Ask the Author: J.D. Steens
Answered Questions (10)
J.D. Steens
When I realized in early adulthood, from Darwin, that I am an evolutionary product; and later, that what motivates me is the same as what motivates all of life - hence, a fundamental connection between humans and all of life, i.e. a counter to human exceptionalism.
J.D. Steens
Never thought about it until, given positive feedback from my work-work days, I was told I could collapse complexity into something that could be understood by a layperson. So I decided to write on what interested me, which is a near life-long interest in tying biology to philosophy or, rather, putting philosophy on a biological foundation. Inspired to write? I have had to think it through first. Writing is only the process of putting it down on paper or into electrons.
J.D. Steens
A book of photos on Nepal's Tarai region from the 1960s, before "modernism."
J.D. Steens
If you don't feel the beat, don't write the song.
J.D. Steens
Rephrase the question: I'm not a writer; I'm a thinker who writes, and insights and revelation provide inspiration. A friend is puzzled that I don't enjoy poetry or fiction or art, and is puzzled by my saying that I get inspiration, an emotional lift, from an idea.
J.D. Steens
I don't have. Being stuck is part of the process - sometimes it's an overnight deal, that one can easily get over with a fresh night sleep. Other times, it takes days and weeks, or rarely, months, to think through a problem. Each day, I do a little work, but on many days, it takes me more than a few minutes of doing this and that, as avoidance of hard-core thinking work.
J.D. Steens
Being captured by the Aztecs as an enemy-alien (i.e. as a sacrificial lamb, one of thousands).
J.D. Steens
Hunter-gathers and the Aztecs, to observe. This would have to be a fictional world. I would not want to be in these places in real time.
J.D. Steens
I have a notebook filled with lists of books I might want to read - depending on my thinking/writing projects. So no summer reading list per se. It's simply a list.
J.D. Steens
I don't do mysteries or plots.
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