Pathway of Delusion

The path we take in life is often chosen for us! Social status and academic achievements play a large part in the path we are directed onto! The two main characters Robbie Watson and Stuart Bell started out on the same path. Their working-class background and their low educational qualifications fated them into the working life of hard physical work as painters and decorators. They travelled this path together until Stuart due to traumatic events in his life: A bad work accident that exposed the ruthlessness of the employers he worked for. The early death of his wife, brother and parents made him decided to step onto another path that took him to a place where self-interest, greed and underhanded business dealings were prevalent. He excelled in this environment and became a ruthless multi-millionaire businessman. He would have to take another path when he came up against a more powerful force that took away his empire and controlled through Stuart's sons. Stuart found redemption and happiness with a new young wife and daughter in France where he had retired to an old chateau he had restored. With his wife, he started restoring old chateau's and selling them to the wealthy people whom he had sot to join. His life of happiness was short-lived on his death he left the bulk of his fortune for the benefit of the community he grew up in. Robbie stayed on his path all his life! His love of his family drove him to work as hard as he could to provide for them and for him and his wife to have a comfortable retirement. His plans came to an abrupt end with the death of his wife early in their retirement also the death of his father and a friend so close to each other left him in a wilderness of Delusion that he had suffered all those years of hard graft and exploration of greedy employers for nothing. A life of loneliness awaited him as his children had moved away from the town. What saved him from his long walks around town looking for a purpose to his life was the taking up of the mantel of his wife and father; They had been active members of the community they had tried to preserve the dying working-class community centred around the mining industry the town had been built for. Robbie took up their mantle and initiated many community-based projects and brought people together to take them further and improve them. He became an internet sensation with his podcasts about the town and the history of the area and people. Stuart Bell's money and Robbie's talent for bringing people together transformed and empowered the community to take control of it for the benefit and inclusiveness of all its inhabitants. Robbie and Stuart set out on the same path in life, then travelled on different paths through their lives to end up in the same destination; back where their hearts had always been amongst the family and community they loved. The delusion that life is about chasing the sparkly object of material wealth can easily set people on a path to a lonely place of self-interest that empathy for others ceases to live in their hearts if humankind travel on the path to a dog eats dog world of the big dog eats the little dogs eventually the big dog runs out of little dogs to eat and starves to death. This story portrays that without mutual cooperation and common interest of love of close family and the family of the greater community desolation and extinction awaits the human race.