"Dirk" is a portrait of modern Dutch masculinity in crisis, following one man's life from age 25 to 75—fifty years of motion without movement, optimization without purpose, freedom that leads nowhere.

We meet Dirk at forty-three on a treadmill in Amsterdam, running 12.1 kilometers while traveling zero meters. Through three interconnected sections, we trace his story: from the gym where he builds strength for nothing, back through the timeline of his relationship with Marloes (whom he lost by perpetually postponing family life), forward to a care facility garden where at seventy-five he walks the same circles in a wheelchair, a letter from the Levenseindekliniek in his pocket.

This is a story about the mathematics of wasted time. About a man who optimized everything except living. About the peculiarly Dutch efficiency of avoiding life through perfect routine. Dirk calculated everything—macros, compound interest, fertility windows, treadmill distances—except what mattered. He chose freedom over commitment, optimization over connection, metrics over meaning.

The essay examines how modern culture creates these men: sealed in gyms and apps, running on machines, building LinkedIn profiles instead of families, tracking every metric except happiness. It's about Amsterdam as a city of beautiful surfaces and lonely people, where success means owning property on the Herengracht but having no one to share it with.

At seventy, Dirk walks forty-three meter circles in his Hilversum residence garden—the exact length of a life spent running in place. Marloes visits as a grandmother of five. Her daughter's children call him "Opa Dirk," though he never had children. Memory fragmenting, time collapsing, he wonders what will flash before the end: the treadmill display showing kilometers traveled, meters unmoved? The kitchen whiteboard where Marloes drew timelines he erased? All the times he said "after" when he meant "never"?

This is the autobiography of every man who mistook motion for progress, discipline for purpose, freedom for life. A clinical study in the Dutch art of dying while perfectly healthy. The story of a man who posthumously lived his entire existence in the future tense—always "after," never "now"—until there was no future left, just forty-three meters of garden path, worn smooth by all the circles, all the residents who walked there before him, who'll walk there after him, everyone taking turns going nowhere in perfect, measured formation.

An austere meditation on time, choice, and the modern condition. About the machines we become when we optimize ourselves out of humanity. About how the most documented lives can be the least lived. About the terrible freedom of having every choice and making none.

"Dirk" asks: What happens to the men who choose the gym over family, career over connection, optimization over existence? The answer walks in circles in a Dutch care facility, every lap precisely measured, every meter counted, arriving nowhere with perfect efficiency.