"You're most welcome," I beamed. "At least you've got time to find her."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, think about it. You're a man. You can run around the world, building your career and legacy, then settle down in your forties when you meet the right woman. You have plenty of time. I don't have that luxury."

"Your life doesn't stop when you hit thirty, Nikki."

"No, no, just listen," I said. "I've thought very deeply about this issue of growing up. If you're a woman who wants to have kids in her early thirties, you need to have your shit together a good ten years earlier than men do. You, Zachary Borrowdale, have ten more years to take risks, and try things, and fail, and find yourself, and build financial security — all without considering the needs of anyone else. Ten years! That is double the time I get! Maybe more, if you settle down in your mid-forties."

"Firstly," Zac replied, "being a man is kinda brutal. You're nothing, unless you make something of yourself. No one cares about you, unless you achieve."

"Wait a minute," I said. "I cared about you, before you'd achieved anything."

"But, in general, men are pretty invisible and disposable to society, up until the point where they prove themselves, and achieve something. But as a woman, you inherently have value, regardless of anything you achieve. And you can still achieve things in your thirties."

"I see where you're coming from, but I don't know if that's true for me," I said. "I see this image in the media of a modern Wonder Woman who can do it all, and do it all at the same time. She can grow a human inside of her, give birth, nurse, cook, clean, get back into shape, maintain a social life, and kill it in the workplace — then do it all again with her next child.

And then I'm told that women can do it all because they are excellent multitaskers, and it's kinda a running joke that men can't multitask. But I can't multitask! Seriously. I'm the world's worst multitasker. If you give me one ball to juggle, I will juggle the fuck out of that ball. But give me multiple balls to juggle, and I will drop them all, then self-destruct. Does that make me a bad woman?"

"No..."

"I bet my sister could do it. When I think of a modern woman, I think of her. She is killing it in her career, and has grown a startup to many, many tens of million in sales. Yet she still has time to look hot, stay healthy, socialize, remember to buy gifts for her friend's birthdays, organize bridal showers, go on weekend wine-tasting trips and long annual holidays, call Mom, and do just about everything else. Plus, she has the biggest heart and I simply admire her and love her to pieces.

But I just know what I'm like, and I'm not a good 'modern woman' like her. I can't multithread my life like she can. I can only have one major priority at a time, and that priority gets all of my focus.

So maybe I can still do some light, creative projects on the side when I enter that phase of my life, but my priorities will change. I can't just take crazy, impulsive risks because my intuition tells me to. I'll need to optimize my life for a baseline level of security and order, not chaos and instability. Chaos is a prerequisite for innovation, and, as a man, you get to experience ten more years of pure unregulated chaos than I do. When you analyze the biological constraints of this system, is it any wonder that men have produced most of the world's innovations?"

"But what's wrong with that?" Zac asked. "At least innovation is happening. Who cares whether men or women produce the things that push society forward?"

"I don't care who innovates. I care that people are happy and their needs are being met. And when all the innovators are men, female perspectives are not heard.

I mean, look at menstruation, for example. Half the population menstruates, yet we have had no innovative new products in that space for many decades. It was only recently that some frustrated women came along and created new products to manage something that almost every second person experiences every month. And even then, these women had trouble getting venture capitalists — the overwhelming majority of which are men — to understand the issue they were addressing.

In theory, capitalism should take care of this problem. Presumably, if there is money to be made from something, the innovation will occur. But that doesn't really work when the men who have the privilege of being innovators and gatekeepers of resources, can't see and don't understand the problems they are supposed to be solving.

Anyway, I'm not complaining about biology, per se. It just is what it is. But I am getting to the age where these things are starting to matter to me. I'm not twenty-two anymore. If I want certain things in my life, like marriage and children, I need to stop fucking around with all these crazy high-risk creative projects and optimize my life for some semblance of security. Most people who share our nomadic lifestyle are men, and I just don't see them having to make the same trade-offs in their decision making that I have to. I know that being a man comes with its own set of challenges, and I'm empathetic to that perspective, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little envious."

Zac stared off into the distance.

"What?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm just imagining you as a 1950s housewife, baking in the kitchen. Then your husband returns home, and you say to him 'Honey, I had the most brilliant idea about Einstein's theory of relativity as the scones were rising.' And then he takes you in his arms and says, 'Darling, don't be silly. Women don't have ideas-'"

"Hey!-" I laughed.

"-And then you get upset with him, and he says 'Sweetie, why don't you do something useful with all those revolutionary ideas and emotions and feelings. Just whisk them together, and put them in a Bundt cake for me."

