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

My favourite tea is lapsang souchong.

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.

If there is innocence on Earth again, I tend to imagine it in more [Henry David]Thoreau sort of terms.

I seemed to recall some words from an old Zen master, something like, "My Zen cuts down mountains." My rejection of Buddhism was a cutting down of mountains; that is precisely how it felt to me.

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'm not claiming anything like sainthood - merely a native perception.