Looking out my Backdoor: I think I'll write a self-help book

Well, why not? Back in the day, I devoured self-help books.

Back in the early 1980s when my life was shattered like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, in an attempt to put myself back together, I read a raft of self-help, pop-psychology, pull-yourself-up-by-bootstraps, think-your-way-to-success type fluff-and-stuff. I’d finish one, find another, thinking each would have the solution for me.

I soon had accumulated an entire bookcase filled with sugar pills, innocuous comfort, in book form. In those days self-help books were popular. It seemed everybody wanted to get slimmer, richer, beautiful...