Interview with non-fiction writer Chet Shupe

Today's guest is writer Chet Shupe as he tours his book, Eden, Regaining Our Spiritual Freedom.

Bio: 

Chet Shupe’s professional background is in Electronics Engineering. As a young engineer never did he imagine he would someday be developing a thesis that addresses a broad spectrum of sociological issues. At some point at mid career however, he was inspired to apply his background in control theory to the human condition by looking at the brain as the controller of the life of the species. This has led to an engineering based, rather than a religious, sociological, psychological, or philosophically based assessment of the human condition. Out of this has come a unique perspective addressing the perplexing issues that increasingly face us, including, among others, our lack of intimacy and habitat destruction. Why is our world essentially without relational intimacy, when what we want more than anything is to love and be loved? And why are we destroying the habitat that we need to survive?

To Shupe, these issues are closely related, plus myriads of other ills from which our culture suffers. Shupe offers his answer regarding the source of these concerns, and also suggests a path by which to recover our natural state of intimacy in our relationships and of harmony with the natural world.

Welcome, Chet. Please tell us about your current release.

Eden, Regaining Our Spiritual Freedom is about regaining our natural state of Eden, where our species was ruled by the human spirit—that is, our emotional/behavioral nature—instead of by monetary and legal systems.

What inspired you to write this book?

As an electronic engineer, I began looking at the life of our species from the perspective of control theory. I viewed the species as a complex system, with the brain as it’s controller. It didn’t take much analysis to realize that trying to control the future by force of instituted law cannot work. Trying to control the future by authorizing social and material contracts is like trying to back a long train of two wheeled trailers. And because those contracts have no termination date, the trains our governments are trying to back are infinitely long. There are too many interdependent variables, causing the train to fold up on itself. This demonstrates, from the perspective of control theory, why all civilizations eventually collapse.

Having realized why all attempts at civil rule eventually fail, I then focused on why humans made the mistake of trying to unnaturally control the future in the first place, and what we can do to counter the error. That led, after many years of work, to my book, Eden—Regaining our Spiritual Freedom.

What exciting story are you working on next?

When finished with Eden I thought I was through writing for a while. Most authors agree that writing is as much a learning process as a communication process. After the years of working on Eden, the learning apparently didn’t stop with the writing. An idea would pop into my head. I would sit down at the computer and start developing it, and soon would have an essay that looked at spiritual from an entirely new and refreshing perspective. So, I don’t have another book in mind but, based on my experience, I will probably continue to write essays. It has been suggested that the essays be put into a book. We will wait and see.

The essays are available at my website, www.SpiritualFreedomPress.com

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I have never considered myself an author. After years of working on Eden, I have learned a lot about writing. But I write because I feel I have discovered something, and want to share it, not because I see myself as an author.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like?  If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

I wrote full time while writing Eden. But I have since written when I feel like it, which means when I have an idea I want to explore. That usually averages two or three hours a day. I am retired so finding the time is no issue.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I have none, at least not that I know of. That is a question you should probably ask my friends.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I grew up on a farm ranch and I didn’t really think about it much. I chose Electrical Engineering when going to college because it seemed to fit my interests.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

There are two thoughts, actually. As a result of reading Eden, I would like people to realize there is no cause to blame, no matter what has happened or what the future brings. Since the moment we expelled ourselves from Eden—began trusting our lives to money and law, instead of one another—we have been laying blame on one another in order to whitewash our institutions. This attitude so permeates the post-Eden reality that the major world religions proclaim that humans are born in sin. But the people who lived in Eden did not see themselves as sinful, and if we should regain our spiritual freedom by trusting our lives to the human spirit, instead of to money and law, we won’t see ourselves as being possessed by sin either—indeed, quite the opposite. We will celebrate the emotional and material beings that Nature created in us.

One other thought: No matter how remote or impractical spiritual freedom may seem to us now, there is another way of life available to us that is sustainable and through which we know one another’s real selves, instead of the personae we have taken on to survive a world ruled by money and law. Indeed, it is the way of life that allowed our species to flourish for the upwards of two-hundred thousand years before we were taken over by money and law, only a few thousand years ago. To embrace that way of life, however, requires that we return to our spiritual homes; homes that serve both our material and our spiritual needs.

Thanks for this interview. I wish the best to you and your readers.

You're quite welcome, Chet. Happy touring!