Life of a Manchild was an emotional outpouring. It was a hurt angry young man in desperate search for the validation he never got, pounding his chest and shouting to the world that “I’m real, god damn it! And my feelings matter!” It was a surgical operation to cut a malignant tumor out the depths of my soul that had been contaminating all aspects of my life for as long as I can consciously remember. This book is not a weapon. I wish not for it to be construed as an accusatory finger pointing in the direction of my father for his shortcomings, at my mother for not leaving him or at anyone else who may have known about the dynamics of my household for not intervening and “saving” me. I wish not to make a victim of myself. Nor am I a “survivor.” My story is not something to be put on a banner and waved around by some social justice PC crusaders at a left-wing rally taking a stand against domestic abuse. That’s not my message. My message is that there’s always gonna be unavoidable suffering in life that you have no control over. It’s in the very nature of our existence as human beings. What this book is is a challenge. It’s a challenge to take on the responsibility of looking deep inside yourself and examining why you feel the things you feel. Why you do the things you do. Why you say the things you say. Do you really mean what you’re doing and saying? Are your actions a genuine reflection of the things you believe to be good and right or are you just unconsciously reacting to some old unexamined emotional pattern operating within yourself that, unbeknownst to you, is calling all the shots in your life? The world is not made a better place by throwing blame around and perpetuating victimization. The world is made a better place by you taking the time and making the effort to ask yourself if you truly believe that you’re doing everything in your power to root out all unnecessary suffering you may be causing yourself and others in your own life.
-Timothy John Motherfuckin’ Lally
February 20, 2018