I had a eureka moment in 1992.

In the previous six years, I tried to save the world by participating in party politics. As these years past, I slowly became disillusioned with the process. About a month before my eureka, I came to the conclusion that we voters really know very little about the people who aspire for public office. In other words, we couldn’t make good voting choices.

So I pondered about for several weeks.

As I was walking home from the grocery store, I got a flash of insight. I realized the flaws of political parties, the inability of political parties to reform the system, and alternative system of democratic governance — without political parties.

I was still walking, grocery bags in hand, when I got this flash. It lasted maybe a minute, maybe two. For sure, a lot of insight passed in a very short time.

This eureka formed the foundation for Chapter 2 and 3 of my book.

Of course, it took a lot longer to put the words, sentences, and paragraphs together. But the inspiration was very sharp even though short-lived.