How would you classify your latest work, what inspired its inception?
My book Intelligence in the Digital Age: How the Search for Something Larger May Be Imperiled is an examination of how our current Internet age and people’s use of digital technologies may be affecting their thought processes, memory, attentions spans, and emotive lives in adverse ways that will make it difficult for those people who are interested in doing so to explore a larger, more expansive consciousness.
What inspired me to write the book was having become familiar over the years with how difficult it can be to explore the possibility of a larger consciousness beyond thought and memory, I was more than a little taken aback when I began to see some of the damaging effects our Internet age is having on the very dynamics that are necessary for this type of exploration, and so I began to explore this idea more completely.
How long did it take you to complete?
Taking into the account the extensive research I did on the book, just over one year.
Who are some of your top five authors or writers who you look up to and admire?
Fyodor Dostoevsky; Albert Camus; Joan Didion; Susan Sontag; Jack Kerouac
Why do you write?
Generally speaking, I write when I’m either upset about something and I want to try to express that concern clearly to other people. Or else I write when I feel I have a certain vision to express about something and I don’t see anybody else out there articulating that same vision.
What’s the biggest take away you want your readers to come away with after reading your latest work?
I would like for people who might be interested in searching for the sort of larger consciousness that metaphysical seekers and others have sought through the years to pay attention to how their potentially addictive use of digital devices and social media may be adversely affecting those mental and personal qualities they will need in order to be successful with their search.
How is the writing/reading scene in your local?
This isn’t something I really keep up with, but there are a number of great independent bookstores here in Chicago, in particular The Seminary Coop bookstore in the middle of the University of Chicago campus. They tend to have the sort of intriguing, visionary books that you can’t get anywhere else, as well as providing the community with great programs featuring authors
What’s the best book you’ve ever read?
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
I’ve always spent time, even during all the years when I was teaching school, experimenting with different forms of writing (i.e. plays, stories, essays, etc.) However, after I closed the private school I had founded and directed for twelve years, I wanted to put my particular vision of education on paper so that others would have access to it. And so I wrote four books concerning a more progressive approach. Then, due to my interest in exploring a more expansive consciousness, I simply continued with that in writing my present book. In other words, it was my interest in both education and consciousness which led to my writing.
How have you evolved as a writer over the last year?
Because the theme of my present book concerning how our digital age might relate to the search for a more expansive consciousness is such a highly complex issue, I have had to force myself to write more sparsely so that my readers might better understand what I’m trying to say. Consequently, I’ve become much less wordy with my writing; adopting a policy of “less is more.”
If you could meet, have a drink or dinner with anyone (writer/non-writer) (dead or alive) who would it be?
I would like to speak with the late philosopher-thinker J. Krishnamurti to find out what I could learn from him about the search for a larger consciousness. I would also want to sit down with both Joan Didion and the late Susan Sontag in order to learn from them about how one might best develop an effective writing style that works for them.
What’s next for you?
I’m presently working on a novel that concerns two women who have been marginalized by society and who face difficult circumstances in their lives who grow to love one another.
URL: https://lynlesch.com/about-lyn/
BOOKS BY LYN LESCH: https://www.amazon.com/Lyn-Lesch/e/B001JS0RPK%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
End of Interview
