We get into these routines in our lives, and sometimes we become so immersed in the routines that we live in a virtual cave, a prison, and feel trapped.

Maybe it’s working in a job to pay the bills for the stuff that matters to you – a monkey trap of sorts. Maybe it’s worse, maybe it’s working in a job you don’t like because you got an education in something you don’t like because you thought pleasing other people would somehow make you happy. There’s comfort in peers who are also trapped, but nobody knows they’re trapped. That there is something more to it than what they see every day is a far removed memory of childhood.

An artist of any sort offers us windows to look out of, and now computer games even allow us to pretend to sneak out the window now and then. It’s not real. You’re still inside. If there is a matrix, if this is all some sort of simulation, it’s not being done to us as much as we’re creating it ourselves. What a wonderful thought, except if that were the case wouldn’t we all be living our best lives?

I have bad news. That’s not the way it works. If it did work, we all would be living our best lives. We’re not. Well, maybe you are, or maybe someone you know is, but if you think everyone is living their best lives I have to wonder if you somehow got here from Disney.com. They lost a mouse recently, lookout.

Me? I’ve been escaping by creating a world and probably over-engineering it. Well, it did expand to a Universe, really.

Then I got an idea for a less fictional book. The trouble is writing all the ideas down.

So back to the cave I go.