Word Count: 291

I don't want to be optimal.

I am not a process, I don't need to be streamlined. I don’t want enough money to waive every single hassle a person experiences. I don't need to remove all distractions, to utilize every second of the day, even though it haunts me that I'm not productive all the time. My days are not always fruitful, and full of wasted potential; an optimized me, a perfect rendition, would be producing useful and creative ideas without rest, surely.

And yet, that version of me would never visit an art gallery, or play badminton with his friends, or go on a hike, or play video games, or travel to his parents for the weekend, or plan a date night for his girlfriend, or practice the drums, or read a fantasy book, or go grocery shopping, or meet someone new, or learn something new, or experience something new, or feel something new.

I believe these are the things that ought to matter. We are human not because of our desire to acquire capital and material goods that make our lives easier – although pretending these concerns don’t exist is ill-advised – but because of the rest of it. How we choose to interact with others, the respect we pay to them and our surroundings, the time we take to simply be, to make mistakes and learn and grow and care and be better.

I still have to figure out my relationship with money, what constitutes comfortable living, and how this relates to my continued ability to enter and revel in human experiences with others, but until those ideas simmer down in my head, I guess I’ll settle for chucking my soul into Gurobi and see what pops out.