Why 'Rugged Journeys...'?
The writer of the works presented here has been through experiences which have given him a unique viewpoint upon the irrationality and indeed craziness of much of what is accepted as normal human behaviour, lifestyles and outlooks - which is in grotesque contrast with people's intrinsic capacity for being consistently aware, rational, positive, joyful and loving. In his works and especially the novels he has taken himself on journeys of exploration based on particular 'What if...?' scenarios which formed the respective starting points of the works. As to why the journeys are described as 'rugged', nothing that the Author might write here about them could explain as well as the stories themselves do.
The Author had in fact briefly entitled this site Naked
Fiction, referring particularly to his works' exposure of
human craziness and the underlying but usually hidden or distorted
motivation towards true self realization. However, that rapidly proved
to be a fiasco, in that soon nearly all the search queries
landing people here were for 'naked fiction', arriving at this page and
not going on to explore the actual works. They were clearly looking for
a different sort of nakedness! 
So, it became a compelling matter to find a new title for this site
which
would not only have a relevant impact but would not be attracting
mostly people who were clearly after something which this site doesn't
offer.
One recurrent feature in the 'rugged journeys' - especially in the novels - is exposure of the craziness and inhumanity of taboos and the negative impact of religion upon all human life. Taboos are all of 'the dark side', and are about humans' urges to control and dominate each other - and so are religions - and they all get quite a pungent lampooning in the novels. They all run completely counter to the manifestation of peoples' underlying nature of deep awareness, love, positivity and the secure happiness of inner freedom. It is the astral ('dark') forces which drive people into confusion, control agendas and negativity, and have people living by rules and 'moral codes' instead of love, deeply sourced good sense and the inner clarity born of true self realization.
Taboo-slashing is not in itself a primary feature of the works presented here, but exposure of absurdity in human outlooks certainly is. In a wide variety of ways, with an urgent and sometimes mischievous sense of humour the Author explores in his works the convoluted interactions between people's fundamental positivity and 'goodness' on the one hand and, on the other hand, the effects of the negative forces. To this end he goes looking below the surface and cutting through all manner of widely held beliefs and preconceptions.
When he wrote these works he did not realize that 'dark forces' / 'the dark side' was anything more than a figure of speech, so you will NOT find in his works a preoccupation with 'the occult', but rather, you will find a dream-like interaction between people's positive and negative traits (the primary polarity being between inner freedom and the plethora of influences of control and rigidity of outlook), with a certain surrealistic quality about it all. However, as in a dream, in the odd places there are occurrences which would suggest sinister forces being involved - as they really are in everyday life, whether or not people are willing to countenance or acknowledge such things.
Much more recently the Author experienced a massive and sustained attempt by all-too-real 'dark forces' to wreck him, as you can read about in Troublesome Astral ('Dark') Entities -- My own experience on his Self Realization & Clear-Mindedness website. As he progressively made himself invulnerable to the 'dark' or negative astral forces through his single-minded self realization process, he gained a multitude of deep insights into the ways in which those forces interfere with and control / manipulate virtually everyone. This has given him a whole new, deeper understanding of what is actually going on in his literary works, all of which he had produced well before the astral entities ('dark forces') - which had been long awaiting their moment to 'strike' - finally blew their cover and piled in on him to cause major disruptions in his life for a few years.
Were they doing all that to him because of 'naughty' or indeed too insightful things which he'd written in his literary works? -- No, not at all! What they did want to stop was the very sort of material which the Author now has on his Self Realization website. But that's another story, and you can explore there if you are interested.
Meanwhile you can be entertained, amused, challenged, 'shocked', intrigued and gripped by these works, many of which - especially the novels - could be seen as 'symphonic dreams' which take you on compelling exploratory journeys through deeply felt abundances of human experience. Every detail in the apparent convolutions of each 'dream' has its meaning - often at various levels - for the reader who has the depth of awareness to be able to open to it. For this reason, like a major symphony, especially the novels reward periodic re-reading, when all sorts of new 'angles' and depths of meaning can be discovered.
"Let us all become progressively more 'naked' and stop pretending to each other that we are other than who and what we really are!" -- That could be said to be one of the primary underlying 'messages' in the Author's literary works. He directly and clearly explains the true meaning of being an authentic person on his personal website: Do you want to be 'appropriate'? ...Or authentic?.
