The Power of Ten

Overview of "The Power of Ten" by Vis A. Liepkalns Ph.D.

With some literary, romantic and dialogue enrichment, and given the imperfections of the human memory, I have tried to make sense of the experiences of academics and other underachievers of superior intelligence I have known. With their names changed to protect their privacy and mine, I put ten of them in the same room. These people share a common desire to understand each other; they make that effort mainly through stories about events in their childhood that shaped their character one way or another. A common theme in their stories is child abuse and stress; and redemption through survival, adaption and sacrifice. They contribute powerful and fulfilling learning experiences to each other that give them the synergy to move on. In the process I have also tried to find common ground: between lovers and the object of their passion, between kin who feel funny just hugging each other, between rock music and "classical music", between faith-based assumptions and scientific reasoning, between historical icons and real people, between our perceptions of existence and non-existence, and between the pathos and the humor of man's search for meaning and purpose... I'll stop there. In writing this book I found that the stories lent themselves to many metaphoric and symbolic techniques, which the reader may find helpful intellectually and visually, as well as enriching aesthetically.

Vis A. Liepkalns

Harwich MA

October, 2008.