning of this ancient bronze scroll.

But what could that be? Is it Kohelet’s message about a “time for peace”? Or does an ancient scroll found soon after modern Israel’s independence tell us something about the time of judgment? As the Knights of the Lost Temple series begins with this first novel, Sam and his friends start an exciting journey of discovery in search of this hidden truth.

The authors of this new adventure-romance series invite you to join them on this voyage. Currently working on the second book in the series, the authors believe that the world’s diverse spiritual traditions hold answers for our troubled times. Paul, who identifies as “spiritual but not religious,” and Alia, a “new-age Muslim” from an Afghan American family (writing under her pen name), believe that greater understanding among the world’s different faiths and beliefs is essential to solving the world’s current problems. Recognizing that even the smallest miracles—like an ancient treasure map found in a desert cave—can make a big difference, the authors welcome you to share this journey together.

For More Information:

Publication date: August 11, 2021, 291 pages; an independent publication of Knights of the Lost Temple, LLC.

E-book:     $9.99; 978-1-7373978-0-9

Paperback:          $19.99; 978-1-7373978-1-6

Hardback: $29.99; 978-1-7373978-2-3

Book website: https://www.knightsofthelosttemple.com/

Rebecca’s blog (under pen name): https://veilsofdesire.com/

Amazon Selling Page: https://amzn.to/3BcelQr

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Knights-of-the-Lost-Temple-105963305136800

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knightsofthelosttemple/

Note from author: One of our favorite excerpts comes from page 9. The protagonist, Sam Romero, has just explained the “unsolvable” Copper Scroll to the old man sitting next to him on the flight to Rome. He told the old stranger that the scroll is an ancient treasure map that has been written off as undecipherable.  Then Sam explains that he thinks he can solve it:

"Now, here's what I think," Sam said, leaning toward Solomon. "It's a story. It always is."

"What do you mean?" asked the old man. 

"It's like you said in your poem," Sam said, patting the old man's shoulder. "Gold and silver aren't really treasures. It's in the eye of the beholder. A treasure is something you'd die for. An idea, a person, a moment. The scent of a lover," he went on, noticing Elena walking back up the aisle toward the galley. "Gold and silver are like chasing the wind. Or whatever your poem said. Nice to have, but you can't take them with you. I just have to figure out the story. This scroll - copper, bronze, or whatever - has a story to tell. I just need to know how to decipher it.

Amazon →  https://amzn.to/3BcelQr

Co-author Paul Donsbach is a Texas native and a lawyer. Raised in an era when those working for social progress were rooted in religious faith, he believes that many of today’s problems likewise require a renewed commitment to spiritual ideals.

Co-author Alia Sina was born and educated in the greater San Francisco Bay area. She was raised in a first-generation, close-knit Afghan American family. Some of her formative experiences  involved her interactions with people who embrace cultural diversity, as well as those who are hostile to families from a different background.

For More Information:

Book website: https://www.knightsofthelosttemple.com/

Rebecca’s blog (under pen name): https://veilsofdesire.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Knights-of-the-Lost-Temple-105963305136800

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knightsofthelosttemple/

Sponsored By:

⭐Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tour Kick Off⭐Knights of the Lost Temple: The Bronze Scroll by Paul Donsbach and Alia Sina #TheBronzeScroll #Adventure #Romance

 

The Bronze Scroll, An Adventure-Romance Novel Based On A True Story Solving The Greatest Mystery of the Ancient World... 

By Paul Donsbach & Alia Sina

Knights of the Lost Temple: The Bronze Scroll, Adventure/Romance, Knights of the Lost Temple, 300 pp.

