The Philosophy of Life

The Philosophy of Life: God, Wisdom and the World Psyche
Ronnie Lee
Outskirts Press
ISBN: 978-1-59800-864-7
Philosophy, Poetry
Reviewed by Michael Woodhead

The book begins with an explanation of how the author intends to prove God’s existence, by presenting differing sets of values in a logical sequence. As he shows:-
1+6+3+5+4=19
9+7+2+1=19
Then he follows with a sequence of chapters discussing the relationship between logic and God, life, existence, and efficiency.
The author then focuses on other elements of philosophy and religion: existentialism; the laws of nature; prayers; and even an interesting commentary of the Ten Commandments and social skills.
Later, the author delves into the individual and collective psyche, and covers a mass of topics, especially in relation to what he calls the “conspiracy to one” “when a group of people attack one person, even if it is a whole psyche of a world that attacks the values and thus the characteristics of one”.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t yet finished reading this book.
Not because it isn’t interesting, but rather, because of its length and form- over 600 pages of free verse.
Although I have nothing against the free verse form of poetic structure, I did find it rather distracting and somewhat annoying that each line ends with a comma if it doesn’t end with a period. This makes reading a little more difficult since it takes longer to discover if a sentence is taking a deliberate pause, or if it needs to continue without one. For example:-
“The universe exists,
To make the theory of logic,
Righteous and good,
And the power to control that,
Is God.”
It’s a rather unconventional way to approach a discussion of philosophical concepts, but perhaps it’s this unique way of presenting the subject matter that makes it more interesting.
The subtitle for this massive book of poetry is “proving the existence of God and understanding the power of the collective mind for justice, equality and salvation”.
That’s why this book will take any reader some amount of time to read, the material as presented will take time to absorb and process, especially if one isn’t familiar with the study of logic and philosophy.
[There is also one error that jumped out at me- the use of “it’s” as the possessive. The author, editor, and publisher should all know better]
Nevertheless, in spite of its length and form, this incisive look into why we exist is well worth not one, but several readings.