Flirting with Misadventures

Book excerpt: The material represents a due diligence attempt to chronicle, via a series of seemingly random and incidental episodes narrated in the first-person, the evolutionary journey of my consciousness from the edge of the wilds of Mindanao (Philippines) to the rough and tumble of the streets of Manhattan (New York City), with all the tedious yet not the least thrilling detours in-between. Random in the sense that I had to single out and focus on specific and discrete pivotal decision points which ushered in a definitely recognizable qualitative change in my perception of my unique attributes as an individual, on leaving such decision bifurcations. . . . In a broader context the three parts of the book represent three distinct non-sequential evolutionary phases of my consciousness. The Narratives represent the age of ambition, when the drive to transcend . . . reigned supreme. The Poetry I deem to represent the seemingly unquenchable deliberative age of simultaneous inspiration, enlightenment, and illusion. . . . The Essays represent the age of rational resignation, or better yet, resigned rationalization, when you give in to the impulsive reflex to explain away the developments which you know affect your physical and spiritual well-being....