I had what some might call a religious experience at age 23 or so. It was so fantastic and wild and forceful — it ripped the skies open and the skies invited me in.That was at the beginning of the life I chose to lead instead — life of the every man/person, life of the soldier, a life that has veered, as some of you know, from Manhattan to the outback, riches to poverty, dining with the Mafioso and the one-percenter, the Reverend and the murderer. Chaos. Life. Don’t mind the broken bones. Don’t mind the star showers. Once, I stood on the top of a hillside in New Zealand with my cousin Ted. I reached up at dusk as if to touch the bristling orange planet Mars. It was as close to earth that night as it had ever been and I have often thought — after my worlds at various times, fell apart — And if you had not been abandoned, how would you have become yourself?