One Down Four Up is not a work of fiction. The book literally fell out of my autobiography. I never intended to sit down and write a book about motorcycles. However, it was clear once I had started to pull the stories out of my autobiography that my passion for motorcycles had been at the centre of several major life events. Motorcycles had changed my career trajectory, had given me a permanent disability and had taught me some of the hardest life lessons I have ever learnt. But still I ride. Recently, a few readers have given me personal feedback on the book on an aspect I had never even thought about; self-actualization. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, when a person reaches 'self-actualization' they are living creatively using their potential to to achieve self-fulfillment, often through a passion or desire. These readers looked introspectively at their own lives to identify their own passions and desires to see if they had reached the degree of self-actualization they believe I had achieved in the book through riding my motorcycles. I never once thought about motorcycling in that way before; ever. But now it makes perfect sense to me. Everything comes together when I am riding my motorcycle. It is my passion, and the way in which I achieve self-fulfillment and hence reach self-actualization.
