And Oddvar was like: I know. I know. Your kindness and generosity astound me. But I’m done with that chapter of my life. There’s nothing you could do or say to convince me otherwise. When the flood happened, I was plunged into a deep depression. I couldn’t leave my room for days. I looked out my window at the ice and thought: Why not just walk out there and keep walking? Why not leave the vault with no clothes and no supplies and go meet Nature face-to-face to see how much she cares about my love for her? What will it be worth to her that I’ve spent my life in service of her preservation? What will it be worth to her that I’ve invested so much in the preservation of my species? I thought about all the seeds I had cataloged, all the days and nights I had spent printing out labels and sorting boxes, all the grant applications I’d filled out, all the phone calls I’d made, all the emails I’d sent back and forth with all the other seed vaults around the world, and I realized that it all amounted to nothing. It was all just a little club, a little game that a few sad idiots were playing to keep themselves occupied in the cold. It was a lie we had all told ourselves so that we could feel like we had some agency against the vast, uncaring power of the Universe. What could be more arrogant than to think you could bargain with Nature? Who could be so foolish? And then I remembered: This isn’t all I have. This isn’t the sum of who I am. I thought my work at the seed vault was my deepest connection with humanity, but in fact, it was my other life, what I had thought of before as my secondary life, where I had been harboring my REAL humanity. I’m a FAN. I’m your biggest fan. And, in a way, that makes me the biggest fan of humanity itself. I remembered the way I felt when I first heard “Don’t Look Back” all those years ago, and I realized that as long as I still had your voice, as long as humanity could still foster something as powerful and beautiful as your talent, there was still something meaningful that I could do. There was still some way that I could be useful to my fellow man. And so I resolved right then and there to begin my new life and move to Los Angeles.

And I was like: You’re moving here?

And he was like: Yes! Most of my things are still in Spitsbergen, but this is where I was meant to be! This is where I belong!

And I was like: Oddvar, what are you even gonna DO here?

And Oddvar was like: Well, actually, that’s what I wanted to come talk to you about …

And then he just launched into this crazy monologue about how he wanted to come work for me. Like, he started rattling off all of these ideas he had for my career, and he pulled out his own tattoo map of my body—like, he KNEW we hired a graphic designer to draw one up. I talked to him about it a bunch of times—but for whatever reason, he spent all this time drawing up his own super-detailed diagram, and, like, it looked fine, I guess, but it was still like: Why did you waste all your time doing this, you know? What do you want ME to do with it?