books

The Logic of Life and Death

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The Logic of Life and Death is the first book I ever published. Of course, I self-published it, as I figured no sane publishing house would ever want to put my crazy words into print. Maybe that’s a defeatist attitude, but I accept the odds in this business. They’re very long, especially for unknown writers.

And even if you do find a publisher willing to take a chance on you, and even if your magnum opus is a hit with readers, the royalties are not all that great. On the other hand, a self-published book that makes it big, can reap huge royalties for the author.

So in my self-defeatist greed, I self-published. I put my book on the market, with Amazon. This was in 2009.

The book was highly successful.

Over the years, The Logic of Life and Death sold a total of 36 copies, netting me a cool 12 bucks or so in royalties. Hey, that’s success. It’s a hell of a lot better than my other books, which only sold one copy each.

There is one exception. On a lark I wrote an erotica novel, to see how well it would do. I felt stunned, as sales soared to over 1,500 copies. Which just goes to show you what readers really want. Whoever said that sex sells, wasn’t kidding.

I’ve decided to donate The Logic of Life and Death to the commonweal. And therefore I’ve assigned it a Creative Commons license. This means you can read and/or download it for free. And you can distribute it for free, and even try to sell it, like I tried.

But you have to give me name credit. So, for example, you’re not allowed to use it for your PhD thesis.

The Logic of Life and Death resolves deep, metaphysical mysteries, by utilizing logic, rather than science or religion. Science is completely incapable of penetrating the metaphysical, and religion seems to rely upon fear and blind faith to get people to believe in its philosophies.

But when logic is used, the mysteries can be resolved. There’s no way to scientifically prove they’ve been resolved accurately, so we must rely upon assumption. We assume things to be true, because our assumptions make logical sense. And because our assumptions serve a practical purpose.

The main practical purpose for resolving the metaphysical mysteries of life and death, is to give us direction. To help us know how best to live our lives. It assists in our decision making. And it helps us to chart a course in our lives that we can feel confident with, while preparing for our inevitable deaths.

I first wrote about the power of change and uniqueness, when I wrote this book. Little did I realize then, that my writings would eventually lead to a blog about unicorns. If you read The Logic of Life and Death, I hope it will help you in your pursuit of that elusive, one-horned creature.

You can read and/or download The Logic of Life and Death, by clicking any of the hyperlinks I’ve attached to the book title, in this post. You can also find it in my Free Bookstore (see menu at the top of my blog). And it’s available online at www.obooko.com.

Categories: books

77 replies »

      • I just finished reading Pumping Up Piglipple. You used some “unique” examples to use as exemplars. (The vegetarian in me gagged a few times ~ e.g., at the discussion of knuckle sandwiches, etc.) And you made some good points about how happiness arises naturally of its own accord when we stop allowing its enemies to get in the way.

        And, as always, an undercurrent of bemusement and amusement flowed between the lines!

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  2. If you want some competition for boringest work, I have written several user manuals for products that I have developed. They are prescription strength insomnia cures.

    And as a nitpick, I always thought that religions were more about hope than fear. The fear is there whether you are religious or not. But, may that is just my perspective.

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    • Yeah, logic isn’t known for being exciting. But hey, a good user manual, written in plain English, is always welcome reading by me when I’m trying to figure out a product.

      I guess there’s a carrot and stick approach that religions use, with the carrot being the hope of heaven, and the stick being the fear that you’ll get hell instead, if you don’t believe in whatever doctrine that particular religion teaches. But the logic that religious doctrine relies upon (if you want to call it logic), often seems flimsy to me.

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      • I am Catholic, probably not the best Catholic, but… I have never really looked at it as logic. I don’t think that there is the salvation checklist where you precisely follow each rule and cross off each item and get a VIP pass with paid parking. Some may think it very ordered like that maybe. Perhaps modern people have the tendency to look at everything in a logical academic context as we are taught in schools; to read everything as though it were intended for a modern audience; that heaven is akin to a bureaucracy.

        I guess am a bit more philosophical and looking at larger ideas rather than the fine details. I have seen serious, heated arguments over religious minutiae, from ancient books that were not written as modern academic texts. And that seems like losing site of the big picture. I don’t guess I see God as a college professor trying to trip us up on trick questions or fine details, but rather focusing on larger moral ideas.

        I don’t see God at a desk stating something like “Hmmm… It says here that you were baptized in water that was actually 7 PPM chlorine. That IS above the 5 PPM limit so, that does technically invalidate your baptism which, as you probably know, means damnation. Sorry.”

        Maybe I am just rambling.

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        • Looking at large ideas, rather than focusing on tiny details, is a good thing, in my view. It helps in understanding the basic intention of a teaching, and allows for a lot of freedom in the direction one takes it. To me, that’s healthy.

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