OK. If I'm feeling a lack of conviction I will don a coat and head to my nearest library. I always have reading to do. Tribes sounds really interesting too. Thank you for your thoughts Malcolm and Josh. I hope to see you both in the new year.

In one sense I feel bad about refusing to make the commitment to read Masters of Doom when Josh lent it to me (thanks Josh I did appreciate that even if I throw it back in your face) and in another sense I don't. This is going to be a very self-centred comment but, Malcolm, take that as a compliment to your writing and choice of subject matter. It has evoked emotion and you have my attention; I hope I have yours.

So, why don't I feel bad about not reading Masters of Doom? Because I don't need to. I never needed to be taught to think and do as an independent; I've always done that. Increasingly I'm learning how outside the norm that is. I remember as a child my mother commenting on my disinterest in adapting to the crowd. At nursery I was more interested in the piano than the games the other children would play. For my entire school career I did outlandish, eccentric things and had closed ears to the criticism those actions generated.

How unbalanced I was then. I've learnt a great deal about the importance of people and socialization since. And yet I still relish that fixed stance, that I-don't-give-a-shit attitude that permitted me to spend my evenings learning actual useful skills in music and technology, that would lead me to start my own business, and come here to Toronto, Canada. More recently my independence has lead me to exonerate the traditional notion of the employer and the employee for all the political arrogances and parasitic brown-nosing it produces. And yet, by so many, my worth is measured by how long I've held down a job and how frequently I change my wardrobe. Now I aspire to be an anti-consumer.

I salute Pete Forde, Kieran Huggins and the other great people I have met here for their anarchistic roots and their alternative lifestyles. I learn from the people I choose to associate with, but largely, this behaviour is something I was born with and no book can beat that.

N.B. Psychiatrists might classify or label my personality in some way. This is positive because it allows people to be more accepting of the differences between all of us through better understanding. However there is a tendency to view these classification or labels as faults; one should rebel against this.