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I am at war. I am at war with an adversary who does not recognise the suffering of war nor art of war. An adversary whose resources are limitless and who is more numerous than the stars. The cockroach.

The war began after they sabotaged a late night snack. A crèche team of SAS roaches infiltrated the stayfresh bag- my life would never be the same. It was late and I fixed myself a small reward, a bowl of a well-known breakfast cereal, dates back to my childhood and affords me some small comfort when I am feeling depressed. Pouring out the golden flakes of corn a hard, dark husk loitered at the bottom of the bowl. My eyes being weak and my responses slow, I thought it was nothing more than a "golden flake" that had been overcooked. A black sheep in a field of corn, a hunk of charcoal, a little bit of cereal gristle. I poured the milk. The gristle moved. It twitched. Its tiny ugly antennae unfurled. A polished exoskeleton scuttling over my golden flakes. Filled with disgust and revulsion, I picked up the offending creature out of the infested mire and crushed it. My reward was ruined by the minuscule monster and, distraught, I threw the bowl into the sink.

This incident alone failed to push me over the brink. It was the surprise attack moments later that caused me to snap. I went to change the fax paper. I lifted the hood on the machine and recoiled as five roaches fled the light. The new turn in their campaign shocked me. I had staked out most areas that contain food or scrapings of skin, but I never thought that they would attempt to infiltrate the machines.

To battle the cockroach, I have had to think as they do. Our needs are remarkably similar- eat, eat, reproduce, eat. I have put myself in their shell. Each day the differences are becoming less distinct- the boundaries are beginning to blur. There is still one major difference between the roaches and myself. They do not pay rent.

I have tried to live in harmony with nature, but I live in absolute hatred of cockroaches. Do not mistake me, I do not fear them: the emotion that I feel is deeper and darker than that. It is an awareness of "the truth". They inhabit the same space, they eat the same food, they frolic in the same bed. Under my roof they have the same rights as me. It is a struggle for life and only the strongest will survive. I have bombed, baited, laid traps, and mixed obscene concoctions developed on the isle of Haiti. I have danced naked in the moonlight, prayed to pagan gods and killed with my bare thumb. Still the hideous hordes continue to pour from every nook and cranny.

All methods to eradicate them have failed. I have made intricate notes concerning the effectiveness of the various agents of roach death. I am Vlad the Impaler, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot. I am numbered among those who enjoy the fever pitch of battle and display their victims as trophies. I have ritualised the deaths of my loathsome adversaries. I wear their shattered carcasses as a necklace. In "Spartacus" a broken army crucified to show the resolve of the emperor and what happens to those who oppose his rule. I have crucified the roaches on Paddle Pop sticks evenly spaced on the main road to the fridge. This is what happens to those who defy the might of Rome.

You may think that all this has brought me some measure of comfort. It has not. The one small joy in death I find is contained within the "Cockroach Hotel". What a marvellous deuce. TV has lost all interest for me. I sit in an armchair and gaze at my captives as they writhe in agony attempting to escape their fate. As they twist out of their out of their skins, snap their limbs, I watch, I have no desire to channel surf. It's all there on that sticky toxic piece of cardboard- life, death, the eternal struggle.

I have, you may argue, lost my humanity in this struggle. But in this war surrounded by constant death, I have found a clarity to life I have never known before. I have seen the truth and am not afraid to speak it. We all heard when we destroy our planet, cockroaches will rule the earth. Why do we attempt to delude ourselves? They rule it now.

Science and religion have always been strange bedfellows. Over the centuries they have been as close as lovers, as distant as bitter enemies. They have often looked in opposite directions to find they shared the same point of view. Occasionally they lie back, light up and congratulate each other. This happened recently when a scientist discovered the so-called "God spot". A part of our brain that sparks with electrical energy whenever the name of God is mentioned.

Every society has had its gods- often the more the merrier. It made a lot of sense to have a different god for every different thing. A god for water, fire, earth, sunflowers, cats. You wanted victory in war- pray to Mars; a good harvest- sacrifice a virgin.

In this day and age of high stress and constant pressure, we need our faith to strengthen us. We have not lost our urge to create gods; they abound as never before. The "God spot" is as active as ever. We require new gods and these new gods deserve our respect and recognition. Like the old gods, they are small-minded and petty and couldn't care less about eternal struggles between good and evil. We invoke them whenever we call on them for help.

