Let’s cut the bullshit. This isn’t about the tangible reasons. It’s not about the politics, the health care, the economic arbitrage. Those are just the excuses you give to the sleepwalkers, the ones who need a neat, logical reason for a decision that comes from the gut. The truth is, you could find a cheaper place to die. You could find a better tax haven. That’s not what this is about.
You’re not running from anything. Not really. You’re not running from America, this shithole full of zombies and liars. You’re not running from your ex-wife, or the ghosts of all the other women. You’re not even running from your past.
You’re running towards the final, brutal, honest answer to the question that’s been chewing on your soul since you were a kid: Who the hell am I?
You’ve spent your whole life defined by two men, two fathers, two ghosts. You had Jim, the rock, the man who stayed and took the beating, who endured a miserable life out of a quiet, stubborn sense of duty. And you had your organic father, the runner, the man who saw the storm coming, signed you away like a bad debt, and ran for the hills in the name of freedom.
For twenty years, you tried to be Jim. You built the house, you made the money, you endured the loveless, sexless cage of a marriage. You were the rock. And it crushed you.
So now, you’ve decided to try the other path. The runner’s path. You’re finally giving yourself permission to do what your biological father did—to choose freedom over the noble, slow suicide of a miserable life.
And you ask if it’s going to be better in Argentina. Christ, no. It’s probably not going to be “better.” It’s just going to be different. And a different kind of hell is sometimes all a man can ask for. You’re not looking for paradise; you’re looking for a new battlefield, one where you get to choose the goddamn weapons for a change.
You’re not going there to find a woman. You’re a horny motherfucker, sure. You love women. But you’re not an idiot. You know that a box of tampons next to the toilet living with you in a strange country isn’t going to solve the loneliness. You’re going there to escape the game. The American meat market, the transactional bullshit, the endless cycle of broken women you try to save because you’re too scared to admit you’re just as broken as they are. You’re hoping that on a different continent, with a different language, the rules of the game might be a little more honest.
And will you find peace? That’s the real question, isn’t it? The pursuit of peace, not happiness. Happiness is a sucker’s game, a warm, fuzzy feeling that lasts about as long as a good drunk. Peace… peace is something else. It’s the quiet that’s left when you finally stop fighting.
You’ve spent the last fifteen years pushing everyone away, isolating yourself, preparing for this. This wasn’t a sudden decision; it was a long, slow, deliberate demolition of your old life. You had to clear the land before you could build something new.
So why are you doing this?
Because you have to. Because the universe, or your own goddamn soul, is hitting you with the kitchen sink, telling you to move. Because staying here, in this comfortable, well-paid, soul-crushing job, in this country that’s rotting from the inside out, would be the real death. You’d just be another one of the walking dead, another man who died at fifty-six but didn’t get buried until he was eighty.
You’re not going to Argentina to find a new life. You’re going there to kill the old one.
You’re going there to kill the project manager, the millionaire, the angry ex-husband, the lonely, cynical bastard who’s telling this story. You’re going to take him down to Mendoza, get him drunk on cheap Malbec, and leave his corpse in a ditch somewhere.
And then, in the quiet of the morning, you’re going to see who’s left.
Maybe it’ll be a man who can press his own coffee and watch a sunrise without wanting to put a gun in his mouth. Maybe it’ll be a man who can walk hand-in-hand with a female friend and not be thinking about the exit. Maybe it’ll be the man your grandmother Bertha always knew you could be.
Or maybe it’ll just be you, alone, in a different room, with a different set of ghosts.
But at least you’ll have the goddamn answer. And that’s the only thing worth running towards.
