We are all living in our own universe

Popular wisdom tells us that the most crucial question is: ”What’s the meaning of life?” I disagree. To me, this question has always sounded too general, too academic, if you will. It’s better to ask: ”Why am I the way I am?” Why am I me? And why are you – you?

Now, I’m not talking about your personality, even though that’s a part of it, of course.

Rather, I’m asking: why, out of billions of possibilities, potentialities, you happen to be you? Why aren’t you that elderly man walking down the street? Indeed, why weren’t you born in a different dimension, on some other Earth, assuming there’s an infinite number of realities, something I find fascinating and plausible? The grand scheme of things aside, each of us is like a parallel universe. That’s why we say, ”To save one life is to save the world.” Each of us lives in our own world shaped be our socialization and life experience. If you really wanted to go deep down the rabbit hole, you can even ask if there’s something to solipsism, i.e. all that’s going on around us is a mere illusion. It’s a precarious train of thought, because if one thinks that the world around him or her is just a cosmic illusion, a cosmic joke, then anything goes. Yet, this is exactly what so many religions and philosophies talk about.

Don’t you find AI a bit scary? Yes, AI helps us in many ways. I even saw an AI robo-waiter in a local restaurant. Scary and fascinating at the same time. But what if you’re given a choice to live in a virtual afterlife forever? What if you get tricked to be in one without even knowing you’re in one? How does that align with salvation and damnation or whatever you believe in, and seeing your dead loved ones again? They can be recreated, someone says. Digitally recreated. But that isn’t the same. If you could talk to an AI representation of your loved one, your friend or a total stranger you’re intrigued by, would that representation be the same as the real deal? Say that digital copy has passed the Turing Test (in other words: AI is indistinguishable from a human, the AI is, for all intents and purposes, conscious), would it mean that AI is now your mom, dad and so on? Or by being stuck in that digital afterlife, you’d be condemned to not seeing your loved ones again, just their copies? Wouldn’t that be hell? Even atheist-materialist oblivion would be better to some in that case.

It’s always amused me how people who claim that they know, not believe, know – that they are eternal consciousness are so afraid of death. If they truly believe life goes on endlessly, merely our state of being changes as we go to another reality, then why the fear? There’s a chance we might die in a nuclear war. So? If these people truly embraced what they are talking about, they would be welcoming death, treating death as just another adventure somewhere else out there in the infinite unknown. Clearly, they don’t really buy what they are selling. You can take it even further and say that getting evaporated by a nuke is exactly why they chose to be here before incarnating. We can go on and on but life is going to hit us in the head at some point (bills to pay, taxes, a screaming spouse, and so on) and philosophizing ends. We need failsafe mechanisms not to get lost in our own minds.

I’m also fascinated by the question of how much propagandists working for various regimes actually believe their own lies. Do they know they are selling lies or do they actually buy into the narrative? Maybe a bit of both or something else entirely? In Russia, it seems, the older generation is much more aware of the lies and propaganda than, say, the ones under 30. Does that mean a Russian who was born when Putin was in power has little to no chance of ever seeing the light, so to speak? As you can see, the question of nature versus nurture, of how much we can surpass our own socialization, is a profoundly perplexing, yet fascinating, topic.

Thank you, God, for not making me a woman, the blessing goes. What if God did make me a woman? That would depend on the scenario. If I were to be socialized as a woman from birth while keeping my current identity, that would be decidedly frustrating. Would it be in the same country, same dimension? If I were changed in a snap without also acquiring the knowledge of all that women learn when they are socialized, that would be awkward and even more frustrating. And, if I just forgot who I was before the change, then the blessing wouldn’t make any sense as the past identity would’ve been erased.

Who knows, maybe some people who we call schizophrenics and dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) are actually people who have reincarnated with their memories intact and couldn’t handle it, going crazy? Yep, I can already see a bunch of psychiatrists chasing after me and calling me a blasphemer against their holy science.

We’d all, okay, most of us, would love to ask God, that self-aware infinity as I call Him, for something.

For example, it’d be best if, instead of Russian nukes shooting up to the sky, R- pop was dominating the charts, with Russians rolling their eyes in annoyance as they dance in money-luck-bringing stilettos. Asking to get rich the old-fashioned way is so cliche.

It’s my understanding that a negotiator has a way of telling if a hostage taker is a psychopath. If the hostage taker is, indeed, a psychopath, the whole dynamic changes. Negotiating with someone who has but a semblance of conscience or no conscience at all is a whole new ball game.

It’s the same with people who can be NPCs. NPCs are like non-player characters in role-playing games. When you talk to them, it’s like talking to someone dead inside with only a few predictable responses you’re going to get. Mystics and religions talk about these people and call them various names. There’s no way to truly tell how to identify them. Just like with psychopaths, you get that inner sense. You just know. Yes, it’s judgmental. So what? We all judge. Don’t you judge a group of five guys in a dark alley staring you down? Don’t tell me you’re going to just walk up to them and say hello. Well, okay, if you’re some meditation-loving type who sees love everywhere. Good luck with that approach.

Say you write articles and someone sneers at you, ”Writing for free is for suckers.”

Well, that depends on your objective. Writing is an investment. Your articles are circulating around and you never know who’s going to read them. It just might happen that a VIP is going to like what you write and you’re going to get a job and recognition. Now, if you hadn’t written that article, the VIP wouldn’t have been aware of your existence. Linear thinkers who look at everything through the lens of money here and now, what’s in it for me, are missing the point. Life is often found in the shades of gray.

Why would anyone give you a job if he or she doesn’t know you and your talents? Sure, it can happen, especially if you are full of chutzpah and project an aura of confidence.

But chutzpah and faking it are only going to get you so far. Someone’s going to call your bluff, eventually, and then your entire illusion, the whole charade, is going to come tumbling down like a house of cards.

Just because someone seems powerful, doesn’t necessarily mean they are. Celebrities seem powerful but they are at the mercy of gray eminences funding the media and people who decide who gets employed and who gets fired. You see celebrities and know their names. You don’t know the names of gray eminences. The gray eminence doesn’t want to be known. If the need arises for him or her to be famous because, say, he or she wants to publish a book, then a group of celebrities are going to get paid to praise the book and the eminence in question.

Money is, at its core, magical. It changes reality. No wonder God wants us to be prosperous. By being prosperous, we are celebrating our link to the self-aware infinity. Money links the practical and the esoteric; the metaphysical.