Featured Interview With Nathan J. Murphy
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised in the beautiful coastal region of Cornwall in the UK, but now I am based in Catalunya in the Spanish Pyrenees. The journey from Cornwall to Catalunya took twenty years and went via London where I lived for seven years. It was during these years that the embryonic questions that led to the writing of The Ideas That Rule Us formed; why do we live as we do? and why do we make the decisions we make when there are so many alternatives?
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
To be honest, I have never been deeply fascinated by books. I read a lot of non-fiction and scientific literature because I want to get useful insights from them. I started writing a book in my mid-thirties, sort of, by accident. I originally started developing a set of papers that described how ideologies worked and it got out of control and evolved into a book.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I enjoy non-fiction books that are the result of years, or decades, of research and work to distil very large and complex fields into a book that almost anyone can read. These are not books that are part of a three-book deal, but real labours of love, sweat and tears. Books that fit this category might be Behave by Robert Sapolsky, Loneliness by John T. Cacioppo, A New History of Humanity by Graber & Wengrow, or Happiness by Matthieu Ricard.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
‘The Ideas That Rule Us’ looks at how ideas and ideology works. This sounds a little dry at first, but once you realise that ideas shape who we are and what we become—and impact a vast array of human behaviour—it becomes more interesting.
Ideas are possible because human beings have developed the capability for abstract thought. This ability to imagine what does not exist—including the past, the future—is what defines the human experience. The resulting dichotomy of ‘the emotional’ and ‘the abstract’ leads to untold complication in our lives—a big part of being human is untangling the messy nature of our unlimited minds.
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