Personal Background Why Did I Design and Write The First TrulyDemocratic Constitution? The reason I became a writer is quite a story itself and neither my professional background nor my business experience are the reason. Now, I am a Certified Management Accountant with world experience. Prior to moving to the U.S.A. I was a Controller for a very large and well known Canadian company based in Toronto, Ontario. After moving to the U.S.A. I became a partner in a national software development company and was one of those responsible for the development and support of a very complex series of products designed to handle every facet of a company involved in the Home Center Industry in North America. Now, the important part is that it was actually the period following this diverse work history where the need to write started. About 12 years ago I had to sell off my portion of the software company as I was less able to work due to the fact that I had started to have epileptic seizures a number of years earlier, which were getting worse in intensity and frequency, and therefore, I could no longer handle the stress on the job let alone be able to drive to and from the office. After spending a couple of years trying to find help and even after seeing if some of the options ranging from stress reduction therapy to seizure medication could work I hit a dead end. I had even experienced four trips by ambulance to the local hospital and one time had actually turned blue, a time when my wife felt that I would die. After having other specialists review my situation it seemed that it was a lost cause and at one point I was told that as my seizures were only increasing in intensity and frequency there was little which could be done and possible I had only a few more years to live. However, for some reason my wife and I never gave up trying and this helped as another neurologist took a look at me he and along with another specialist led me to the brain surgery option where after significant testing by the experts at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit I selected the option to have brain surgery. After a ten day seizure initiation identifier program I was told that they had isolated the seizure initiation point in my brain and I might have a chance to at least reduce the quantity and severity of the seizures I had been experiencing. It did not matter that there was a chance I could die from the operation, and this was very slight, or that there was a chance that I could become paralyzed in a number of different ways, etc. etc. etc. because it didn’t matter to me. Living the way I had been for some time was far too difficult and I would take any chance even if only a slight reduction in the number and intensity of the seizures I was experiencing resulted from the surgery. So I had the brain surgery. Well, believe it or not I may have a slight dent in my skull and the opening needed for the surgery can be easily located when rubbing the hair on my head but their approach was extremely successful. I have not had a single seizure since the operation, and guess what, they tell me that unless I physically hurt myself I will never have another. Now, the good part related to the surgery was the elimination of the seizures. The bad part was memory loss. So, the second part of this very trying period started after having the surgery. Sure, I would no longer have seizures but I had a serious memory loss. I could not work and had I not had a very good insurance policy whereby my loss of work was covered by a Met Life Disability policy I do not know what I would have done. That policy was a savior and if I ever am able to earn an income again I will no longer need the continued benefits of that policy. However, I will never forget what their policy did for me and will thank them every chance I get. Now, even after selling our beautiful home on the lake we were still hurting financially but nothing could be done to help recover very quickly from the brain surgery. My wife worked at her office and on the side to make ends meet while I tired to recover. It turned out that my recovery was almost as frustrating as the seizures but we somehow survived. And this is a very important part of my personal story as it directly relates as to how I got into writing, not as an accountant but as an independent thinker who was open to change, and this is why: When I came home from the hospital I could not even tell what these things were on my lawn. Believe it or not they were squirrels. I had to retrain myself on how to re-link the memory partitions in my brain. The doctors felt that reading and writing were very important. They started me with very simple puzzles followed by reading memory testing. It was horrible at the start as I could read the headlines in the paper and could not remember a single headline even after reciting it a hundred times. This was a very unhappy time in my life as it seemed that I would never recover as the memory link repairs seemed to take forever. But after a few years I felt better and even began to remember some of the software I had worked to develop. But it seemed like I would never make it all the way back as even after a number of years and some proof of recovery I could not tell you who the President of the United States was even after he won his second term election. By the way this was George W. Bush and not William Jefferson Clinton and the year was 2006. I am still not able to work a forty hour week let alone the sixty hour weeks I used to work on average but I am much better and I will never again forget the names of those in power in the U.S.A. Now it was a few years ago, something I now remember without any problem, that I was reading a history of Thomas Jefferson and a number of letters which he had written. After reading one letter he had written to a friend where, as quoted in this site’s Constitution document, he recommended that a new constitution be written every couple of decades in order to keep the citizens well informed of and in control of their government. This got me going and I started to write. Now, if you could ever see what I created at the beginning of this project you would probably think that I was a fifth grader back then. But this approach did help me to work at changing both myself and the nation. Many of my concepts were there from the start but my ability to express myself properly was not. But time and practice healed my wounds. Jefferson may have had the idea of changing the document many were taught to adore and never question, and thereby create a new one, but I am the first person to create one which in itself is the first truly democratic constitution. So, sit back and prepare yourself to see what my lifetime commitment to change can create for everyone. David M. Gage, CMA
Learn to think differently and using personal knowledge become a truly independent individual.
http://www.fastcompany.com/user/david-gage
Professional (i.e., Accountant, Doctor, Lawyer, Teacher),
University of Toronto, Canada
Other Professional degree.
Areas of study: Certified Management Accountant of Canada with Worldwide Experience
Activities and societies: Society of Management Accountants of Canada
