As a youngster he was considered to be exceptionally bright.
His level of plain curiosity seemed to know no bounds. In his early days of schooling he developed the habit of making a note of anything he didn’t like. Although it’s not so uncommon for bright kids to start writing at around the age of five, not many of them would start a diary; he did. Maybe less of a diary and more of a ledger. A place where those things that he had issues with could be recorded. It was actually an old out-of-date diary that he used. He painstakingly went through it, scribbling over the unwanted entries. He ignored all the dates and used the lines for daily entries to write on. It was kept in his bedroom and mostly only brought out and used around his bed time.
It all started with the names of kids at school that he didn’t like, which included the girl next door. As time went on, this became his ideas about his school subjects and what was wrong with them. Then came community issues, mostly heard on the television. He would scribble them down as best he could when he got the chance. Such entries went on to include world affairs and morality concerns. As he entered his teen years his notations became far more comprehensive and delved more deeply into all facets of human behaviour that he considered wrong.
In fact, it was during this period that he began to realise that there was a lot going on in the world that he wasn’t at all happy with. This worsening of his view of things grew ever more worrying. He became more and more convinced that there was a great deal of madness in the world and that it was all going to hell in a handcart. This eventually lead to the irrepressible fear the he could easily go mad with it!
Then something happened. At the age of eighteen he reached ‘the age of reason’. He read that this was something that was generally accepted as being the age at which a person is considered to be capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. After studying both the legal and moral aspects of this he made a decision.
He went out and bought a new diary. His spirits were lifted markedly as he opened it in his room for the first time and began to write.
From this point on he would only make entries about the things he liked.