The Power of Ten

About the Book

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.

A short list of the people this book will interest:

academics, PhD's, MD's, researchers

women (femininity is treated on many levels)

readers who had dysfunctional families/victims of abuse

readers interested in the psychology. and counseling of change, and adaption

readers interested in trying to understand love, passion, relationships formed and broken

former flower children, Age of Aquarius survivors

Vis A. Liepkalns

Harwich MA

October, 2008.

About the Author

Vis A. Liepkalns is a writer, a former biomedical researcher, and teacher from So. Harwich MA., although he has homes in Tampa, FL and France. He was educated in the primary and secondary schools of Quincy MA and Weymouth MA.. He has a B.A.in General Sciences /Honors (Magna cum Laude), a Master's in Physiological Chemistry of bacterial lipids., a Ph.D.in Biochemistry of brain fatty acids, and a post-doctoral  fellowship from the American Heart Association. He  has held research appointments at several research instututions and medical schools in the U.S.A., and in Europe (Univ. of  Paris, Institute for Cancer Research, Villejuif). He also was a Visiting Scientist in the Neuropsychiatric Research Division at Harvard Med.'s McLean Hospital. He has numerous scientific publications and has also contributed letters and OP-Ed columns to local newspapers.