Question: "I do get the release of ego and "I" part...where I have difficulties is the detachment. If we are not meant to be engaged, why did we choose these flesh bags? "
Answer: Ok so you are conflating detachment with non-engagement perhaps. Detachment happens automatically when you see the truth: everything happens due to conditions, therefore it's not you doing anything, there's nobody here to be attached to, nor anyone to attach to anyone... ya know? But even the concept of detachment is a tricky one, because it conjures up the notion that there is someone detaching from something (like a dissociative disorder). Perhaps better is "primordial unattachment," but nobody is going to remember to say all that.
As for engagement, it is always the case. Everything is always engaged. I think in Buddhism this is called total exertion. Everything is operating at 100% of its ability. The only reason we can't see that is because of identity clouding the view.
One very divisive idea is love. Many people think that love is something mundane. They think a mother has unconditional love for her children. But that is obviously false, because the mother only has so-called love for her children *because* (she thinks) they are her children. That is completely conditional. At any time she might decide to "disown" them and then consider they are not her children. This happens all the time, especially in my culture (ashkenazi jewish--my grandmother disowned our whole side of the family because i was uncircumcised). Or in the case of a father (or even mother) who somehow finds out via DNA evidence that the child was not theirs. Either due to cheating or maybe switched in the hospital. Now it is a choice: Do I consider the child mine still? Do I still give it my "unconditional" love?
And even this very love itself, what is it? Wishing that someone be happy? But how can we wish for someone to be happy if we do not understand what true happiness is? Buddha's view on happiness is almost diametrically opposed to the common view. Happiness which does not come from letting go of identity is not real happiness. It is the trickster's version of happiness because it keeps you begging for more.
True love arises from true detachment, ironically. Only with true detachment can we realize true happiness, and only then can we have true compassion for others, helping them to realize the great infinite happiness of no self. If all we know is false happiness, then our so-called love will only lead others to suffer more. For example we may know heroin as the ultimate happiness and so we give our partner some heroin. A friend of mine's mother gave her Xanax when she was a kid because she thought Xanax was the ultimate happiness, and of course now she suffers from anxiety. Or we can give affection, thinking that is the ultimate happiness. Of course, affection is very important for humans, especially little humans, but at some point it becomes just another desire to overcome.
As Thusness (from the blog Awakening to Reality) says, "Your letting go must be more thorough than any nihilist. Your presence must be more thorough than any realist."
Now, as for your question of "why did we choose these flesh bags?" Once again, that is assuming 2 things: there is a "we" who chose, and second, that there is such a thing as agency/choice. Everything happens automatically due to conditions, logically, and so whatever "choice" there may have been was the same kind of choice a computer has in executing one piece of code vs another. Just a bunch of if-then statements. But there was a set of conditions that led to this mindstream's "birth" in this flesh bag--and basically it was due to habitual ignorance giving rise to identification with appearances.
When you have a dream, do you choose to identify as a dream character? No, not really, although in a sense yes, because you could have done a lot of meditation beforehand or taken galantamine or something to help you have a lucid dream and break out of identifying with any character in the dream.
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