In my late teens and early twenties, I had a pretty clear idea as to how to create a full life for myself. I was supposed to get married, have kids, build a career in film/tv, buy a house, and so on. I did all that but the result isn't what I expected.

I've come to realize that I take little to no pleasure in my life. Instead I trudge through an endless routine, doing what I have to do for job and family. From the moment I wake up I do what I have to do and at the end of it all, I have nothing left but this husk of me and a severe cough from smoking too much.

But ironically, there's nothing I want. I've lived this way for so long that I can't think of ways to enjoy myself. If I went on vacation tomorrow, I would default to cleaning the house and entertaining my kids. My spare moments would be spent working on scripts. The only other option would be to physically go somewhere but there's no place I want to go and there's no money to get there.

So on and on I go. And I know I'm an %#@&#! for not enjoying my time with my family. And don't get me wrong, I love my wife, my kids, my cat. But I feel like a praying mantis, left headless by his mate to be consumed by his offspring. The reality is more like castration, long abandoning innate drives for things like sex because we stopped being lovers and started being parents a long time ago. And while my need for sex has always out paced my wife's, I mourn the loss of my naive belief that there would always be some level of passion.

I used to have so many dreams, ambitions, and naive fantasies about the life I'd make for myself. But the pain I'm feeling now is the withering remnants of those ideas being ripped away. I'm dangling from the few thin strands that remain from a string of ideas that formed the guide wire for my life. My umbilical cord of hopes and dreams.

I wonder if it's like this for every adult. Something tells me that I'm not special, that this is the pattern played out millions of times by millions of people every day. The inevitable disillusionment experienced by all. And like cattle being raised for slaughter, we're incapable of seeing the true nature of our existence until it's far too late.

Cyran0