The authors of The Bronze Scroll are excited to announce the publication of their first book in the Knights of the Lost Temple adventure-romance series. This groundbreaking novel, co-authored by Paul Donsbach and Alia Sina, tells the story of Sam Romero, an investigative attorney who has uncovered and solved hundreds of high-profile corporate crimes and scandals. But nothing has prepared Sam for the mysteries of his latest investigation—an ancient treasure map stolen by corporate thieves, an Israeli land-permitting official murdered, and a local reporter kidnapped and held hostage by a rogue executive, Roy Griffin III. Racing against the clock to rescue the beautiful reporter, Rebecca Schreiber, Sam has only hours to prove that he can solve the mysteries of an ancient bronze scroll and find the Temple treasures hidden during a time of war.

“We want to surprise our readers with stories of making the ‘impossible’ become real,” said co-author Mr.  Donsbach.  “The world is truly ours to remake with a vision of unity, diversity, and inclusion. Through our fictional characters, we will work to show that “ordinary” people can accomplish seemingly miraculous feats through friendship, inspiration, and love. In fact, history teaches that this is the only way that positive change happens. “

Remarked co-author Alia Sina on creating their book: “While on our own separate journeys, we found ourselves working on a story that flowed with ease given each of our strengths that complimented one another in the world of fiction. We each were working on our own novel and, at the suggestion of our moderator for our writers’ workshop, we began working with each other. What was intended to simply be an “experiment/project/let’s see what happens” turned into a commitment we both developed to the characters and their story. As a fan of supernatural suspense novels, and now as an author, it never ceases to amaze me how real the characters could become. Having written my first novel with Paul, I feel the characters waiting to continue their story.”

A New-Age Journey of Discovery: For their first novel in the Knights of the Lost Temple series, co-authors Paul and Alia chose the so-called Copper Scroll (which is actually made of bronze) as a central element in the characters’ story. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in a desert cave in the 1950s, this artifact is a treasure map listing tons of gold and silver hidden at vaguely described locations that scholars had given up on deciphering. As a supposedly “unsolvable” mystery, the Copper Scroll would serve a symbol of the discontents of modern life, in which the great, achievable dreams seem to have already been accomplished.

There was just one problem. The Copper Scroll wasn’t unsolvable after all. As Sam and his friends work to decipher this ancient treasure map, its mysteries unravel one by one. By searching for the listed treasure descriptions in the e-book version of the ancient historian Flavius Josephus’ writings, Sam and his friends discover that most of the treasure sites involve metaphors or legends important to the leaders of the Judean provisional government at the outbreak of the Great Revolt in 66 CE. They realize that this treasure map must have been made for a peace speech before the Bronze Gate to the Jerusalem Temple in May of that year, in which one of the leaders (probably the chief high priest) urged negotiations with the Romans to end the revolt.

The high priest’s speech would have begun with treasure site 1—seventeen talents (about 900 pounds) of gold and silver hidden in the Valley of Achor. This matches the seventeen talents of gold and silver that Josephus recorded as being stolen from the Temple by the Roman governor, triggering the revolt. As the high priest would explain to his audience, the Valley of Achor was a biblical location where a thief was executed for stealing gold and silver from the Temple. Having condemned the Roman governor in this manner at the beginning of his speech, the high priest would move on to the other metaphors in the treasure sites listed on the Copper Scroll, including the 900 talents (sites 3, 56 and 58) that Josephus identified as the annual taxes paid to Rome by Judea and the other Jewish client states, and the 300 talents of gold (site 47) that Josephus described as being allocated by King David for his son Solomon’s use in building and furnishing the inner sanctuary of the Temple.

A Sacred Relic of the Exodus from Egypt: As they decipher this ancient treasure map, Sam and his friends realize that the 300 talents of gold that site 47 says were hidden underground on the west side of the Pool of Siloam match another legend of hidden Temple treasures being recorded on a bronze scroll. They learn of a legendary account in the so-called Treatise of the Vessels of a bronze scroll being made during a time of crisis, as a permanent record of King Hezekiah, or one of the other listed leaders, hiding the Ark and the gold from Solomon’s Temple in an underground cistern near the Gihon Spring (the water source adjoining the Pool of Siloam), to be revealed at the time of the Messiah, son of David.

