There seemed to be a huge, gaping hole inside of me. I wanted some answers but didn’t know where to look. I felt like there was a huge worldwide conspiracy afoot to keep me in a state of utter confusion, making me so numb that I had no choice but to give up and let the experts get on with it.

What a wonderful thing democracy is. You can say what you want, as long as you do as you’re told. It all seemed so superficial, so inadequate. Where would it all lead? Lying in some hospital bed in 30 years’ time, dying of some "disease of civilization"; up to my neck in debt, alcoholism, depression, loneliness, and insanity.

There had to be more to life than this.

I am talking about liberation here. Freedom from the bondage of self. Freedom from our blinkered, prejudiced, opinionated thoughts. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got. The more stoned I got, the more abstract - yet, somehow, meaningful - it all became.

We were one and the same. I was he. He was me. That bald little Chinese monk on TV was beckoning me to follow the path, the way of the warrior, the way of the grasshopper. The monk was right. Change was the natural way of the universe. Things were not always as they appeared to be.

A young Scottish boxer breaks away from the shackles of his environment, only to find himself mixed up with heroin smuggling in Asia. A story of violence, prison, fear, and desperation, which leads to inner reflection and finally redemption. Fiction? You wish! Groove Magazine, please.

Note: This book contains out-of-date stereotypes and adult themes. Although these are key to the characters and plot, listener discretion is advised.