My first thoughts about this journey go back to being totally ignorant and unconscious in my mid to late teens. Growing up had been very difficult, and I had become more like an animal operating out of pure instinct than a person: blindly moving from one experience to the next with some vague unconsidered longing. Not seeking death, not seeking knowingly anything. But quietly desperate, and numb, and afraid.
Much earlier I can remember forgetting the feeling of life flowing through me as a kid; like the energy of life becoming obscured by emotion. But like a magnet drawing me somewhere I didn't know, that life energy silently, unconsciously led me.