Why would I?

I don’t like living in the city. I don’t like rising before the sun to a chorus of sirens. I don’t like looking out with ancient eyes that expect sweeping plains and sparkling rivers and the green shade of towering forests only to see an unnatural collage of grey-brown rectangles instead. I don’t like searching for lukewarm fragments of human interaction to stave off the loneliness that advances nonetheless like an eternal rising tide in that accursed sea of cubes.

I don’t like having a career. I don’t like choreographing my motions to provide value to stakeholders. I don’t like pretending that I care, or pretending that I don’t. The concept of a title or a role bothers me—I feel a twinge of hopelessness each time I’m reduced to a sheet of paper. 24 years of raw, wonderful, intricate life, all for what? To finally attain, at long last, the honored rank of SWE II?

I don’t want to buy anything in particular. I don’t care about expensive meals or nice clothing or branded luxuries. I’m happy to wear ratty t-shirts and eat steamed lentils every day. The things I love are mostly free: hot sencha, the Internet, the boisterous company of friends and the silent company of trees, the warmth of the sun, books about science and about adventure, drawing, writing, thinking.

I could use an apartment, or a house, but I can also do without—traveling is cheap, hostels are cheap, my friends’ couches and my room in my parents’ house are free, and I have a tent for all the other times.

I’ve never felt like I wanted a family. I feel so peaceful and free by myself. I don’t know how I could ever let that go. There are times like today that I want to sit in a quiet room and concentrate until I can wring some fresh answers from the sponge between my ears. There are times when I get up in the morning and walk until the cold of night forces me home. There are times when my personal safety is my second, fifth, or twelfth priority. There are times when the presence of others feels like a chloroform rag pressed softly but insistently over my face.

In these circumstances, why would I enter the arena? I already have everything that I want.