New Work-in-Progress-- "Special Moments of Inspiration and Insight: A Reader...."

This post is a brief introduction (and invitation) to a book project titled “Special Moments of Inspiration and Insight: A Reader from Books and Documents in the English Language”. This book project is a work-in-progress which is seeking input, recommendations, contributions, and participation—and which represents an effort to explore the potential of the Internet in the creation of educational resources. This project may be ongoing for the next two years. The website for this project is www.specialmomentsbook.net .

Here in this post I will provide a brief overview of the project, so that this project may be made accessible to people who can benefit from it, and people who might want to participate in it.

A Brief Summary of This “Special Moments of Inspiration and Insight….” Project

Briefly, the seed idea of this “Special Moments of Inspiration and Insight…” Reader is to gather together excerpts from books (in every category and genre) and documents in the English language, which in some way shine a light on some virtue, way of being or thinking, or some significant experience, which reveals an essence of the human spirit necessary to live a good life and contribute to the greater good of the whole. The excerpts which are selected will be organized into categories which grow out of the input received, and become the structure for an e-book—which will be accessible for free, for both downloading and printing into hard copy.

As a starting point, this writer has created a “Table of Contents” which references excerpts which may be used (a significant number of excerpts will require permission from copyright owners)—and which is provided to suggest examples of excerpts which might achieve the goals of the project (see section “The Potential to Achieve a Significant Number of Positive Goals” in “Introduction” mentioned below). That “Table of Contents” currently contains references to more than 150 excerpts from classics in children’s stories, humor, adventure, novels, etc. from more than 63 different sources—and titles and artists associated with more than 44 popular songs and old time sing along songs. As another starting point idea, this project is also seeking hand-made illustrative art to provide representative images, depict scenes, and highlight important elements of the content as a way of emphasizing the value of home-spun wisdom. The project is collaborative in the sense that, although there is an initial outline and specific examples provided by this writer as a starting point, there is every hope that input, suggestions, and specific recommendations will result in many excerpts which are far more compelling and inspiring than the ones in this starting point presentation.

The current contents of the “Introduction”

Below is a list of the current contents of an Introduction to this “Special Moments of Inspiration and Insight….” Book Project. (Note: the actual “Introduction” is accessible in the “About This Project” section of www.specialmomentsbook.net )

A Brief Description
No Monetary Compensation For Input, Suggestions, etc.
The Inspiration for This Project
The Potential to Achieve a Significant Number of Positive Goals
Understanding the “Reader” Format
What this “Special Moments….” Project Hopes to Achieve: A Summary
Why the Phrase “Books and Documents in the English Language”
What to Learn from the Starting Point “Table of Contents”
The Current Selection Process
On Including Excerpts Describing Negative Human Experiences

The Internet: New Opportunities for Compilers of Collections

As a result of the expansion of the Internet, there is now the opportunity both to draw inspiration and insight from a much greater part of the whole of human experience—from thousands of years of inspiration and insight—and the opportunity to share what has been gathered together with a significant segment of people now living on this planet Earth.

What resources might we draw from, and what pieces of the collective human experience might we gather together, to share with others? What goals might we hope to achieve by bringing together excerpts from many different circumstances, expressed in many different forms and genres? The expansion of the Internet provides an opportunity for compilers of collections to explore new possibilities. Hopefully, the initial presentation of this project, though incomplete due to the work-in-process nature of the project, will provide a starting point which suggests a clear path for exploring this potential, and which will attract the necessary input, suggestions, and specific recommendations to reach such potential.

With Kind Regards,

Stefan Pasti, Project Coordinator
“Special Moments of Inspiration and Insight….” Book Project