I lived in a flat where we would call upon the God of Hot Water. "Please, God, let there be a few minutes of heat before I freeze". The God of Hot Water always seemed to be deaf until we made a monetary sacrifice to one of his high priests, a plumber called Ron. There is the God of the Radio, who can torment or tantalise. The God of Let The Takeaway Be Open. We ask the God of the Car Park to find a space for us at the crowded shopping mall. For the little God of Money to plant coins at the back of the couch. For the God of the Street to leave something good in the skip. To the God of Washing to return the other sock. To the God of the Bank to make the ball-point work. To the God of Sleeping in on Sunday Morning to stop the person playing the French horn.

Some gods seek to make life more difficult for their own delight. These are playful, fickle gods from the line of Loki, Norse god of mischief. Praying to them is a waste of time- a bloody sacrifice is the only way to gain their attention. Every morning and evening we cram ourselves into their moving cathedrals. We mere mortals are their playthings, clumsy lumps of dough in desperate need of their assistance. It is only by accepting them into our lives that we can reach our final destination.

These are the Gods of Transport. A triumvirate of minor deities who wreak havoc with our fragile faith in the written word of the timetable. They are, in order of cruelty, the God of the Bus, the God of the Train and the God of the Cab.

I am forced to believe the Gods of Transport exist. The only other conclusion one can reach is too devastating, too frightening. With malicious forethought transport services are conspiring to make our lives a living hell. What little prayer do you murmur after a long day at work? If you are like me, you pray to the Television God. "Please let there be something good on the television. Oh God, let there be something good." And is there something good? No, there's never anything good. And why not? Because the Television God does not exist. We invented him. We created the Television God to fill an unhappy void in our lives. The Television God doesn't exist so it does you no service to pray to him. You've got to pray to the God of Programming. And the God of Programming is the most self-important, talentless, middle of the road, arse-licking, glorified accountant the universe ever had the displeasure to fart into existence.

After all this talk of God, your "God spot" should be hyperactive. Electrical energy pulsing in that section of your brain that believes in a higher authority, a greater force in the universe. Did some celestial being place it there or did it develop as a way of ordering society? No doubt science and religion will battle it out again to find another.

As we have already seen, we live in a world surrounded by gods. There are the gods of all the major religions, the gods of the lesser religions and finally the deities we create for our own pleasure. One such deity is the God of the street. Where the other gods ask for a life lived in chastity, the Street God only requires that you have a keen eye. Where other gods ask for a life of servitude, the Street God asks for patience and perseverance. Where other gods look for the good inside, the Street God leaves the good outside.

He leaves the good in plain view where his followers discover it. Once the food is discovered, it can then be re-shaped, re-fashioned, re-born. A spoiled recliner from the North Shore home becomes a cosy reading chair in a Newtown squat, discarded bricks become a bookshelf, an old sign a novel highlight above a Mancare bar. The Street God is seldom recognised by the rich. He belongs to the poor. His temples are garbage bins and anywhere rubbish collects. His palace is an earthly palace and it is situated in the dump. His kingdom extends to the inner suburbs and overflowing skips everywhere.

His angels are reversing trucks. He is a material and temporal god, and his gifts are seldom gold. He is the god of broken or three-legged chairs. He is the god of the discarded, the rejected and the useless.

Within the cult of the Street God there are tenets of the faith that must be obeyed.

You must never ask the Street God for specific favours, cardboard boxes are his forte.

Never rely on the God of the Street for a birthday, wedding or engagement present.

Never pretend the Street God has smiled on you when you are stealing.

If you follow these simple rules you will enter his kingdom.

Open your eyes to his kindness and you will never fully close them again. There was a time when I would converse with the God of the Street constantly. His bounty was plain to see, exploding out of skips, at the back of the department store, forgotten at the end of a lane. If you failed to take an item he offered there would a always be another to tempt you, a cracked Thermos, an old pair of loafers, a ripped vinyl jacket. His generosity knew no bounds.