But, the characters wonder, is this what treasure site 60 means when it says that the Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) is the “deciphering scroll” explaining each of the hidden treasures? After all, its famously enigmatic epilogue (chapter 12) cryptically refers to the Exodus story (almond blossoms and locusts), the Tabernacle (a silver cord and a golden pitcher), a spring and a cistern, and “every hidden thing,” to be revealed at the time of judgment. Could this be a secret biblical code recording that the lost Ark and the gold from Solomon’s Temple were hidden in a underground cistern by the Pool of Siloam near the Gihon Spring?

A Time for Peace: As the adventurous Bronze Scroll novel moves toward its surprise ending, the characters decipher more of the Copper Scroll’s metaphorical treasure descriptions (including the cursed son of King David at site 48, the Samaritans’ version of the lost Ark legend at site 57, and the bronze sacrificial altar at site 59). Using mysterious spiritual powers that he has long resisted, and the protection of a secret knighthood that he discovers, Sam must learn the scroll’s remaining mysteries before Roy makes good on his threats. He must learn the explosive truth needed to save Rebecca and, in the process, uncover the true spiritual meaning of this ancient bronze scroll.

But what could that be? Is it Kohelet’s message about a “time for peace”? Or does an ancient scroll found soon after modern Israel’s independence tell us something about the time of judgment? As the Knights of the Lost Temple series begins with this first novel, Sam and his friends start an exciting journey of discovery in search of this hidden truth.

The authors of this new adventure-romance series invite you to join them on this voyage. Currently working on the second book in the series, the authors believe that the world’s diverse spiritual traditions hold answers for our troubled times. Paul, who identifies as “spiritual but not religious,” and Alia, a “new-age Muslim” from an Afghan American family (writing under her pen name), believe that greater understanding among the world’s different faiths and beliefs is essential to solving the world’s current problems. Recognizing that even the smallest miracles—like an ancient treasure map found in a desert cave—can make a big difference, the authors welcome you to share this journey together.

For More Information:

Publication date: August 11, 2021, 291 pages; an independent publication of Knights of the Lost Temple, LLC.

E-book:     $9.99; 978-1-7373978-0-9

Paperback:          $19.99; 978-1-7373978-1-6

Hardback: $29.99; 978-1-7373978-2-3

Book website: https://www.knightsofthelosttemple.com/

Rebecca’s blog (under pen name): https://veilsofdesire.com/

Amazon Selling Page: https://amzn.to/3BcelQr

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Knights-of-the-Lost-Temple-105963305136800

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knightsofthelosttemple/

(Here is the first Note From Author: One of our favorite excerpts comes from page 9. The protagonist, Sam Romero, has just explained the "unsolvable" Copper Scroll to the old man sitting next to him on the flight to Rome. He told the old stranger that the scroll is an ancient treasure map that has been written off as undecipherable. Then Sam explains that he thinks he can solve it:)

"Now, here's what I think," Sam said, leaning toward Solomon. "It's a story. It always is."

"What do you mean?" asked the old man.

"It's like you said in your poem," Sam said, patting the old man's shoulder. "Gold and silver aren't really treasures. It's the eye of the beholder. A treasure is something you'd die for. An idea, a person, a moment. The scent of a lover," he went on, noticing Elena walking back up the aisle toward the galley. "Gold and silver are like chasing the wind. Or whatever your poem said. Nice to have, but you can't take them with you. I just have to figure out the story. This scroll - copper, bronze, or whatever - has a story to tell. I just need to know how to decipher it."

Amazon →  https://amzn.to/3BcelQr

Co-author Paul Donsbach is a Texas native and a lawyer. Raised in an era when those working for social progress were rooted in religious faith, he believes that many of today’s problems likewise require a renewed commitment to spiritual ideals.

Co-author Alia Sina was born and educated in the greater San Francisco Bay area. She was raised in a first-generation, close-knit Afghan American family. Some of her formative experiences  involved her interactions with people who embrace cultural diversity, as well as those who are hostile to families from a different background.

