Brin (
brin_bellway) wrote2021-02-15 10:07 am
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All that will be left is the terror of dying
[strong cw: amnesia, unreality]
(somewhat related to the previous post; also inspired by this short story I read recently)
You know those mystics who claim that this world is a roleplaying game higher beings play? That we're all higher beings who deliberately blocked off our memories and otherwise cut ourselves temporarily down to size, so that we could properly experience what being mere mortals is like?
I feel like quite a bit about my personality and history makes a lot of sense if [this is true, and my higher self *immediately regretted the hell* out of this decision].
Like, some subconscious part of me that's still Aware is going "what the hell was I *thinking*, it's *horrible* having a memory so small and fragile, oh god make it *stop*"
---
P.S. I drafted these last two posts on the morning of October 25th, 2019, but decided not to post them until I'd had a chance to actually *do* the book scanning I planned on, to make the previous post about the present and not the future.
That evening, I was re-reading some old dream-journal entries and came across this one:
Aug 26th 2012
The worst part is knowing there's nothing she can do. Nothing she can cling to, nothing to anchor her. Nowhere to keep those oh-so-fragile pieces of self for safekeeping. She's trapped in a bubble universe and it's about to pop. That book she was reading will be gone, and so will the girl reading it. All that will be left is the terror of dying and the Dalek viewpoint of her lovely book and I was so *afraid*...
And the bubble pops and I wake and I scramble and there's nothing almost nothing fragments so few and so small and why.
(For the record, I remembered that this entry existed but hadn't known it was in the particular section I was reading.)
'Well,' I thought. 'Fitting to see that one again, today of all days.'
I hadn't originally planned to give this post a title. I changed my mind.
(somewhat related to the previous post; also inspired by this short story I read recently)
You know those mystics who claim that this world is a roleplaying game higher beings play? That we're all higher beings who deliberately blocked off our memories and otherwise cut ourselves temporarily down to size, so that we could properly experience what being mere mortals is like?
I feel like quite a bit about my personality and history makes a lot of sense if [this is true, and my higher self *immediately regretted the hell* out of this decision].
Like, some subconscious part of me that's still Aware is going "what the hell was I *thinking*, it's *horrible* having a memory so small and fragile, oh god make it *stop*"
---
P.S. I drafted these last two posts on the morning of October 25th, 2019, but decided not to post them until I'd had a chance to actually *do* the book scanning I planned on, to make the previous post about the present and not the future.
That evening, I was re-reading some old dream-journal entries and came across this one:
Aug 26th 2012
The worst part is knowing there's nothing she can do. Nothing she can cling to, nothing to anchor her. Nowhere to keep those oh-so-fragile pieces of self for safekeeping. She's trapped in a bubble universe and it's about to pop. That book she was reading will be gone, and so will the girl reading it. All that will be left is the terror of dying and the Dalek viewpoint of her lovely book and I was so *afraid*...
And the bubble pops and I wake and I scramble and there's nothing almost nothing fragments so few and so small and why.
(For the record, I remembered that this entry existed but hadn't known it was in the particular section I was reading.)
'Well,' I thought. 'Fitting to see that one again, today of all days.'
I hadn't originally planned to give this post a title. I changed my mind.
no subject
I *do* see possibilities that are in between. There's the possibility that we are, not deliberate *games* of higher beings, but more like *dreams* of higher beings: that this is a thing that just happens to them sometimes unless they go out of their way to prevent it (and maybe even then). Since *I* don't contort my life much around having as few dreams or even as few nightmares as possible, I can hardly blame a version of me who thinks on much longer timescales for accepting the risk of having to be me for a few decades. It's not ideal, but there may very well be lower-hanging fruit for improving their life.
no subject
(Less flippantly and more accurately: Clearly I am sufficiently different from my-hypothetical-greater-self that I can't tell why this should be a thing, and that makes me worry that their best interests and mine are not actually well-aligned but if it's pragmatically sensible reason that I'd agree with ... well, fair enough. I hope there is. Maybe it's a teaching tool for skills it's hard to learn when you're used to being ... vast and enduring? To tie into the conversation about practice pandemics and practice famines)