Digital Book Nook recently caught up with Dave Dale, author of “The Purpose of Life: To Love and to Create.” We are excited to share this insightful interview with our readers today.
When did you first discover that you enjoy writing and wanted to become a published author?
When I was in university my father who was a minister died. He wrote a weekly column for our small-town newspaper and I took it over as a homage to him. I always wanted to get answers for myself to the big issues and found writing offered me a different mode of thinking for exploration. I started writing and I decided to share what I discovered as everyone to some degree asks themselves these questions.
What is your favorite and the most challenging aspect of writing
I love getting ideas down, playing with them and seeing where they go. Editing my text as I don’t want to snuff out an idea.
Tell us about your latest release.
The Purpose of Life: To Love and Create is my bold and audacious attempt to answer these primordial questions. I thought about these questions as a child when I used to pepper my father. I turned to philosophers, scientists and religious leaders and was never satisfied with any answer.
I embarked on a journey of discovery looking at as many perspectives and disciplines as I could. Synchronicity just seemed to take over as whenever I got stuck the right book, quote, Ted Talk, Youtube video, or article would just appear. It was magical. What emerged amazed me. For me, real answers emerged.
In the book, I quote Einstein saying “I am not smarter than everyone else I just stay with a problem longer”. Not to compare myself to Einstein but I feel the same way, by staying with these questions for a long time I was rewarded with really important insights.
For example, we are conditioned to think that love is the opposite of hate. To me, that diminishes love and elevates hate. Love is not an emotion. I watched my father fight on in pain as cancer ravaged his body until he could be sure my mother would be ok and taken care of. It was not an emotion that fueled him. Love is an energy and a force. The great love he had for my mother was the energy he tapped to keep going until he was sure she was going to be taken care of. He then died quickly after he was sure she would be all right.
Love and creativity are vital. We suffer if we don’t love and create and flourish and find meaning when we love and create.
How did you come up with the title of your book?
The title of the book is self-evident. I wanted to communicate my perspective right in the title so that even if someone didn’t read the book they might still think about that possibility.
What do you hope readers are able to get from reading your story?
I crafted this book to challenge a great deal of conventional thinking about what we think about life, love, creativity, and tragedy but also to ultimately get answers to the questions of the purpose and meaning of life for myself. With the goal that I could then take the answers and incorporate them into my day-to-day life to feel more fulfilled and be a better person. And conversely not lay awake worrying about life rushing past me and dying unfulfilled.
For me, this book did that. Did it solve all my problems? Absolutely not, but like paradoxes I can accept and embrace my problems as I work through them with love and creativity.
I am also more in awe of the wonder of the Universe than ever.
Who are some of your favorite authors?
Master Choi Kok Sui, W. Timothy Gallway, and Michael Lewis
What do you hope readers are able to get from reading your story?
Be tenacious, confident and get a mentor
Follow Dave: Facebook | Twitter | Website: thepurposeoflifetoloveandtocreate.com. (coming soon)
The Purpose of Life to Love and to Create is available at Amazon.
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