RELUCTANCE: Journal of a Reluctant Writer

John O'Loughlin

Apr 2022 · Centretruths Digital Media

About this ebook

This autobiographical-cum-philosophical journal is effectively the sequel to 'Limitless' (2012), since it continues from where the previous such project leaves off, being in many respects its logical corollary. Not only is the autobiography taken beyond the situation that existed towards the close of 2012, but so, too, in a number of ways is the philosophy, so that one gets a fuller perspective on both the subjective and objective, the personal and vocational aspects of the writer's life that both complements and resolves the subject matter of its prequel, taking it to a new level in a similar, albeit stylistically different, vein to the way that 'Fixed Limits' (1976) went beyond 'Changing Worlds' (1976) and somehow resolved many of its outstanding issues, since effectively existing within the context of a 'changed world' from that in which John O'Loughlin had previously lived. – A Centretruths Editorial

About the author

 John O'Loughlin was born in Salthill, Galway City, the Republic of Ireland in 1952 of mixed Irish- and British-born parents of Irish descent. Following a parental split while still a child, he was taken to England by his mother and maternal grandmother (who had initially returned to Ireland after a lengthy absence with intent to stay) in the mid-50s and subsequently attended schools in Aldershot, Oakham, and, upon the death and repatriation of his Galway-born grandmother, Carshalton Beeches, Surrey, where, despite an enforced change of denomination from Catholic to Protestant in consequence of having been put into care by his mother, he attended a state school. Upon leaving Carshalton High School for Boys in 1970 with an assortment of CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) and GCEs (General Certificate of Education), including history and music, he moved the comparatively short distance up to London and went on to work at the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Bedford Square, where, after a lengthy period as a general clerk, he was promoted to clerical officer grade one with responsibility for booking examination venues throughout the UK. After a brief flirtation with further education at Redhill Technical College back in Surrey, where he had enrolled as a history student, he returned to his former job in the West End but resigned from the ABRSM in 1976 due to a combination of factors, including ill-health, and proceeded to dedicate himself to a literary vocation which, despite a brief spell as a computer tutor at Hornsey YMCA in the late 1980s and early '90s, he has effectively continued with ever since. His novels include Changing Worlds (1976), Cross-Purposes (1979), Thwarted Ambitions (1980), Sublimated Relations (1981), False Pretences (1981) and Deceptive Motives (1982). Since the mid-80s Mr O'Loughlin has exclusively dedicated himself to philosophy, his true literary vocation, and has penned more than sixty titles of a philosophical nature, including Devil and God - The Omega Book (1985-6), Towards the Supernoumenon (1987), Elemental Spectra (1988-9), Philosophical Truth (1991-2), Maximum Truth (1993), and, more recently, The Centre of Truth (2009), and Musings of a Superfluous Man (2011).