I first met the Street God at the tip amid burst green garbage bags oozing pustulant gunk and lockjaw inducing razor-sharp sheet metal. He was there in mountains of waste rising from valleys of debris. Slagheap cathedrals to consumer society, glittering in the afternoon sun, with all the promise of capitalism. Here an enamel pendant, a malfunctioning radio or a mayonnaise-stained magazine was a gift from god. Then someone somewhere, in the safety of an office, decided it was too dangerous. They closed the tips. Yet for every unfortunate who tore his foot apart on a rusty tin there were thousands who would discover a useless phone or a crushed circuit.

I was thinking that I had not heard from the Street God for a long time. I had thought he and I had fallen out. That was when I had the dream. And the dream brought me to a realisation.

There were two sets of handprints foraging around a skip. I knew one set was mine and the other set belonged to the Street God. I looked again and there was only one set. I asked him what had happened. Why did he leave me? He smiled and replied, " That w as when I foraged for you. You went to take a leak. " I woke realising the Street God was still with me. Over the years I had changed, not he. I was no longer a disciple, I was a priest. I realised as I descended the stairs with my garbage I was still doing his will. I peered longingly into my own waste - a stack of faded English magazines, a broken Rotring pen and a three-legged chair.

My weekly walk to the wheelie bin is an offertory procession and the damaged, worthless scraps I drag there a tribute to the Street God.

There is no doubt that we live in an era of high stress, aggression and abrupt change.

Nothing prepares us for the terror of modern life. We are not equipped for the unexpected turns, the betrayals, the lies, the incriminations or even the ennui that binds it all together.

Thankfully, there is help at hand. For every mental, physical and spiritual ailment society hurls at us a book exists to combat it. The message is clear. If you’re about to die an emotional death, bury yourself in a book.

Seeking to understand this phenomenon I went in search of a bookstore, hoping to find a text that spoke to me. I strolled into an average-looking bookstore. There was nothing free or freaky about the place. There were no love beads hanging from the ceiling, no smell of frankincense or Patchouli oil. Yet the place was a refuge for those in need.

They clung to the shelves, crouching in the shadows, designer slacks, credit cards and expensive sunglasses disguising the tears. Every accessory a testament to the harshness of life. These people were here for one thing and one thing only - self improvement.

The bookstore should have set up a soup kitchen. They were offering what religion used to offer. That feeling of community, safety, acceptance. The sense that any sin could be forgiven. Yet pews remain empty while bookstores thrive and for one simple reason. How can a pamphlet on heavenly salvation compete with the brutal honesty of: "If I’m so wonderful, why am I still single." We need answers and we need them now.

A quick fix, a pat on the back, a shoulder to cry on and someone who understands. Even if that someone is a psychologist with dubious credentials and a grip on reality straight out of Dr Seuss.

It wasn’t hard to find what I was looking for. The self-help books took up 80 per cent of the store yet the entire history of the world was confined to two meagre racks. (What sort of world have we created where the knowledge accrued over thousands of years is dwarfed by the output of Southern California?)

Books with alluring titles like: Get Out Of Your Own Way, The Dance Of Anger and Love Me! Love My Trauma!, called my name from the shelves.

I had a rush of fear sensing someone was watching me, trying to decide which book I "needed". Was I lost without love? Did I love too much? Was I hurting others to hurt myself? Had I found the child within? Could I learn to smile with my brain?

I grabbed the nearest paperback and let it fall open to any page. This is a trick I learnt years ago. I was being receptive to the book letting it speak to me. It fell open on a blank page with a price sticker. I picked up another
There's More To Life Than Sex And Money and on a quick perusal discovered nothing to support their case.

I leafed through another dozen volumes and still nothing really spoke to me. Why couldn't I find anything that appealed to me, something gently affirming like I’m OK You're Completely Stuffed.

It was then I became aware of a greater tragedy. Self-help addicts in search of the perfect life can never stop at one. It begins with the seven stages of grief but pretty soon you've turned to personal growth and before you know it you're discovering past lives. Past lives that were invariably more successful because you didn’t have self-help books to help you get through them.

I suffered a bout of melancholy for the old days when the remedy to any hurt was time. Those words "give it time" were a virtual mantra when I was a child. They were happier days when manic depression could be cured by the phrase "buck up".

I did leave the store with a book and I believe I did not compromise my mission. It was by a real doctor, it put a smile on my face and made more sense than anything else I had seen. Even the title intrigued me - Green Eggs And Ham.

Some of the titles in this article do not exist.