Inspiration?

"The world - our Western world - was mad. I couldn't get enthusiastic about a career and a pension. I wanted a spark of some kind, a crusade, an ideal. All around me, I saw a society that had lost its sense of common purpose, of community. Where the future extended no further than next year's balance sheet. An 'unnatural' society in a literal sense: where children grew up never having climbed a tree and unable to recognise the constellations. A materialistic society that had lost sight of the sheer joy of being alive, and replaced it with self-assembly wardrobe units from IKEA. It was a &#%@ed-up world and I couldn't find any purpose or direction in it. Maybe I'd find one in South America."

From the novel "The Gringo Trail" by Mark Mann, Summersdale, UK, 1999.