From as soon as I could walk steadily I took to roaming. No doubt, at first, just within a few blocks radius. But to an innocent being, yet unconditioned and unconstrained , yet unmarred by the monstrous mechanical torrent of life that soon hypnotizes all – a few blocks distance can be a whole world.

The awe and magnificence that I experienced left to roam in quiet solitude those early years is indescribable. For it keenly impressed upon me the realization of the inexplicable - of the mysterious that lies behind the world of form and phenomena.

Fast forward a bit and call it a curse or call it a blessing, call it a privilege or call it a burden but, as if by the supreme will of some supernatural force, I was deemed a solitary roamer for the rest of my life. 

 As I grew older, naturally, I struggled with a sense of estrangement. But this seeming contradictory grapple between the lure of subliming hermetism and the feeling of estrangement culminated and came to a turning point when, while enrolling for classes my first semester of college classes, without any preconceived proclivity towards it, I signed up for an art class. 

And so it came to be that without a notion of the arts in general, I took my first drawing class. Remembering that first day, I recall the moment that I walked into that environment, looked around, and felt an instant familiarity. Everything about it alerted me to the same sensations of infinite mystery and possibility that I had experienced in the realm of meditative roaming.

And at this “crossroads” I learned, little by little, to slip between two worlds: One, ephemeral yet invigorating - a world of energy, of the feeling of the “soul” and the harmonious interconnectedness and oneness of “everything” - the world from which the artist conducts creative force. The other, an invented imaginary world -  a mechanized world in which people, existing in a half-sleep state, believe themselves to be fully conscious and therefore invent, deplete, build, destroy, explore, conquer, enslave, make love, and make war - our world.

In conclusion, I am in this world but not of this world. I believe life not to be an end in itself but a means by which to reach a higher level of ourselves. And I immerse myself in the creative process so as to “seal” myself from life’s perpetual sensorial onrush, step into the “impenetrable”, and “bring back” remnants of the mystical that defines our being and purpose.