Because we live in this crazy world where we have to fight for every scrap, and I’m constantly scared that, if I slow down, life is just gonna pass me by. Everything moves so quickly, so chaotically, so uncaringly fast, threatening at all times to mow us down or overtake us. And so I speed up, too! I join the rat race! I know it’s unhealthy, I know it’s wrong, but I can’t slow down. It’s why I burned down that school! It’s why I blame everything on the Mongols and the World Bank and the I.M.F. and Robert Mugabe and Cecil Rhodes and Immanuel Kant and Freud and Maslow and Chomsky and your mother! But it’s me. It’s just me! That’s why I wanted you to strap in. I wanted you to strap in because the “seat belt” is just a frail bandage holding together my reckless life!
My Nephew Has Some Questions by Jesse Eisenberg (The New Yorker)