I'm like a person who've just gotten out of a coma today.

From Shakesphere's Othello....

"Who steals my purse steals trash;
'tis something, nothing; 'twas mine,
'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
but he that filches from me my good name robs me
of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed."

Refco, a firm in which I have dedicated almost 20 years of my life suffered such an indignity when within 100 hours, we fell from a multi-billion dollar top-of-the-line derivatives broker into the quamire of Chapter 11 protection and into bankruptcy proceedings.

Anguish engulfed me during this period first thinking that this was a bad nightmare from which I would awake. My world then began collapsing around me when reality hit. We had been doing great going 24% ahead of last year's numbers and looking forward to another great financial year. What was happening in New York half a world away had nothing to do with me. I was profitable one day and a week later we were caught up in the bankruptcy proceedings.

How fast a man gets stripped of whatever he has...... his integrity, his reputation and his character is his stock. I questioned alot of that as a broker when clients pulled out of hard earned relationships.

Situations like this also springs its own good surprises too....... against the exodus of business, several large clients who valued our personal relationships stayed steadfast by our side

Now almost a month later (YES all this happened in the span of the last 3 and a half weeks!) I survey the ruin around me with a candid perspective.

This could actually be GOOD for me.

This has stopped me dead in my tracks .......... and made me take a close hard look at the family I had neglected in the chase for the almighty dollar. Looking at the tragedy in Pakistan, Banda Acheh and other calamities, I got off real light.

I brought my family to the pool for the first time in months and found the preciousness of a family.

I'm looking at my life differently and its a rude but much needed wake up call

The company's up for auction on 10 Nov in 2 days time and I calmly and confidently await the results.

I look again at my daughter and noticed that she's grown a couple of inches taller ...... funny how I never really noticed how she's grown until now.

In the mean time, its allowed me to catch up on my personal reading.

I pick up and brush the dust off a copy of the EI8HT photojournal (June 2005 issue). How appropriate Jon Levy's (the Editor) comments ...... "The way we live our lives - this is the predominant theme of this issue"

Panning slowly through the articles and essays within I transport myself into images in Living with the Bomb (Sean Sutton) an essay which talks about the lives of villagers in Laos existing among live and dud explosive ordnance along one of the world's most heavily bombed real estates....... the Ho Chi Min Trail

Tim Hetherington's solemn moments in Banda Acheh in his stark photo essay Still Standing of post-tsunami northern Sumatra highlights the resiliance of the human spirit while Exodus, a photo essay on multi-ethnic Uzbekistan by Rip Hopkins grips my heart.

Finishing its articles, I put down the journal and pick up Sarajevo Self-Portrait: The View from Inside, a large hardcover collection of naked essays and images that I'd picked up at Basheer's for $9 ..... a steep drop from its original retail price of $60. Through the eyes of 9 photographers from Bosnia, whose images spanned the length of the war and the seige of Sarajevo, photographing its social ruins and documenting the loss of neighborhoods, homes, families and friends.

Reading their interviews and seeing the images, the photographers speak of the anguish of their circumstances. It made me (no, it forced me) contrast these powerful images shot by local Bosnian photographers trapped in the daily struggle to survive against images created by "media machines" of the "outside" world

"For a country so brutally torn apart by racial conflict and hate....and for the rest of the world which largely ignored Bosnia's cries for help, Sarajevo: Self Portrait is much more than a collection of photographs; it is a powerful and much needed opportunity to cut straight through media's rethoric, uncovering the hard truths of war"

A 3rd book lies on my table awaiting its turn to be read, Degas to Matisse - Impressionist and Modern Masterworks. I picked up a pristine copy at a ridiculous $3 from the bargain bin. Well bound and printed on heavy gloss paper, it sits quietly in its own corner beckoning me.