183: Chatting with NC Author Gordon Hutchinson

If author Gordon Hutchison is qualified for anything, it is perhaps opining on the human experience — by drawing on his own. After earning a BA in Psychology and Religion from Duke in 1971, he hitchhiked America for four years, punctuated by stints in Germany and the Virgin Islands, before landing in Japan in 1975. He spent the last three years of the ‘70s at a Zen monastery, ending up close friends with a rural yakuza godfather and his gang, and working as a doorman at a major cabaret during the same period. (His first book, Gangsters, Geishas, Monks & Me, chronicles this unique immersion course in Japanese culture.) Next came specializing in Japanese folk religions at Sophia Graduate School of International Studies, teaching Hatha yoga in Japanese and logging 24 years as a copywriter — five at the world’s largest ad agency and the rest at his own creative boutique. He returned to the U.S. in 2005 as a single father — the joys and sorrows of four marriages and divorces salted away for reference — and currently lives with his 18-year-old son, Evan, in Cary, North Carolina. Human nature: “To know a man, find his motives. To control him, find his pleasures.” Beauty: “Beauty is as beauty does, and it’s not always pretty.” Whimsical wordplay: “Is narcissism its own reward?” Grab Reality Bites at https://amzn.to/3prQruZ { affiliate Link}