"Where're you from?" is a common question, and I reply, "Same place we all come from."  - From somewhere beyond birth, in other words.  I believe in realms prior to, and following, this life.  And this life is about taking one's given opportunities or limitations, advantages or challenges, and doing the right thing.    Ah!  And there's the rub!  What is the right thing?  What dad tells you, or what feels right?
    And so I've struggled, and guessed, and blundered, and changed, and tried this and that, seeking that 'right thing'.  Wondering, all the way through, "So what do I want to / am meant to do when I grow up?"  Sometimes they were carefully reasoned decisions; the sensible thing to do next.  (Always disasters.)  And sometimes I'd impulsively follow some new and risky thing that suddenly came along.  (Only occasionally disasters.)   Go look at Weird Work for the clues.
   So I took a lot of risks: went hitch-hiking at night, sang telegrams, modelled nude, performed poetry, and y'know I'd recommend them all!  (Well, maybe not the night-time hitch-hiking.) 
    - I guess office jobs were a kind of risk too.  And marriage, and children, and mortgages.
    Anyway in the middle of it all I became a writer.  That was the biggest surprise of them all! 
   So; what about my childhood and all that?  Well it was horrible; - bad family stuff and all that.  And like a lot of kids I felt like I'd been born on the wrong planet, or at least into the wrong era of history.  But I grew up in the sixties, and that was pretty cool.  Naturally I became a hippy as soon as I could.  The music was great.  I still listen to Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, all that stuff.  I've got a soft spot for Split Enz too.  Saw them twice in concert.  And Bob Marley (awe-some), Frank Zappa (loud), Cheech and Chong (stoned).  The list is long, and a bit old.  How old?  Go figure.  And I saw Eric Clapton.  - Now that guy has had a complete pig of a life, for all his creative achievements.  Recently he said something on the telly that struck a chord with me:
    "...Why did I survive, when so many others didn't?  I guess it's
because God has kept me here.  Because whatever it is I have to
do here, it isn't finished yet." * 
    - That kind of sums it up, really.  Thanks Eric.         

                                                           
                                                                           [*Or words to that effect.]