I'll Fix My Head Before I'm Dead

A man's life cannot be justly written or adequately shared, not because language falls short - rather, because a man's life is a subjective experience. Two identical situations can cause excitement in one or fear in another based on the accumulation of their influences. How can a mere book sufficiently express the emotions and evolution of a human? At best, polaroids and captions afford us flickering glimpses into a heart and soul.

I'll Fix My Head Before I'm Dead takes the reader by the hand and guides him through the nostalgic meandering of Memory Lane. With wistful overtones and a stream of consciousness uninterrupted by punctuation, you cannot help but fall into rhythm with Roberts' thoughts as he reflects on a life lived to its fullest. Roberts offers an open invitation to relive some of his most vulnerable moments and never fails to cap each story with a moral he gleaned from it.

Roberts imparts decades of wisdom, using simple sentences to convey simple but elusive truths. As though I were there to experience the trials and tribulations myself, I paused at times to reflect on my own life. Could Roberts' parallel experiences and the lessons I was reading provide retrospective clarity for myself?

The book weaves together uncensored journal entries from times and places long ago and far away, with a narrative of hard-earned maturity. Roberts uses brushstrokes of humor and frames his experiences with lilting introspection. I believe the theme is captured in the following excerpt.

At 56, Roberts wrote,
"Health and wisdom are an output
Of all kinds of inputs
The decades fly by
And things accumulate
My great plans reveal their flaws
While I enjoy the many benefits of my
Lucky brakes"