I cradled my head in my hands as my stomach began spasming from laughter. "Mmm... tastes like misogyny."

"Ah," Zac sighed. "I am such an asshole."

"You are."

"So, what are you going to do about your little life dilemma?" Zac asked, once the laughter died down.

I shrugged. "I dunno. I guess..."

"What?"

"Well, I want to get married and have a family. I do. I want everything this world has to offer. Everything. I want it all. But I just feel like there's more chaos for me to explore first. There are more big risks for me to take. I just feel like there is something I need to do alone, before I'm ready for that next phase in my life."

"Like what? What do you have to do?"

"I dunno," I replied as I tossed a pebble in the air. "It's just a feeling. I think I have to find myself; save myself."

"Save yourself from what?"

"The oblivion of non-realization."

"What does that even mean?"

I turned to Zac. "You know, this is the most liberating realization that I've ever had in my life: no one is coming to save you. No one. Nothing. You have to save yourself."

"But I do like the idea of a hero out there, protecting others," Zac said.

"Then you don't understand what I'm saying. You have to save yourself. Be your own hero. Answer the call to adventure that beckons you to discover who you really are, instead of letting the world decide that for you. Stop wishing the world would change while you sit back and do nothing to change yourself. You are the world. When you change, the world does, too. It's like what Charles Bukowski-"

"Who's Charles Bukowski?"

"A poet. He rose to fame in the seventies, I think. He said — 'I was waiting for something extraordinary to happen, but as the years wasted on, nothing ever did unless I caused it.'

It's funny, actually. Our entire society buys into these stories and illusions and fantasies that someone or something is going to suddenly come into our lives and save us from our problems and our mediocre existence. Little girls are taught that a handsome, rich, perfect prince will ride in on a big, black Friesian horse and rescue them, and they'll live happily ever after. You see this fantasy permeating all kinds of hugely popular novels, like Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey. They follow the same formula: a very average, very ordinary, somewhat boring girl becomes the object of affection of a high-status man. She did nothing to earn this affection. She isn't particularly funny or kind or confident or fun. She didn't have to work for it, or fail at it, or take risks, or try to find herself and develop her character through trial and error, and overcoming obstacles. She just existed, and he saved her from her 'normal' life. He made it extraordinary, with very little input on her behalf. The prize was handed to her on a silver platter.

And it's not just little girls who are fed this lie. It's infected every aspect of our society. Millions of men and women buy lottery tickets or get-rich-quick schemes every week, hoping that a sudden financial windfall will save them. Religious people pin their hopes for salvation on a holy figure like Jesus. 'New Age' people think The Secret is going to save them. If they can just think positively about having a million dollars, then all that money will fall into their lap without them having to change anything about themselves. Lovers believe there is a soulmate out there who will 'complete them,' as if they were less than whole to begin with. Our culture even romanticizes this codependency. People vote into power a government that they believe will save them, but often the politicians just save and serve themselves.

The truth is, no one is coming to save you. Not a prince, not a lottery win, not Jesus, not superstition, not a soulmate, not the government, and not the universe. No one. Even if someone swoops in to assist, you still need to reach out your hand and grab theirs. You still need to accept the help and save yourself. The task still rests on your shoulders to be the best version of yourself that you can be, and root for yourself. No one can do that for you.

And isn't that liberating? Isn't that an empowering idea? We cling to these illusions because we don't want to see the Truth: that we all have to save ourselves, and in doing so, we can help save each other. We have to lift ourselves up, which in turn gives us the strength to lift up another. We have to be the change we want to see in the world, instead of expecting everyone and everything else to change for us. God says, 'I will do nothing for you that you will not do for yourself-'"

"But God doesn't exist," Zac interjected.

"I mean 'God' in a pantheistic sense, not a religious sense. When you move, the universe moves — because you and the universe are the same thing. When you lift yourself up, the universe lifts you up — because you and the universe are the same thing. When you save yourself, the universe saves you — because you and the universe are the same thing. The universe will do nothing for you that you will not do for yourself. That's how it works. But as long as you keep waiting for things to change, and for someone or something to come along and make your life incredible, nothing will happen."

"This all sounds a bit woo woo-"

"It's not woo woo," I said. "If you look at the logic and evidence critically, it's kinda obvious that reality is a physical experience of your own consciousness. I don't have a full scientific explanation for it yet, but I'm positive I'm onto something with this. If you poke and prod reality enough, you'll start to notice the same patterns I've observed."

"Like what?" Zac asked. "What patterns?"