At the core, he had a conservative nature, but his desires were constantly at odds with it. This is why he could sit and stare for ours without a clue as to what to do with himself. He didn’t believe in anything, he knew he had to, he knew everyone needed a god but he couldn’t seem to find his. Not art. Not religion. Not money, ambition, power (as a matter of fact, he distrusted power in any form). For a while he believed in love, yet here he was, twice divorced. Perhaps Love was a demi-god, without enough power to hold him. And despite the sheer enjoyment of exploring every inch of a woman’s body, he knew sex wasn’t it. He was beginning to think that perhaps Failure or Loss were the stronger gods. He was forty-eight. Not old, not young. But he had, what, maybe fifteen more really good years before some organ began to give him trouble. Even now, as he stares at the screen, he has no idea where to take this paragraph. It will become like so many others, another promising start, like a road whose pavement just ends in the middle of a field--no where to go, not even room enough to turn around.