I don't want to live forever.
People don't see with their eyes. If you don't study art, you might not have any conception of what an artist does to 'study'. Early study and exercises are about accepting your natural line and recognizing that the only path to better art is making a fuckton of art.
Everything else? It's about learning to see. People can't see many things. I'm certain some people can see some things I can't see. We are all watching Plato's allegory of the cave, only instead of denying us a platonic ideal, it's just a made up story by your brain.
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Your brain creates a narrative out of sensory input and makes up a fictional image and that's what you see. A lot of art is just colloquial shared knowledge on how to trick the eye. E.g. leaving a space next to a line indicates that one object is in front of another, and the bigger the space, the farther the distance.
Literally fooling the eye so you 'see' depth on a two-dimensional surface.
You are being shown a movie of your surroundings. Do you ever wonder what reality is really like?
There is very little disagreement about the fact that physical law does not prevent the complete replacement of the human body. Some futurists claim we'll be uploading brains by 2040. This is not an unrealistic estimate. What specifically will happen and in what order is unclear, personal power flight is here, auto driving is here, drones, now controllable via brain chip, synthetic blood, HIV resistant genetically engineered people, and a lot more are already here.
I have schizophrenia.
I cope with it very well, but it doesn't go away. It becomes ignorable. It tells me things, that mostly, aren't true. Sometimes they are, and that makes it difficult. It is not fun. It is not cool. Sometimes I will see something, and become possesses by an idea of reference. I don't want to. But the sensation and power of certainty and belief is often overwhelming.
I suffer from clinical paranoia (which is related to the diagnosis. I am not a paranoid schizophrenic which is another much more severe type of schitzophrenia.) This is a terrible thing to have. It's basically a voice that is always communicating what the worst possible outcomes are.
I don't want to be obtuse. I don't like to leave my car running, because the engine might catch on fire. Right? When the car is running, and I can't see it, it's difficult to accomplish anything because I'm concerned about the impending fire.
This is irrational. But not impossible. This is one example, it's non-stop. Currently I can feel a spot on my head, and it's telling me that it's likely infected and will spread to my brain. It is not very likely that I'm going to die from an imaginary infection. The paranoia is not temporary or intermittent. It is better with medication.
The problem is, sometimes the paranoia is right. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't watching. Sometime it leads me to figure out things like if an old girlfriend cheated on me, because the paranoia made me overanalyze her behavior.
Sometimes it leads me to think, and occasionally accuse, people of things they are not doing. Sometimes it's very hard to tell.
Life has been going well lately, but it's always like walking down a corridor hearing people fight in rooms nearby. I couldn't imagine an eternity of having to deal with that.
There are a non-trivial number of very intelligent people who believe that this world is simulated, and this tracks with my personal out of body experiences. As a youth I was a staunch skeptic and philosophical materialist. I might still be, but I think I'm finally wise enough to be uncertain.
If it were a simulated world? If it was, perchance, after I had filled every possible desire; seeking something more engaging, deciding to plug into a simulation where you don't know you are in one for an authentic experience. And if you were going to do something like that, wouldn't you choose a time of great upheaval? One perhaps that sees the shifting of an epoch?
Probably not. It's a little too much solipsism and ego indulgence.
We are all, hurtling through a literal endless void (no foolin!), on a small rock. Maybe don't sweat the small stuff, schedule a D&D game, and be a little less certain.
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