The beginning of a story I started writing recently...

It wasn’t for money that he wrote into the early hours of the morning, anymore than it was for money that she courted the rich and the famous, heading back to theirs in the early hours of the morning, while he was perfecting a description of a childhood home, or a revealing soliloquy by his current antagonist. They did what they did in the belief that they were pursuing the way of life best suited to their inclinations and abilities, and so believed themselves to be largely happy. They were not people who judged other ways of life, or felt it was right for anyone to criticise theirs (the woman being the more likely to receive criticism though the man had had his fair share, as some people’s perception of writing as “not a proper job” had reached his ear), They were both, then, people who understood the lack of a fixed way for living life, and understood that we must all improvise; creating something like a path for ourselves as we go, with no guide to help us…other than social normality which can often be contrary to our desires and for some people cause great unhappiness.

The flaw, however, in the man’s perspective, was that he did not see that he was limiting himself; denying himself experiences that he craved because he believed that as long as he could, with his mind, imagine all of life’s infinite experiences laid out before him, then he would have no need to even leave his house except to buy food. Which might well have been true for some, but for him, in doing this, he was denying a part of himself which whole-heartedly craved to really…do something. Perhaps he was afraid; afraid of attempting and getting no where, and therefore thought it better to not attempt at all.

The woman, meanwhile, was lacking in understanding in two aspects of her life, both the clichés for women of her lifestyle. First, for many men with whom she was involved with were married, was that she did not think of those she might hurt. This was not a problem with all men; but it was with a substantial number. The second was possibly even more cliché than the first; she was slowly harming the way she felt about herself.