A young man gazed at his peers hurtling unquestioningly toward an uninspired cookie-cutter future so unappealing that if he followed suit, he would never in his old age forgive his present self for the cowardly choices he settled for under the thoroughly ironic seduction of predictability and stability. It was in their twenties that his peers had bowed their heads and silently coffined the bold dreams of their youth, and it would be in middle age that they emotionlessly rolled these boxes of dead ambition away into cremation chambers. Our young man swore this was not a life for him.

His life would be thrilling and dangerous. He was an international man of mystery, and by way of his intrepid travels and daring businesses he collected adventures and tales so impressive he had completely abandoned all semblance of normalcy in his life. But in opposing the inherited societal cultures of ......