So now, how do I begin?
       You know, it can be really uncomfortable owning up to your inner thoughts; letting you, the reader, discuss, possibly even debate on what has always been something highly personal and sometimes secretly held within. Even from close friends.
       When I first wrote this book, back in 1996, I guess I was suffering from disillusionment. I’d had a health scare and a very close friend was fighting for his life against the big C, cancer. It was very humbling to stand and watch this man combat this disease for more than four years. He didn’t win but his spirit never gave in. These life-changing experiences, plus the fact that my business had hit a rough-patch, as had happened in the past, (this time I felt less likely to resolve the situation), all changed my life.
       I felt somehow tired and sad. My life seemed unimportant. I wouldn’t say wasted, but ineffectual.
       Not to make too light of it, I now call it my, ‘What’s It All About?’ period. My wife called it my ‘feral stage’. I’d opted to drop out of my comfortable lifestyle, grow my hair and a beard, and generally do the odd labouring jobs for local builders, landscapers and lawn maintenance friends. The sort of work I’d never done before. Needless to say none of this helped or rectified my discontent. Although, on the plus side, it did help me get fit.
       It’s funny how those unexpected things in life really affect your balance. So here I was assessing all the beliefs I’d lived by, to this point in my life, and doing so from an angry point of view. I suppose I was just jaded by life’s experiences. So I turned to writing them down, just in note form, to see if it would help. It was a sort of personal therapy.
       A close friend, actually my business accountant, suggested I convert these therapy scribblings, about my life’s beliefs and experiences, into a book. He felt my uncommon outlook had merit and believed there may be a wider audience interested in my viewpoint.
       “Well at least try “ he said. “You’ll never know if you don’t have a go.” A motto I’d always lived by.
       Trouble was I had no idea where to start. My skill with writing was from a copywriter’s point of view. You know, where you are given reams of copy from a client and you have to condense it into a thirty second commercial or a one paragraph advertising spiel.
       So this, to me, was like writing in reverse, so to speak. Having to expand my thought patterns into copious text was completely foreign.
       But eventually I completed some form of publication. Although in hindsight not a very good one, but nonetheless a literary structure of my life’s knowledge, beliefs and experiences.
       Trouble was it read like the book of doom, and that was never my intention.
       So I’d always vowed I’d try to rewrite with less anger and better doom-control management. In short, I wanted to provide you with instructive advice and insight that I believed wasn’t taught or considered relevant in this day’s politically-correct society. And more importantly what was lacking within the family structure and more broadly, the direction in which society was heading.
       I hope that doesn’t sound too egg-headish or pretentious. I’m not an expert or academically trained in this field but I do feel I have a good layman’s grasp of what is required to understand how life and the society in which we live works or at least should work.
       And I suppose this is where I begin.