For More Information:

Book website: https://www.knightsofthelosttemple.com/

Rebecca’s blog (under pen name): https://veilsofdesire.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Knights-of-the-Lost-Temple-105963305136800

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knightsofthelosttemple/

Sponsored By:

⭐Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tour Kick Off⭐Intentional: How to Live, Love, Work and Play Meaningfully by David Amerland @davidamerland #SelfHelp #Nonfiction

  

Intentional is a gameplan... 

By David Amerland

INTENTIONAL: HOW TO LIVE, LOVE, WORK AND PLAY MEANINGFULLY, Nonfiction, NewLine Books, 218 pp.

Live your life the way you want to. Manage stress better. Be more resilient and enjoy meaningful relationships and better health. We all want that. Such life leads to better choices, better jobs, loving romantic partners, more rewarding careers and decisions that are fully aligned with our aims.

What stops us from getting all that is the complexity of our brain and the complicated way in which the external world comes together. The misalignment between the internal states we experience and the external circumstances we encounter often leads to confusion, a lack of clarity in our thinking and actions that are not consistent with our professed values.

Intentional is a gameplan. It helps us connect the pieces of our mind to the pieces of our life. It shows us how to map what we feel to what has caused those feelings. It helps us understand what affects us and what effects it has on us. It makes it possible for us to determine what we want, why we want it and what we need to do to get it.

When we know what to do, we know how to behave. When we know how to behave we know how to act. When we know how to act, we know how to live. Our actions, each day, become our lives. Drawn from the latest research from the fields of neuroscience, behavioral and social psychology and evolutionary anthropology, Intentional shows how to add meaning to our actions and lead a meaningful, happier, more fulfilling life on our terms.

Here is the first truth in a book of truths: you can't be everything to everyone. At some point you need to make a choice of what truly matters to you and why. Fair warning: it’s an approach that will lose you a lot of 'friends'.

There is little point in trying to define what ‘life’ is. Philosophers and, surprisingly, even some biologists, have never agreed on it.

Biology however tells us that life is: “defined as any system capable of performing functions such as eating, metabolizing, excreting, breathing, moving, growing, reproducing, and responding to external stimuli.”

The moment you think about this definition you know that there is little point in trying to adapt it to concepts such as “living a good life” or “a life well-lived”, yet it is by those that most of us intuitively try to measure and understand what it is we mean when we mention “life”.

As it happens I will give you a much better definition but before I do I will start with an obvious truth: we all struggle with the exact same thing that is, knowing how to behave.

In trying to live a life, good or bad, we all seek to find, discover or accept a set of rules that basically tell us how to behave in any given situation. When we accept social mores, religion, the law, tradition, culture, a code of conduct, a belief or an ideal what we basically engage in is a direct attempt to find our personal rule book that tells us exactly what to do when we need it.

I am a sucker for mindless action flicks that spike my adrenaline levels and shower me with eye-candy special effects. If you’ve never seen Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman, then I strongly recommend it, not least because in one of his over-the- top cinematic speeches delivered with that all-too-familiar authoritative deep, tonal voice Freeman’s character declares:

“Insanity is wasting your life as a nothing when you have the blood of a killer flowing in your veins. Insanity is being shat on, beat down, coasting through life in a miserable existence when you have a caged lion locked inside and a key to release it.”

He goes on to give the requited spiel about a fraternity of super- assassins that take it upon themselves to guide history by killing selected people “for the greater good” and he finishes it with the memorable line: “This is what has been missing from your life Wesley: Purpose.” I did say it’s over-the-top. At the same time the speech has a point. A life lived without a purpose is a life mostly wasted. And purpose is frequently defined by knowing what we should do and being actively engaged in doing it.

Whether we realize it or not, we all feel the need for this kind of guidance that gives us a deep sense of purpose. Because we are born physically helpless we have evolved to latch onto and work hard to understand our immediate environment and the people around us. This makes us, as we grow older, intensely pro-social. At the same time it provides us with a ready-made set of expectations, rules and guidelines to guide our behavior that arise from the collective behavior of those around us.

