I often wonder why people travel to Asia to find themselves. After all you can find yourself perfectly well, and without unecessary air miles and expence, at home - if only you take the trouble to lose yourself first.

Life is full of opportunities to lose yourself, and then suddenly - you find something new.

For instance, and this is a true story, imagine you are walking in the park one day, perhaps a Tuesday, when you hear "There's a dead body in the lake". Here is a situation in which a person can easily get lost. What do you do?

Do you see the beer can in his hand? (not the dead hand, the man-who-cried-dead) Do you swiftly walk on, muttering "alcoholic" (and secretly thinking "Even if there is a dead body, I don't want to see a dead body, least of all on a Tuesday, that is my least favourite day for new and horrible surprises").

Do you hover nearby, perhaps do some limbering up excercises on a handy bench (it is likely to be a taxing walk in the park, after all, no point in risking pulling a muscle). What are you waiting for? A glimpse of death, a cheap thrill (is it a dead body, or a naked dead body?) How dead? Green, rotten, bulging flesh, bloated features, distorted sex on display...

Do you want to be a hero? Self-abasing, self-aggrandising, self-assured - who knows (and does it matter), but do you rush to help? "I know mouth-to-mouth". Do you pull him/her (who can tell in this state) from the water with a mix of horror and excitement, mind already spinning a story for the office. 

And how are you changed?

What if on Wednesday, having lost your fear of death through such a close encounter, you discover something new and wonderful. Confidence. A new voice for speaking up, a new word - or an old one delivered with authority - "No". Maybe this new experience gives you an aura of mysterious sexiness?

Or maybe, like me, you have discovered how to kill.