A reflection on role loss

I slept in as long as I wanted.
And still I don't feel at ease.

Is it because my mind is that way, so my body is too?
I feel stiff. An unfresh burp comes up. 

The living room temperature is just right, and the air purifier and humidifier are busy doing their jobs. Outside, sunlight slips through the curtains — one hand stroking the cheek of the canvas set against the living room wall, the other resting on the bookshelf in the study.

Absent-minded me didn't see that light until then. As if seeing and gazing were two different things.

I ground the beans by hand — drrr, drrr — boiled water, and brewed coffee.

By the time the scent of coffee pulled me back, the sunlight had probably already left. Suddenly, an old friend crossed my mind. Some kind of fog and clarity swept over me at once.


And only then did I think:
why can't I savor this moment, when I can be so perfectly lazy?


I chose a self-imposed leave to break free from externally given roles and their inertia, but as time went by, my sense of freedom and self-directed will grew weaker.
No one's pressing me for money, no one's pressuring me, yet it felt like something was pressing down on me.
Looking back, last year at work was similar. The mat was laid out and I could do whatever I wanted, but I couldn't enjoy it. The Daejeon-Cheonan, Sejong-Seoul commutes became not hardship but a convenient excuse. I was always chased and always pecked at. The results were just ahead, but my mind and stamina — and everyone else's — were also right at the Maginot line.

A squirrel feels a brief thrill on its wheel, but the more it answers that thrill, the stronger the inertia becomes. The moment it stops, it tumbles forward and gets flung out of the wheel. But no squirrel actually gets flung out. It simply runs until it can't anymore, and only when it slows from exhaustion does it finally exit the wheel.
How is life any different? By the moment you become aware of the wheel, it may already be too late. You may know and still not stop, or be so soaked in inertia that you don't even recognize that you need to get out. Then, when your own strength runs out and your pace slows, only then might you be able to step outside.

But I stopped. The moment I realized — this has become a daily life where I can only run on inertia and can't stop — I stopped. And as if to make a point, I'm being flung out. I wanted to escape from that fierce inertia, that dependency born of habit. I chose this path to live a professional life rather than a company life, but my body aside, my ideas haven't yet left the wheel. Nausea rises. Like Camus' stranger trapped behind bars, I just wander in and out of reverie.
I feel like I've become The Stranger, unable to find a thread to turn reverie into reality, just waiting for the day of judgment.

Listening to the late-morning news, I happened to hear the phrase "role loss."
Maybe I'm unable to settle down because of role loss.

I had to do something, anything. Small successes were fine.
But even when I barely achieved such small successes, the hunger and emptiness didn't change much.
Not being "something" to someone was different from a sense of accomplishment.
It seems the important thing is not "to have achieved something" but "what I achieved contributed somewhere (to someone)."
Ah — that's why we're called people, sapiens. That thought came in a flash. Humans as social animals may not live for survival in the ease of a plentiful life, but may find their reason to exist in the process of performing some role for some someone.

Ten steps by one person is worse than one step by ten people. (from the film Malmoi)

It also made me think this is similar to AI computers. Were humans — sapiens — created in such a way, for such a purpose?
I thought: when the creators discover that their creations develop by forming relationships (role-sharing) with each other, that sense of wonder may align with the awe we humans feel as we watch AI learn on its own.

Sapiens born in typical nations play role-games through school and workplace, for almost their entire lives.

Is this maybe why we agonize over our reason for being?
If so, could we find that reason for being in other people?

A person with self-esteem might only need the trust of one person, while a person with strong pride might need many, no?