Zen is influenced by Daoism, which is not so much a nature-religion in the animistic sense as a nature-philosophy in a cosmic sense.

On the other hand, the seventies were drab. That is, I am utterly fascinated by the fifties and sixties.

I feel like the seventies was a decade where things ran out, and where other things set in. There was just a lurking graininess and seediness about the decade, a slight grogginess of the hangover from the sixties.

Some people have described Daoism as pantheist, and although there's something in me that resists this designation, I can see that Daoism is consistent with pantheism. If there is any way in which pantheism makes sense and is not redundant, then it is the way (or 'the Way') presented in Daoism.

I would say that, apart from being a writer, I have also always been very conscious of the idea of a 'world elsewhere'.

My favourite tea is lapsang souchong.

I seem to be less depressed but also less hopeful now in my thirties. My widow's peak bothers me. I think a lot about the end of the human race. And so on.