From: slider@anashram.com   
      
   "I have made it my life's work to see the world the way it actually is, to   
   learn whatever it is the universe had to teach me about itself, not what I   
   believed I should be taught about it. Through the process of being torn   
   completely down, spiritually broken and emotionally laid bare over and   
   over again, through having my most sincere spiritual idealities toyed with   
   and annihilated in the most bizarre, twisted fashion, my world view was   
   stripped down to nothing. I was left with the task of rebuilding, not only   
   my life, but who I understand myself to be, from scratch."   
      
   --From: 'Imagination and our world of Make-Believe'. By Vincent Sargenti   
      
   ### - sounds about right doesn't it heh... methinks vinny's nailed it   
   there! ;)   
      
   i.e., by dint of being 'born' into wallyworld, and knowing nothing else to   
   the contrary, it thus takes a ferocious struggle for someone/anyone to   
   break-away from their moorings enough to begin to become aware of some of   
   the things existing 'outside' of wallyworld and the cheap & cruddy 'image'   
   of life, the universe & everything wallyworld thus typically makes/paints   
   (and installs) of it all by default via it's strictly reductionist-type   
   view...   
      
   vinny's book therefore being 'one' description of a successful escape from   
   its clutches (only one because there's as many examples as there are   
   people albeit some of them are typically grouped into almost   
   traditional-looking paths...)   
      
   vinny's particular path being absolutely typical of many making the same   
   journey: of someone first having to lose everything in order to discover a   
   completely different approach/way when that 'old' way fails altogether and   
   one thus begins (or is forced, rather) to see everything via newly opened   
   eyes... (the christians would say he'd been 'born again', for example ;)   
      
   one can thus accordingly only conclude, that, in writing it all from the   
   pov of hindsight, vinny obviously made it all the way to higher ground,   
   shall we say?   
      
   that he, for one, 'survived' the horrendous process of being stripped to   
   the bone and laid bare, a process integral to him then finding/discovering   
   himself anew...   
      
   nice story, smile, quite warm, very human...  ;)   
      
   his story being/standing testament mainly to the fact that it CAN be done!   
   and is thus: Valid!   
      
   or, as in many instances these days: 'needs' to be done double-quick-time   
   or we're all goin' down the fuckin' drain haha ;)   
      
   (slider cracks the whip: MUSH! you lazy fuckin' mofo's! MUSH! MUSH!!!   
   hehe...)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)