Part of why I first became interested in Napoleon was because I related to his ambition. I haven’t always been the most well adjusted and I have had to cope with the after effects of severe child abuse. It left me with self esteem issues that seemed to manifest, in part, as massive ambition.

Since I lacked ruthlessness, I thought, I could not have material success in this world. The closest I ever came to joining the “elites” career wise was when I was a celebrity photographer for Getty Images.

During that time, though the job was occasionally thrilling, I felt physically ill from being in that environment. Not everyone was horrible but I can usually spot a psychopath when I see one. I always felt there was a great concentration of psychopaths around me whenever I was shooting a celebrity event.

I knew I was helping to sell a lie. I saw my photos on the cover of the magazines at the super market checkout. It made me feel good to know that I have the talent to shoot for “top” media but I knew I was doing wrong.

Now I realize that many of the celebrities I had been photographing were more than likely gender inverted. I was helping to perpetrate a lie even greater than I understood at that time.

Now I see “success” differently. It seems to me there is a bloodline that holds a monopoly on top jobs and that having one’s gender inverted before puberty is a necessity to show that one “belongs to the club”. A deal with the devil seems to be part of access to the upper echelons. Someone like me, no matter what I tried couldn’t really have had much success as an outsider. The game is utterly rigged.

This is what Napoleon was trying to fight. The game was rigged then as now.

Napoleon’s motto was: “Career open to talent, without distinctions of birth.”

I believe Napoleon is the last person who really stood up to this cabal.