What you are about to read is dark and confronting. It represents a period, long gone, when my life collapsed, and I had no answers. Lack of purpose and immense grief pushed me into a marginal existence where life itself became irrelevant and at times I imagined death as offering the only release from pain. This is not uncommon; many people will have been through similar circumstances. Most survive and I am one of them. When I gave my draft to a good friend of mine for advice and comment she suggested that I write an introduction that showed that I had come through these events and that I had prospered. I have. At the time I saw no way through, I didn’t care to find a way through. Psychoanalysis and associated drugs, and support from friends, allowed a thinning of clouds over time. I do not believe my mind would have allowed me to rest without the release of medication and I do not believe medication would have been an option without professional help. When in a situation such as that depicted here, drugs offer a small clearance of light in a world of shadows. Yet, at the same time, I believe that trauma has a function. It slaps you in the face with a realignment of values that sometimes leads to growth. A growth partnered by change at a time when all your focus is on keeping things together; batting down the hatches to allow you to weather the storm. When the storm passes you find a new you. The first thing to suffer was business. Not only did I not care about it, but I held it partly responsible for some of the damage to my family. I was very fortunate to have some people who continued to grind away at their job, who offered support in the best way they knew how, by doing their job. It somehow survived though substantially diminished. I have never again really worked at it. The new me did not have the capacity for prolonged effort and I became a person of “projects”. Most were purely indulgent, others for gain. Enough have succeeded so that I do not have an empty box awaiting a tick. I have done OK

Modern-day pearls of wisdom veiled as humor. Nothing to follow, expect a steady stream of truisms until WHAM! you are hit with a brick of wisdom to pontificate on for the rest of your day. Examples are: I made up a test to see if you prefer cold or hot weather. The test is, would you prefer getting slapped in 20-degree weather or 100-hundred degree weather? Or fear is being so focused on the tiger that's in the corner that you miss the bear coming up behind you. Ok, that’s not funny, more of a pontification one.

I am a man burdened by never ending thoughts racing around my head. Ravings of a Madman will allow you to see the world in a way perhaps that you haven't before. This is a collection of works written from 2003 to 2008.

The Ravings of a Madman is a look into my broken mind. An anthology of short stories, poetry, prose, and freewriting that I have written to help me cope with my Schizophrenia and Manic Depression. I have suffered from both of these ailments for most of my adult life, and I have finally found an outlet in my writing. I write not only to help myself. I write in hopes that others may see my words and find solace and see that they are not alone.

One day in my favorite quiet coffee shop, a man showed up and told me he had chosen me to be his scribe for the answers to the questions of the Universe. Intrigued, I opened my note pad, turned on my recorder and spent the next four-and-a-half hours listening as the universe unfolded around me. When he finished talking, I was left stunned and bewildered with a new understanding of things which left me confused, enlightened and a little afraid. As the scribe for what had happened, I created this transcription of the conversation. It is a wonderful, confusing and amazing journey from the normalcy of reality into a glimpse of the universal events surrounding us and defining our lives in unimaginable ways. He used breadcrumbs found in history to rewrite it in ways that finally make sense. You experience a deep, deep love story that has made strong men weep. There was an examination of humanity from the nature of our physical selves to clues of our design and needs. It is a spiritual journey which tosses away faith for faith sake alone and replaces it with science and logic which reaffirms the reasons for the system. Finally he combined all that had gone on before in the entire conversation into cohesive presentation of the reason and nature of, well, everything! This journey has been different for every person who has previewed this book. I asked those who have read it for a way to describe it every person stumbled: "Science-fiction that isn't science-fiction" said one. "A deep, sad love story that isn't," said a second. Finally, a woman who is a Person of Talent said it best: "It is a song. There is a rhythm, a beat, a melody and each person reacts to it in ways individual to themselves." I then realized what this book is: This book is Zen. You cannot describe Zen. Zen must be experienced. The reason so many have such difficulty describing this book is because it speaks to each person differently. It Is Zen. Something Very Important: You cannot skim this book. You cannot jump to an interesting chapter title and read it without reading all the chapters before it. This conversation I was privileged to be a part of built to the conclusion based upon small blocks, characters and concepts introduced all along this journey. I will also warn you that there are words and ideas in here some may find offensive. This is the nature of free-range conversation. There are dissections of history and religions that may leave some upset. If you feel you cannot handle thoughts not given to you from an approved list of allowable thinking, you probably won't be able to handle this book. But if you are of the type that can consider each point without immediately passing judgment, this book may cause you to find strange and different views entering your thought processes. The only thing my previewers agreed on was: "You MUST publish this!" You also need to know there are two versions of this book; one for women, one for men. Both are almost exactly the same but there is a section in each which, when you read it, you'll see why the other gender need not know what is said. Read the version for your gender. It's not important enough to wonder about what the other version says. So I offer this book, this manuscript, this interview for your pleasure and your consideration. For those who can go through each doorway as they are presented, this can be a journey to Zen. It is a way to reach a point where you look around and you suddenly see the influences of the unseen upon everything around you. It becomes a way to discover a bit about the painted background that makes up our existences. For those of you who do not achieve the Zen state, my apologies. You'll probably toss this book on the pile of WTH books you've encountered from time to time. But for those who do reach the end and achieve Zen, if the end leaves you opened mouthed, I can only say: Wow! -- Right?

A book of original modern american poetry

Ravings of A Madman Poems is the ultimate Greg Hershey poetry collection.This is an expression of the struggle between life and man. It is an expression of ambition, despair, hope and the will that only the madman has.This is a collection of poems for all seasons and for all people.