The original. The classic. Completing the first draft in my mid-20's, this big, beautiful mess has undergone innumerable revisions since, yet remains the same in its heart; in its conveyed core ideas and messages. This is where my ideology first found its form, and where my lifelong love affair with spirituality and philosophy came to life:

Following the minor success of his first book, Time for True Democracy, on the historical nonexistence of authentic democracy, Alex, an embattled young philosopher living near the California Bay Area, seeks emancipation from the conventional western way of life, a life of ceaseless unnaturality, financial duress and corporate servitude undergirded by a consumeristic, class-based culture and a divisive plutocratic political system presenting a democratic façade.

Desperately needing to recover from health ills plaguing him since his early teens, his instinct pulls him toward the rejuvenating solitude of the soaring redwood forests and meandering Noyo River just inland from the rugged Mendocino County, California Coast where he spent his first happy, simple, adventurous years. Alex purchases the land from his father and puts himself on the path towards a purer, natural way of life freed from the mental and economic stresses and constraints of a parasitic world to which he never belonged.

As a larger residence is being built, Alex moves into the studio apartment his father built by hand on the property. There, he immerses himself in a symbiotic, mutually-cultivating relationship with the natural realm while harnessing the reflective silence in following an inborn drive to uncover the root truths feeding into all things. Through a confluence of pure heart and philosophical disposition, he uncovers answers to the most important questions in life.

Correspondence with former friends seeking similar departures from mainstream pursuits and the bourgeois mindset leads to several joining him on the property, gradually coalescing into a small community dedicated to a purer, sustainable lifestyle of social, intellectual and spiritual exploration and enrichment.