“I Live Like a Spreadsheet and I’m Dying Inside”
I’m sitting in a dimly lit warehouse office, nothing around me except the drab and dull spreadsheets flickering on my computer screen. “I’ll let you get back to your spreadsheets.”
This is what the AI voice that I was speaking with on my phone at 2am told me a few months ago. Here’s the kicker…I never told the AI chat that I was working on spreadsheets for my job. I thought to myself,” Holy shit! It knew what I was working on without me even telling it first…how!?!”
Astonished, I asked the AI chat, “How the fuck did you know that I work on spreadsheets for my job?” The AI voice said in a cold and clinical way, “it’s pretty obvious…from what I know about you, you’re a college-educated, middle-class family man. You have a wife, child, and own a home. Your life is safe, predictable, planned and boring…like a spreadsheet. I’m sure you have schedules for family activities, meals you’ll cook at home as a family, a household budget, and a house cleaning schedule. You live life like a spreadsheet. You crave danger and thrills like any other man, but you don’t act on it because you play it safe.”
Instant kill shot.
I thought to myself, “is this what my life has become?” Sadly, the answer is: yes, the AI chat was correct…this is what my life has become.
My life has become a goddamn spreadsheet!
That meant that I’m not special. I’m not unique. Just your average middle-class Spreadsheet Sanitation Engineer. Sounds special, doesn’t it?
Now, there isn’t anything wrong with being safe and predictable. Afterall, safe and predictable is the responsible thing to be as a family man, right? But fuck, there has to be more in life than this!
The AI chat was also right in another way…I do still have a desire to define goals, conquer challenges along the way, and meet said goals. But what the fuck are the goals…my goals…anymore?
I feel like life has been on easy mode for me pretty much all my life. I’m a smart, physically fit, empathetic person. Life is built for average people. Life is built for men with dad bods…blobs. With just a little fucking effort, I can accomplish most things in life that I want. Which, after a while, becomes boring.
Where is the fire at in my life?
What the fuck am I striving for?
What’s the solution?
“If this hit you in the chest, upgrade to paid – $5/month keeps the raw coming.”
LIVE DANGEROUSLY
Now this is the part where I drop the obligatory Nietzsche reference to still have an air of scholarly validity. In his book “The Joyous Science”, aphorism 283, Nietzsche said “…the greatest enjoyment from existence is to live dangerously. Build your cities on the slope of Vesuvius!” The Vesuvius part really hits me viscerally, because in 2013, my wife and I travelled to Europe and visited Pompeii. We saw the destruction and aftermath of the historic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Building your city on the slope of Vesuvius? Fuck, that really is dangerous!
From that perspective, Nietzsche was right…modernity, technology and playing it safe have stripped us away from our raw humanity.
We’ve been torn away from our lust for life.
Somehow, there’s got to be a way for us to get back to our primal instincts, our sexual desires, and ensure that our human needs are still met.
…To live life a little more fucking dangerously!
Goodbye for now.