People murdered Jesus, most of His disciples, John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Gandhi, JFK and millions of unknown existential soldiers who have been gunned down in this great war for understanding. The silent screams of women linger between every line of the patriarchal history books. People invented Nazism, socks-and-sandals and veal.
Now they call Donald Trump the new Messiah.
People suck.
We have everything we need for a beautiful world for almost every living being, but we are choosing mass death and wanton destruction.
Why?
In pondering the answers to my deepest questions I can't help but reach for a pen. Thus it's the case that religion was tackled in my first novel, 'The Religion Of Self-Enlightenment', followed by themes of sex and politics for my second release, 'The Rivers'. Then came a poetic interlude of three self-published works featuring much faith and confusion ('Eternal Artist', 'My Searches For Meaning' and 'Viajes Internos') before my latest offering focusing on race and the plight of indigenous people, 'A Moment Of Perfection'.
As you can tell there are a vast array of subjects drifting through my head and heart. Some stay, others leave.
Speaking of leaving I think it's high time we assess the abduction of all hope from our political landscape since we left the European Union in 2016. Never have I seen Britain so divided as it is now: woke or sleeping, left or right, leave or remain, rich or poor, capitalist or socialist, black or white... It's enough to drive anyone up the wall!
Clearly we Brits are having some sort of collective psychotic episode and need to help one another through these difficult times.
But instead we are being robbed, laughed at and spat on from on high; the working man or woman picking up the tabs for the parties thrown in Downing Street gardens to celebrate the progress of the dystopian visions of a handful of Etonians which leaves 99% unheard.
I honestly can't tell whether it's a Dickensian or Orwellian nightmare in which I wake every morning. The oxygen of my dreams, as with everything around me, slowly dwindles in its supply.
I have sold a few hundred books, yes. The reviews are life-affirming, yes. But have I really made a difference to the struggles we all face? Perhaps not.
Hungry for more, I write articles explaining my journey, pour out my heart on an American podcast and conduct fruitless telephone interviews with newspapers. Perhaps just one person will be touched by all of these activities combined, but as the effort was made to guide the lost sheep of Christianity home, so I believe that effort must be made for you.
I strongly believe in God, which helps when all around seem to reject or despise me for no reason. From burning copies of 'The Religion Of Self-Enlightenment' (as though Nazis purging the world of goodness) to 27 rejections from literary agents for my latest novel, 'A Moment Of Perfection', it can be a hard life for a struggling writer.
Maybe it's the case that these aspects of my life, my fierce sense of faith and my disconnection from most of the material world, are related.
Maybe I'm on the right path.
My debut novel, 'The Religion Of Self-Enlightenment' ('The ROSE'), was published by Olympia on 25th August 2016 and was declared "a cult sensation" (Cambridge News) on 27th September 2018.
It tells of a "proudly boring" man named Carrick Ares who has a near-death experience and subsequently goes mad and writes a new belief system.
The Oracle, a renowned magazine based in my hometown of Glastonbury, proclaimed: "This book is a classic of near-death experience literature."
The kindest words have been expressed by readers of 'The ROSE', which makes it all worthwhile: "life-changing", "a gift to the world", "if you buy one book in your lifetime make it this one". All high praise for a novel that took me eight years in total to produce!
In 2022 my second novel, 'The Rivers' (Austin Macauley, 2019), featured in The London Book Fair and The Los Angeles Times Festival Of Books. I had a full-page advert in my first American print media, EC Magazine - twice.
Now I am organising another book signing at Eastbourne Waterstones and also a book talk at Watkins Books in London next year. Thursday 2nd March at 5.30pm, if anyone would like to come along? The night will be shared with a fellow poet, Helena Murray, who will be reading from her two publications, 'Passion' and 'Radiance'. It promises to be an exciting event!
But March seems like a long way away and I have work on my seventh book to do. 'In The Arms Of The Universe' is my attempt to write like Kerouac, Bukowski or Burroughs. High aims!
In the present moment, though, I am consumed with worry as a certain revolutionary zeal bristles in the air. In this great play of life, what acts now wait to unfold?
If my life was generic, I am certain it would be a comedy: on the one hand I feel quite profound, on the other a clown. I find the friction between the deep and mundane to be fertile with the potential for laughter. Jesus Christ having some fish and bread on His lunch break from the carpentry job, staring at it as if He perhaps sees some potential.
Is it blasphemous to write such words? I personally love Monty Python's Life Of Brian, though some devout Christians refuse to watch it. If God invented everything then She/He/It must have invented laughter, surely?
Perhaps humour really is a medicine; laughing at oneself cathartic beyond description. Either way, it is as Bob Dylan sang and Jimi Hendrix agreed: "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke."
Meanwhile the serious business of politics blunders farcically on, the left and right wing destroying every sense of righteousness and decency between them; taking it in turns to loot the very people they were elected by to serve.
"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it!"
Hardly a life at all for too many on food banks, with insufficient wages and a crippling need for anti-depressant medication - even booze will do. Evolution is clearly not a linear process, but a rollercoaster which occasionally horrifies.