Mom was adopted, because her mother was a pregnant 17-yo whose parents wouldn't let her keep the baby. Since it was late 1930's, abortion wasn't an option and she ended up in a Catholic orphanage.

Dad was the product of his mother and a fling with a neighbor while his father was driving a truck cross-country to provide for his family - a very poor, blue collar mid-west family.

After trying to break in a place with his buddies, Dad ended up in the hospital emergency room where Mom was a nurse. She got tingles. A year later, they're married. So, assuming my father is really my father, my siblings and I are the result of whoring grandmothers and a mother who fell for a bad boy.

But, I was raised to be a good Catholic and got a strong education in science and technology, which Mom made Dad pay for. I was NOT a bad boy. I went on to get a Masters in engineering on my own. At no point, did I realize the Blue Pill programming.

I was married in the late 90's. We met in a martial arts class. She was divorced years earlier with no previous kids. She was the love of my life, my dream girl, delivered as an angel by God...as promised. We had 3 kids, pets, houses, and I had a series of jobs at higher salaries to match escalating costs. After 20 years, she filed for divorce. In retrospect, I was merely her betabux and disposed of when she got bored.

That was 3 years ago.

Then I started "the wandering" - googling everything that might help answer "WTF just happened??" Chasing every possibility to get some understanding or a promise of closure.

For the first time ever, I tried to understand the men's movements: TRP, MRA, PUA, etc. I found MGTOW resonated best with me. The core message is "We all follow our biology: men are polygamous, women are hypergamous. Employers will exploit your brains and brawn for money. Governments will do the same, but tax you to hell and possibly jail, draft or kill you outright. Good luck navigating it, fucker."

Man, what an epic setup.

It was tough to accept SO MANY people across SO MANY cultures for SO MANY years can maintain the illusion that the Universe is a good place or God will take care of us or there is a woman out there made just for me or doing my patriotic duty is its own reward, or it's important to find my calling, follow my passion, fulfill my destiny, or any other story someone else told me. But, I believed because I needed to believe something and any story partially filled the bottomless hole of meaning for my life.

However, after understanding all of that bullshit AND being able to let it all go (not easy!), I was left with nothing. ZERO. The proverbial carpet pulled out from under me. World blown. And it felt...like shit. What the hell was I supposed to do next?? I certainly wasn't about to ask anyone for more suggestions. I just ended 50 years of trying to do what everyone else said I was supposed to do. Only one option remained, but I had to CHOOSE it as an option, and not pretend (like a victim) that I had no choice. I had to have an original thought and decide what to do next solely because I said so. (That's the secret sauce.)

After choosing to write my own life, it felt...pretty fucking good. Everything after that moment was something I created for myself. Owning 100% of my life is agency - now *I* fuckin' decide what happens for me. To anyone talking a different story, I say "Thanks for sharing" and walk away. I'm immune to cultural, community and personal idea-viruses now.

There is NO promise that anything I do will succeed. But, I own every choice and I either win or I learn. There's no real way to fail, unless one of those mistakes kill me and I'm pretty good at avoiding those...so far.

My favorite saying is from Samuel Beckett: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." But that quote is only part of the prelude to a long, ragged poem about how fucked up it is to understand life or attempt to be something in the world. So I simplified it.

Governments, employers, neighbors, men, women, young, old, peers, strangers, religious, atheists, any race, enemies, friends, family are just NPCs out there filling up my experience. I don't hate them. I don't love them, in the sense that I'd give up MY life in favor of saving one of theirs. They all deal with the voices in their heads, living life the best way they know how (which is rarely great), hunting for ways to survive, using whatever model of the world they have floating around in their brain, and continuously modifying it with the latest event. I get it. I REALLY fucking GET IT.

Frankl said (paraphrasing) "There are only two races of people, decent and indecent." (For context, he survived both Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps in WWII where he saw evil AND kind soldiers, and evil AND kind prisoners.) So I don't care what color your skin is, or where you're from, or how much money you have or don't have, or how old or tall or fit you are, or what culture or country you were raised in. I only care if you're decent. It's too bad there are still a zillion ways to be a shitty, indecent asshole. I practiced a lot of what-not-to-do for most of my life based on my upbringing & education, quite ignorantly.

Now, I'm free to do whatever I want. I pick the jobs that pay enough to feed me and keep me warm. I ride my used motorcycle. I enjoy good whiskey. I work out, finally. I spend time with the people I like, as broken as we are. I give zero fucks to anyone else. If someone wants to be offended, that's in their head, not mine. I read a lot, I cook well enough, I travel here and there. Occasionally, I help someone decent.

So far, so good. I'm not dead yet.

tl;dr: let go of the stories you inherited, write your own life, don't let it kill you, try not to be a prick, have a little fun.