I Am Not

"I Am Not" is author Robert E. Draper's attempt to provide insight into our age-old plight of finding ourselves "strangers in a strange land," as well as into the great difficulty we all have in accepting that if we are living in a world of virtual insanity, we are-at least partly-insane too. According to the author, this world is a dystopian battleground, a product of a collective amnesia that has burdened us all with the difficult task of living coherently while working our way back to the awareness of what we are: united; yet believing we are what we are not: separated-all of our hearts breaking over what we know not. The central theme of "I Am Not" is recognizing the futility of our efforts to improve the trap we appear to be in, redirecting those efforts to the goal of waking up to what we are doing, saving not the world but ourselves. Only thus can we reverse our own course into madness, finding-and demonstrating-there is hope within, right in the middle of a place where there is none to be found without.