That behavior is the culture we experience and the traditions we abide by. The problem with this is that rather than defining for ourselves what is important to us we accept that which is given to us. That which is given to us is rarely what we want, but it can very easily become what we settle for.

Settling is an evolutionary-programmed trait. Let me explain: Life is hard. It really is. Even if we happen to have the extraordinary luck to be born into a very rich family whose legacy gives us everything we need to live comfortably for the rest of our life, maintaining that fortune and navigating through life is going to be fraught with risks, traps and constant upheavals.

We need other people. Other people need us. That is a truth. But the reasons for this mutual need are usually contradictory or, at the very least, sufficiently at odds with each other to make trust an issue and turn cooperation into a risk-assessment exercise.

All of this takes inner resources. It takes attention, thinking, planning, mental and psychological effort, perhaps some introspection. It frequently is emotionally painful and psychologically costly. We are programmed to avoid it because it adds to the intrinsic difficulty that is life.

If you want the definition of life here it is: It is a game plan that emerges from the collective activities for survival of everyone around you. That is, everyone. It is difficult because it is unpredictable. It is unpredictable because no one knows the rules. In an emergent game plan things change spontaneously according to the same principle that guides us to settle for what we are given: conservation of energy. When ‘witches’ threaten our communal beliefs, the stability of our governing institutions and the perceived natural order of the Cosmos it is required of us to hunt them down and publicly burn them.

The act, however, barbaric, painful and seemingly inhuman restores the perceived natural order of things, reinforces the power of our institutions to safeguard our way of life and impresses upon us the value and desirability of accepting what we are given. Life goes on much easier then.

When the public burning of witches however marks our way of life as brutal, our religious leaders as misguided, fanatical zealots whose actions endanger us all and our institutions as unbending, power- hungry instruments of control, we become more enlightened. More accepting. Our society becomes tolerant. Our horizons broader. Life goes on much easier then.

“Easier” is what we have been programmed to seek because it increases the chances of our survival. What made sense in pre-historic times when the outside world could easily kill us has, in our days, evolved into a complex dance of what we believe and what we reject, what we accept and what we actively seek. We have created a world that pretty much guarantees our survival. Yet, for most of us that is no longer enough.

We lack the deeper sense of purpose that makes us feel truly alive. We have the key to releasing the “lion” inside each of us but choose not to use it. This makes our life a complex weave of small advances and retreats. Victories and losses that are designed to keep us in place until we no longer care and it no longer matters.

I say “designed” when I describe the constant churn of victories and losses that are life, but that is a mislabel. Life is a system. Like any system it seeks stability in order to function. Stability demands conformity. Almost like a biological organism, the system that we call “life” rewards innovation and change (i.e. mutations) sufficiently to progress but makes it hard enough for them to become established so that it is never severely disrupted.

It is no accident that in our lifetime we shall each experience only one great innovation or upheaval. More than that and it may truly be the end of the line for the experiment called “Human life on Earth”.

This need to live by choosing “the path of least resistance” because it allows us to use the least amount of energy to coast through life leads to some pretty convoluted mental acrobatics. We are, for instance, perfectly at ease with a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde transformation where we present a different face (and maybe, even values) to those we work with and a completely different set of behaviors to those at home or our friends at the pub.

We can use ‘morality’ to ostracize and dehumanize fellow human beings who are different from us, because their existence creates perturbations in the social system we directly experience that require greater energy in order to deal with and may, even, challenge our own sense of right and wrong with our own life choices.

The ease with which we can turn on anyone not of our own religion, social caste, skin colour, ethnicity, neighbourhood or area is testament to this. History supplies a long list of such instances that range from the destruction of Carthage in pre-history to the genocides that took place in Rwanda and Bosnia in the closing years of the last century.

In each case the ingredients are the same incendiary mix of social stress, political polarization and a dehumanization of the ‘other’ that is different, strange, outside our own group and therefore the enemy who deserves to be eradicated.

