The day job of Sean Doyle is to be a lawyer, and throughout his career he has resolved roughly 10,000 disputes. However, he is also an author within the poetic nonfiction genre, and his current book is entitled Mud and Dreams: Essays on falling more deeply in love with life. In the introduction to the book, Sean writes: “I passionately believe there is beauty all around us and reason for hope. I am confirmed in my faith, again and again, in the goodness of people, and that we have at our fingertips, access to so much meaning and promise, if we would only let ourselves see.” In this day and age of perpetual political conflict and apocalyptic stories on the news, Sean’s message is a particularly upbeat and hopeful one. In this interview, I talk to Sean about the process of writing these essays, about how his work as a lawyer has affected his general philosophy on life, and whether or not nice guys, in fact, finish first.