That all changed though when I moved from the U.S. to Europe. I moved to Germany a few years ago with modest savings, learned the language, started studying philosophy (which is what I currently do, and it doesn't cost me a thing), and got a job teaching English (which is basically off the charts bearable compared to all other jobs I've had).

None of this required any serious form of luck. ANYONE could do this. What stops Americans from doing this, in my experience, is that they don't really think it's real, or they believe whatever crazy ideas about Europe they've picked up from American inculturation. I suppose it would also be hard for any sci-fi dystopian hero to believe that all they have to do to escape is catch a plane.

Before moving here and spending some time, the modern condition seemed completely insane. But what I discovered is that what I was experiencing wasn't actually "the modern condition". Instead, what I found completely insane was American culture -- something I still take to be completely insane. When I go back now though, I see it from outside. It's sort of just like some crazy theme park.

I realized that I wasn't able to ground myself in either the world I grew up in or the world I was to be a part of. I lost the ability to want to 'help people', to 'be successful', or to 'have meaningful experiences'. I began to view all concepts, beliefs, values, ideas, words, feelings, emotions, thoughts, actions, relationships, as equally arbitrary.
...
Formerly warm, trusting, empathetic, and affectionate relationships suddenly felt cold, artificial, cynical, and pathetic. Socializing in groups of close friends used to give me a narcotic/anxiolytic high not unlike benzodiazepines + a small amount of cocaine, but now the experience felt somehow menacing, inauspicious, and draining.

Welcome to my world. I mean, there's stuff in the full post I don't relate to, but all those things he has lost, I barely had in the first place. My first day of kindergarten felt "menacing, inauspicious, and draining," as did the rest of my time in schools, jobs, even most parties.

I've never felt grounded in any aspect of modern society. Belonging is not something I've lost, but something I've never experienced -- except that some music makes me feel like I belong in a luminous world outside the walls of this one. Like a sci-fi dimension shifter stuck in a Kafka hellworld, I try to remain cheerful and keep trying different stuff, but I'm not sure if there's something I'm supposed to be doing here or if it's just a big accident.

Teachers always got frustrated that I was smart but not interested in anything they were teaching. In college the few papers I actually enjoyed writing were punished by my lowest grades. I traveled around America by car, train, bus, and hitchhiking, but didn't find any place that felt any better. I visited multiple back-to-the-land communities, I tried homesteading, I thought total technological collapse would be a good thing, and now I think those are all false escapes.

So I understand why young people are drawn to forbidden politics and chaos. But why the right wing? To me, the right is all about flags and uniforms, which I find repulsive. These people think they're Nietzschean heroes, but in a movie they'd all be the buddy character -- they haven't given up enough on belonging. The recent left thinks individualism has gone too far, but I think it hasn't gone far enough. It's like when something dies, it breaks down into toxic molecules before it breaks down into soil and air and water.

My latest utopian vision, which is probably still inadequate, is to use automation and a guaranteed basic income to gradually universalize dropout culture. One percent, then ten percent, and finally nearly one hundred percent of humans will just putter around all day following their peculiar obsessions, as long as they don't interfere with others doing the same, and eventually these atomized individuals will reconnect into a new living polyculture.