This article makes me really sad. I know this is just my perspective, but this person isn't living -- they're just existing. What are they striving for? Consuming media?
In the article, he writes about what he is striving for: to be able to do things that he wants to do rather than what his employer wants him to do. So from his perspective, he would be living his life while others just work instead of living.
I feel like he needs an existential purpose or threat - everyone does. "Doing what I want" isn't a purpose, in my opinion, but rather a void that needs to be filled with something meaningful.
That's a personal matter. Inside our brain we have two sides - the more primitive brain that just needs safety/food/reproduction/entertainment and the more advanced side that needs to plan and do stuff otherwise it questions it's existence.
People have a different balance of either, so some are happy with just living while others need to do something, anything beyond the basics.
Neither is wrong from a personal point of view - if it makes you happy/fulfilled, that's it.
From a societal perspective those whose primitive brain has more control are seen as useless, however.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs :) I feel like having the food/water/shelter covered isn't enough - fortunate folks eventually hit the self-actualization point. Sounds like the author is now finding more meaning with starting a family (props to him).