The irony that this is the same game only with different players escapes its participants who had they been capable of such awareness would have behaved differently anyway. The irony is rich here because in order for this game of life called “division” and “ostracism” to work its players must be capable of exhibiting the same behavior when confronted with the same set of circumstances. The oppressed turn oppressors just as easily as the victims can turn into aggressors. Given similar circumstances and capabilities we are usually pretty good at coming up with justification of our behavior and if you need a living, breathing example of such role reversal look at the atrocities, injustice and demonization of the ‘other’ carried out by none others than the Israelis upon the Palestinians.

A case of role-reversal, where those who history has frequently ascribed the role of victims turn into aggressors and perpetrate on their neighbors the same type of persecution they have, historically, experienced themselves.

Now that we’ve established, on these broad lines, that life is a game whose rules are the same everywhere and we have seen, again broadly, how similar circumstances allows us to behave in similar ways and even make the exact same behavioral mistakes we, ourselves, have condemned it’s fair to ask “what now?” Is this it? Will this chapter be enough to raise questions without providing much of an answer¬? Is everything always grey and in doubt? Is the rest of the book more of the same which would make it no more than a superfluous addition to this chapter required to provide what publishers call “spine value”?

Well, not quite. What follows are the elements, the modalities, if you like, required to make this game of life work. What follows is the prescription you need to live your life the way you want to. This chapter, however, is far from over.

Because all this is serious I can afford to be flippant, though as you will see even my flippancy has a very serious intent. So, I will add here that the one ‘rule’ we all need to keep in mind is that favourite of William S. Burroughs’ from his Naked Lunch “Nothing is true; everything is permitted”. Burrough, of course, borrowed this from Vladimir Bartol, who used it in his novel Alamut. Bartol, himself borrowed it, and slightly changed it in the process, from the teachings of Hassan-i Sabbah who was the founder of the Order of the Assassins, historically known as the Nizari Assassins. The tale, writings and doctrine of the Order was incorporated in the storyline of the popular video game Assassin’s Creed which is where I first came across it and filed it away for future reference which brings us to here and now. You reading what I’ve written.

What do we, what can we learn from this? That life is circuitous but the circuit has polygonal junctures with cultural jumps and bends that require an open mind and a thirst for cultural learning in order for the metaphorical dots to connect? Or, that nothing is truly original, that everything is borrowed from somewhere else and made to fit the moment and its time?

Both, I’d argue. If you are truly living and if you truly feel alive you are aware of both context and history. Moment and time. Alamut was written as an implied rebuke to Mussolini’s fascism. Naked Lunch is a chronicle of the messiness of life and its often unplanned trajectory where the brain makes sense of basically senseless moments of existence. This book is about learning to behave in ways that help you get more out of your life.

 

Amazon →  https://amzn.to/3kqx0C6

Bookshop.org → https://bit.ly/3ktTAtC 

Barnes &Noble → https://bit.ly/2YUNDxT

Target → https://bit.ly/2Z3sNfx 

Powell's → https://bit.ly/3mVkfiU 

David Amerland is a Chemical Engineer with an MSc. in quantum dynamics in laminar flow processes. He converted his knowledge of science and understanding of mathematics into a business writing career that’s helped him demystify, for his readers, the complexity of subjects such as search engine optimization (SEO), search marketing, social media, decision-making, communication and personal development. The diversity of the subjects is held together by the underlying fundamental of human behavior and the way this is expressed online and offline. Intentional: How to Live, Love, Work and Play Meaningfully is the latest addition to a thread that explores what to do in order to thrive. A lifelong martial arts practitioner, David Amerland is found punching and kicking sparring dummies and punch bags when he’s not behind his keyboard.

For More Information

• Visit David Amerland’s website.
• Connect with David on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
• Watch David talk about his book at YouTube.
• Pick up your copy of Intentional: How to Live, Love, Work and Play Meaningfully at Amazon or Bookshop.org.

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