'The Shen' comprises one hundred and eleven non-fiction 'sections'. The sections are often ambiguous and contradictory, and express a variety of contemplations. The book seeks to portray moral philosophy as an imperative of life, a way of living. It ventures that all ideology must be functional to have relevance. It suggests that ethics are essential, elemental; a litmus of evolution, and as vital to the human spirit as bread is to the body from which the spirit springs. 'The Shen' is a very human observation of the world that seeks in its randomness and abstraction to comment on that world in the context of humanity, and to encourage humanity's product: peace.