David Bramwell - The No.9 Bus to Utopia: How one mans extraordinary journey led to a quiet revolution

There is a poverty of spirit in modern life.

Carl Gustav Jung

So I decided to take a year off and set myself an important project. It wasnt planned, but when youve been dumped by the love of your life its either that, sink into depression or enrol for teacher training. Unfortunately Id already tried the last two after the previous love of my life walked out on me.

Only a fortnight after the bombshell, my ex, with typical expediency, replaced me with someone she described as younger but more mature. He was called Dougal, a name which did, admittedly, help soften the blow. Never again would I warm myself around her naked frame in bed, see her battered old coat hanging by the door, hear the familiar rattle of her hair grips being sucked up by Henry the Hoover or make her giggle by pulling my jogging bottoms up to my nipples and goose-stepping around the bedroom.

She was a kooky Italian who whisked me away on surprise weekends to Europe, bought me clothes, sorted out the bills, cooked Mediterranean dishes every night, picked up treats on the way home from work and dealt with the mortgage. And arranged dinner parties with friends, bought all the food, fed the cat and even wore leather trousers without me ever having to ask.

She was right to leave. I might have been good at making her laugh but it wasnt enough. I spent my time socialising or hidden away in my bedroom studio, making music or writing, occasionally surfacing for food. Family members complained that I never phoned and always seemed to have a good excuse for missing another birthday. If ever I was ill, my ex would stay at home, care for me and shower me with kindness. When she was ill I would grumble until she was better and I could get back to my projects. Looking back, I really could have cleaned out the cats litter tray more than once. The truth was, Id been too self-centred, forever wrapped up in myself and my creative projects. Id lost friendships over this and finally I lost her.

For months after the break-up I pottered around at home, keeping myself busy doing DIY botch-jobs and getting emotional whenever any old, cheesy break-up songs came on the radio (once, to my shame, even a song by Phil Collins). Then came a sliver of hope. Out of the blue, my ex called up in tears: she had to see me that night. My heart sang. I scrubbed up, shaved, put on my nattiest outfit, changed my mind, donned a different one, then a third. I experimented with hats for a while, for a dash of elegance, but couldnt risk the chance of hat hair. I nervously paced the house, smoking a cigarette and spending the next ten minutes cleaning and re-cleaning my teeth and washing my hands to get rid of its smell I knew she wouldnt approve. Then the phone rang it was a friend who Id been to a gig with the previous night. We chatted for ten minutes, which was followed by more faffing. I finally left the house, spruced up and pungent, and arrived at our rendezvous twenty-five minutes late.

Typical, said my ex, cold and teary-eyed, I knew youd never change. And from that moment whatever chance Id had was gone.

But the familiar portrayal of a lazy urbanite is only half the story. I can knock out a good Sunday roast when push comes to shove. And Im told I have good legs for a man my age. But wait, theres more. In my twenties, when I should have been researching the decline of steel mining in Pittsburgh for my Geography degree at Coventry Polytechnic, my focus was elsewhere. I pored over Carl Jung, Aleister Crowley and George Gurdjieff, dabbled with psychedelics and, to my mothers dismay, started wearing bangles. I was, as my late friend Ken Campbell put it: a seeker. By my thirties, dissatisfaction with conventional life had led me on some singular journeys of discovery. I had taken part in occult rituals, dabbled with naturism, visited S&M clubs, drunk ayahuasca and endured a ten-day silent meditation retreat in Wales in which I openly wept at the beauty of a banana. In Brighton I spent two years in a cult called the Revolutionary Gnostic Shamans of the Light where each night wed sit together chanting hammmmm saaaaaaaaa, rocking backwards and forwards whilst massaging that mysterious muscle that sits between a gentlemans love eggs and his bum hole, all in some bizarre attempt to wake up our real selves. I gave it up in the end when I began to suspect the Revolutionary Gnostic Shamans of the Light were turning into homophobic conspiracy theorists. But it didnt diminish my role as a seeker.