Letters to the Editor
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you may not care, but others like living
Once upon a time I heard a lecturer talk about his wife's struggle with depression. One night they were talking about her suicidality and she spoke of sometimes wanting to steer her car into the oncoming headlights. He said, "But what about the people in the other car?" She hadn't really thought about it.
When I think of you risking life and limb in the desert, I think of the rescue workers who will risk their own lives and limbs to come and find you, should you slip one day and end up in an injured heap. You may not care about your own life, but I guarantee you these folks care about theirs. But they will come to find and help you, because that's what they do.
You don't live life in a vacuum. You may be solitary, but you are connected to others in this way, like it or not. The other drivers you share the highway with, the rescue workers who will peel you off the asphalt, etc.
And yes, much as I hate the knee-jerk way we diagnose each other in today's society, the not-caring you describe sounds a lot like low-grade depression, where the risk-taking is a kind of self-medication, getting the brain chemistry jolted up to a level that makes you feel alive.