It seems that everybody has an ideal vision of the rest of their life. For some people it’s a beautiful, caring wife, kids, a white picket fence, and a dog. For others, it’s the Nobel Prize, a laboratory, and a college wing named after them. Still others dream of being a profession athlete or a rock star, and all the trophy wives and drugs that go with it. The point is that while the visions themselves are widely dispersed, the concept of a perfect life is universal.

However, only hopeless optimists expect to achieve their perfect life exactly. Most people are reasonable enough to realize, without undue disappointment, that they will only be able to have some of their dreams realized. Unfortunately some people are depressed; they feel that their dreams will always be out of reach. Even these people, however, can a see a happy version of their lives; they just don’t see a way of achieving it.

Now imagine not even having any such ideal version of life. Imagine looking into the future, and instead of ways to be happy, seeing infinite paths towards dying a broken man. Imagine seeing the rest of you life in equal shades of black. If you can truly comprehend such an existence, which you probably cannot, then you can understand me.

No matter how often I try, I cannot envision myself as being content on my deathbed. In any fantasy I concoct, for every accomplishment there are infinite failures. I could have a wife, kids, a white picket fence, and a dog, but what will have been my lasting contribution to humanity; I would die discontented. I could win the Nobel Prize, but I would never have had real power; I would die discontented. I could even rule humanity, but then we are back to square one; I would not have time for a wife, kids, a white picket fence, a dog, or the Nobel Prize, and I would die discontented. For no matter how greatly I succeed in one area, I know that I will inevitable fail in some other. That is why, no matter how blatantly, ridiculously, and impossibly optimistic a scenario I make for my life, it always ends with me dying unhappy.

However, like any person, I have times when I break from my normal philosophies. There are times when I feel that something is sacred, that something is worth living for, that there is a way for me to be happy. But I inevitably return to normal. Those same things which I thought to be meaningful turn out to be illusionary, trivial, or, in the worst cases, unattainable. Mechanistically, my mind then sorts these things under “irrelevant”, and I am again left with nothing to look forward to.

And so I trudge through life, forced to strive towards what other people think my dreams should be. And that’s the rub. I cannot give up and do nothing, for I, like any other person, am driven by an innate fear of such things as ridicule, rejection, abandonment, pain, and death. I am motivated by an aversion from negatives, rather that an attraction to positives. And having nothing of my own to strive for, I strive towards what I am expected to; I strive toward other people dreams.

And I’ll continue living, driven by cold, impersonal biology, until I reach the conclusion of one of the infinite pathways that I have envisioned for myself. Which one I choose is irrelevant, for they all end in the same thing: unhappy and ignoble death.