The Agony and the Ecstasy of Boyhood

We knew from a young age that a heavy burden was to be
placed on our shoulders with the mere passing of time. A
sequence of apparently random rituals of passage, one more
grueling than the other. The scars would accumulate, mauling
the shiny armor of innocence, eventually exposing a
survivalist automaton whose sole purpose in life is to appear
to society in a certain way. In the center of it all, a delicate
breeze. Every know and then, the ecstasy of conquer, yet
mostly a troupe, a facade. The reckoning (i.e. the agony)
would triumphantly arrive one day when, in the last gasp of
air, something or someone would unveil to us the brutal truth:
at the end of it all nothing really matters.

Taken from In Prose by Ezekiel Arduroy, p. 17 (1976, Derry House)

Originally posted by Seitse
We knew from a young age that a heavy burden was to be
placed on our shoulders with the mere passing of time. A
sequence of apparently random rituals of passage, one more
grueling than the other. The scars would accumulate, mauling
the shiny armor of innocence, eventually exposing a
survivalist automaton whose sole purpose in life is to appear
...[text shortened]... really matters.

Taken from [b]In Prose by Ezekiel Arduroy, p. 17 (1976, Derry House)[/b]

I disagree.