The World is Around You, but You are in Your Car
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I was driving around aimlessly with no purpose or sense of teamwork in my car jealous of the guy in the Porsche cruising alongside my beat-up Hyundai when I ran a red light causing two cars to screech their brakes and rushed into a drive-through to get super-sized burgers and Coke which I pounded down and threw the garbage out the window as I listened to suicide bomb updates on the radio and searched for someone to blame or take to court for my own inadequacies but after all was said and done pulled over and got out of the comfort of the automobile to look around and saw that the world was around me. * Welcome to an alternative way to look at economic crises, 9/11, and other miscellaneous happenings. The World is Around You, but You are in Your Car has been said to be a "wonderfully odd book that would make a great gift and delightful short read for thinking persons and serious students throughout the world, people with spiritual questions, and anyone struggling to understand America in today's troubling and confusing times." It is a handbook of practical philosophy that gives Americans a mission and something higher to live for as well as a deeper understanding of fundamental ideas which, in turn, make discussions on today's issues more fruitful.
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About the Book
The World is Around You, but You are in Your Car is a novel that brings history's great philosophers back to life for one week to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to share their concerns about the deepest American problem—a healthy quest to achieve goals and acquire things has devolved into a relentless pursuit of a perfect life people feel they are owed, an over-the-top selfishness and lack of self-restraint that leads them to do whatever it takes to get what they want while paying little regard to the harmful consequences they may inflict upon themselves, the earth, and other people throughout the world. “I want it, and I want it now” has been taken to levels not reached before, and the insidious ramifications are eye-opening: the casual disposal of people or principles if these should obstruct the path to the perfect life; mental depression from the strains of struggling to keep up with the neighbors; the loss of a sense of team mission and camaraderie; isolation from reality as people become more and more comfortable in their plush living rooms and cars, unaware of what is going on outside; and an increasing prevalence of violence, obesity, victimization, and self-indulgent lawsuits. It has even opened the door to foreign terrorism inside the American homeland.
The philosophers interact with people as they hang out downtown. They host a symposium and a performance of Beethoven's "Tenth" Symphony. Karl Marx shops for souvenirs, Socrates smokes cigarettes and plays the lottery, and Plato and Kierkegaard bicycle to the ocean. They discuss the external and internal controls that may restrain the destructive behavior, agreeing that internal control, involving individual self-regulation, is more effective and desired than external control primarily because of its greater conduciveness to freedom, the crown jewel of this civilization. Their goal is to persuade Americans to emphasize self-restraint more than ever so that the "freedom experiment" has a better chance of succeeding.
About the Author
William M. Trently received a bachelor's degree from the University of Scranton and D.M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He is an Eagle Scout and U. S. Navy veteran. Born and raised in northeast Pennsylvania, he currently resides in the Seacoast region of New Hampshire.