Living on the pulse of my city

I don't keep with people. You may ask why, and I'm not sure. I do like company, but when I get it I sit there wondering "why am I not enjoying this more than I enjoy my lonelyness?"
I am not considered to have a life. I walk in lonelyness and keep it that way.
I walk the crowded streets of the capital city all by myself. Some dislike doing that, there's too many people, they prefer to be alone, having only a few people around...
Is that being alone?
When you are a group of ten, you are noticed and known. When you are one of one million you are just another face in the crowd. That is true lonelyness, that is true freedom. No one will notice you pass by.
I walk these crowded streets and I feel the pulse of the city, I feel the heartbeats of everyone passing by. I hear their million voices, feel their millions of thoughts.
I go down into the subway and I feel the vibrations in the ground, notice billions of little pieces of stone being worn down by air and moist.
I listen to the sound of the escalator, watching people around me going further and further down below ground, into a tunnel where you have hundreds of tons of rock weighing down above you. I feel the voices and emotions and heartbeats of everyone in the tunnel, and I also imagine hearing the footsteps of people far above, above ground. I add their heartbeats and thoughts to those in the tunnel... And feeling this, hearing this, raises something like adrenalin within me, rushing through me, fulfilling me more than any drug ever could...
Is this life, they ask me. All alone in the subway, every day.
Is this life?
I answer them yes, this is life, this is life more intense than most people ever get to live, this is not only your own life, but living by the lifeforce of millions.
This I choose above sitting with people I know, directing my attention only towards them.
You say I should life life to the fullest, well I already am.
You say I've chosen away the joys of youth, I say I've chosen the joys of perception.
You say I've chosen to live in lonelyness.
I say I've chosen to live a life with millions, to life with the city and feed on its pulse. I am a parasite, living on other life, living as long as my host does. The city is my host, and thus the only thing which can decide my lifetime is destiny, because my host never dies.
Is this life, you ask...
Yes, I answer. This is life more complete than you'll ever grasp.