Patricia the Writer

I write a lot. Perhaps a minimum of a thousand words a day. Writing is how I think, which means I often must go back and edit because my thinking evolves when I read what I’ve written. Writing helps me to get through each day. Just as some people clarify their thinking by talking, I clarify by writing.

The greatest influences on my love of writing and ability to write came during undergraduate school at Dickinson College. The expectations were high in our freshman composition course, in anticipation of the expectations for all other courses that would require writing. Then I found my niche as a philosophy major, where every assignment demanded critical thinking, abstract reasoning, articulate elucidation, creative exploration, and down-to-earth interpretation. I fell utterly in love with writing.

Much later, in San Jose State University’s MFA writing program, I was further challenged when composing literary criticism essays, narrative essays, memoirs, and short stories with supportive professors’ and peers’ encouragement to write to the best of my potential. I embraced that challenge because there is never an end to how much we can grow as writers (and thinkers).

Between my undergraduate education and graduate school education, I wrote extensively. As part of my high-tech research career, I authored and co-authored more than two dozen research papers for publication. Most of my essays during that era took the form of business and technical expositions— most often with observations, new knowledge, and open questions– to be presented at conferences and workshops.

I am a regular contributor to Quora, responding to a wide range of questions when I believe I have knowledge to contribute.

Meanwhile, my love of cuisine and travel have led me to begin a series of e-books (to be released over time) that combine these two loves. What a joyful thing it is to be able to write about my experiences traveling, where it’s all about the food!

One question in philosophy speaks to my soul like no other: What does it mean to exhibit a positive quality of character? My thoughts on that question guide much of my day-to-day life, my responses to questions from others, and my sense of purpose. My parents had clear notions of what constitutes a positive quality of character, a subject we discussed at the dinner table and when difficult situations arose in the lives of my sisters and me. Those conversations were also the beginning of my education in critical thinking and translating those deeper understandings into practical actions and a steady moral compass.

As an undergraduate philosophy major, I pondered large issues such as the ethical dimension of emerging technologies and of dysfunctional social norms. While attending one graduate school (in a technical field), I led a section of a course entitled “Ethics of Development in a Global Environment,” which ran for three quarters. My focus was on what quality of life means to people of various cultures.

I believe that any useful philosophical discussion must be interdisciplinary, whether that means thinking in terms of cultural anthropology, history, technology, economics, or civics. We are living in a time when our world would be greatly helped if more people were willing and able to consider these disciplines and to apply a more factual and contextualized understanding of issues to the way that they make decisions about what to believe, what to value, and what to work toward.

Patricia the Whole Person

In a nutshell, I am…

• Grateful to be a lifetime learner

• Privileged to be a mother of two adult children, both of whom I am enormously proud

• Thankful to be a sister, aunt, great-aunt, and grandmother to wonderful people

• Appreciative to be an avid hiker in natural surroundings

• Delighted to be a solo traveler

• Blissful to be a passionate foodie

• oh… and pleased to be a dedicated writer