When I was young I felt totally alone at times. I hated Australian culture but that was all I knew. The hyper masculinity, you had to be tough, you couldn’t show weakness. I felt it was hell on earth although it was in a beautiful setting. I am not exaggerating but everyone was mean spirited, in some ways even youth were defeated.

The only ray of light was new immigrants, they accepted me, they were cultured, they also didn’t fit in. My best friend even now is an immigrant. We were both talking about our youth the other day and we both said how lucky we both were to become friends. My friend said Australia has corrupted him, the general greed and selfishness. The obsession with money over culture.

I told him that if he hadn’t come to this hell hole my life as a child was miserable and making immigrant friends helped me cope. No emotional support from family, most of the adults were miserable, the only joy was alcohol. Everyone in my early days was drunk. Some of these people were nice but if you got physically and verbally abused you were on your own.

I went totally nuts, my youth was just a trail of destruction, causing untold damage, break and enters, stolen cars, hanging out with future murderers and rapists. When I was fifteen I woke up, I had seen enough movies to know the deal. This was fucked, I got creative even though I wasn’t the type. I dedicated myself to creativity.

I wasn’t really talented, I just put in so much work to turn my life around. The truth is nobody in this country really gives a fuck about culture, it all comes down to if you managed to make money or find a niche, or are digging holes in the ground. Most people go overseas to make it and for some reason later in life I realised that this hell hole was actually a blessing.

For years I avoided people because they gave me the shits and even though I am not a violent person I wanted to wring their necks. Mostly it was ignorance and it was all money, money, fame or status. I hated it, so I started writing to express myself and express my feelings. Some people took the piss out of me but I kept at it. 

I wrote books to scratch an itch and rather than want to beat the shit out of someone I would use culture, art, creativity and it wasn’t about anything other than creating the world I felt was lacking. Most people disappoint me, I can’t deny that. It was beyond disappointing. But guess what, I am not going out like that. It might all be jazz hands to some people but I only have one life and I am not waiting for anyone to give me the green light.

In conclusion, training in martial arts really helped me cope with my anxiety and depression. I trained in various styles for almost two decades, I went from hard martial arts into internal martial arts. I feel this was my most effective coping strategy. At times I could go into full psychosis in stressful situations when people were being aggressive with me. After I trained I basically walked away from dangerous situations on a few occasions with literally no effort.

I go on and on about self mastery and discipline only in that for years I had none. It is something you learn from more experienced people. In saying that I have fully accepted where I am at and I am actually grateful for the prior  adversity. I look back at all of the challenges and even the challenges now and I am grateful for the friends I have and the life I lead. I came out of all of this with life experience. The truth is nobody can get in anyone else’s shoes.