I felt like my life was being described by the author. However, I don't feel like that anymore. My life changed when I got to be responsible for a kid. There's nothing I rather be doing instead of being with my child; there's no nagging in the back of my mind anymore telling me to go read some more, to come up with the next big thing, to hack something out, to work out math problems.

I still enjoy doing constructive activities, but it's no longer my life's purpose. For me, it's like seeing the 'big picture' of life. I remember, like the author, being extremely impatient with family life and social activities because I would rather be spending time building something, learning something new. Normal human activities seemed boring and purposeless. I made a promise to myself that I would never have a family for the fear of being too draining and becoming frustrated for not having enough time for my projects. All of that vanished in a couple of weeks after meeting my now wife's kid.

The kid I'm responsible for is not my biological child, so it's not just the instinct of caring for my own child that's at play here.

Perhaps that's why the most important scientific discoveries come before scientists have kids; it's not the responsibility and the time suck that impede growth, it's an overwhelming feeling of happiness and indescribable feeling of "doing the right thing" that rearing a child brings.

I honestly thought that child rearing distracted and frustrated parents because they HAD to become selfless. It doesn't feel that way at all. Self-growth seems superficial and meaningless now in the grand scheme of things, and I am a pretty ambitious and obsessed person.