When Cowboy R (that would be me, but it sounds far more chic to talk about yourself in third person, doesn't it?) was in his early twenties, he fell in love.

Rebecca was an amazing woman, full of laughter and wit. She was also full of something which rhymes with wit, but Cowboy R didn't notice that until after she used him to get what she wanted from her frat-boy boyfriend, and left Our Hero with a broken heart.

The point is, I was in love. (Okay, I'm done with the literary pretention of talking about myself in the third person... adjust). I think that, had I asked Rebecca to marry me on the night I realized I was in love, and, of course, had she accepted, we might still be married, because I loved her, and I had faith in that love.

Now, in my early thirties, I don't seem to have much faith in anything enduring.

For another example... I used to have a friend who wrote a comic strip for a college paper. The art was perhaps not perfectly polished, but the strip itself was damn funny... biting, insightful, it said something.

The friend changed names, genders, and locations. Dropped out of touch. Kept writing the strip, though, having graduated from college, the publishing venue changed.

The strip got boring. It's not about anything anymore. It's not insightful. It's not funny.

The ancient Greek philosophers had their own version of entropy. They believed that everything started with a Golden Age, in which all things were fine and perfect, then degraded into a silver age, when things were pretty good, and then degraded into... well, you get the idea.

When I was a boy, comic books cost a quarter. The stories weren't much, and the art wasn't anything special, but I was enthralled. Spiderman and the Green Lanteren were special favorites of mine.

Now, the comic books are much better in terms of production values. They're well written, on the whole; they're well drawn, well published. And they cost ten times more.

In those days, I walked down to Circle K to buy them. Now, I ride to a specialized comic shop.

In those days, I had a no-name, second hand bicycle that I was proud of. Today, I have a Suzuki Bandit motorcycle that I'm always worrying will break down when I can't afford to fix it.

Life changes.

Not always for the better.