My three minutes.
I... am known to be pensive. I love to be alone, be quiet, and think.
But... I realized, today... how much I love being... alive, and social.
Talking to people, and understanding that they have eyes, and a mind that you are inside.
Yes. I think that's what did it.
It is... quite sad, really, to say. But this winter has opened something up for me that I thought I had figured out by now.
There are other people out there.
I mean... okay. Duh. I've known there were other people out there. And I've known them to be real, and respectable, and worthy of being treated as I would love to be. There have always been other people in my mind.
But... it's something different. It's something different to see that you can actually be a part of another person's mind. It's something else to realize, for once...
That when I stopped talking with every person I saw today... ringing out their groceries, passing them on the highway, or nearly killing them on the way home from downtown...
Every single one of them has a mind.
Every single one of them is thinking about something, right now. And not just the people I met, either.
There are billions of them. Billions of minds, each containing billions of thoughts.
And suddenly, it all becomes a number again. Why, oh why, did I ever take coding? Everything since then, it's all been about me trying to reduce everything I see to a structure, a class, with variables, with functions, with processes.
I've tried to turn human existence into a class.
I've tried to turn emotion and thought into a predictable function.
People have become... units.
When I spoke to you, you were just a being. Not a mind. Not a person.
You were a programmed class that I could speak to one way, and recieve a response, or speak to in another way, and recieve another response.
And she reminded me. With every word the world inside my mind produces...
...another world is touched.
At this point in time, if you've read this far, I have had at least a few minutes during which time I... me... myself... my world... my mind...
...was inside yours.
And of course.
Of course I don't know why I like Kashur.
Or why I want to start eating right.
Or why I worked six hours that I knew I wasn't scheduled to work, and then another one.
Of course I don't know why I want to learn to draw.
Or why I started with tracing...
...and then realized that there's more to it than that.
Of course I don't know why I am the way I am...
...and of course I don't know exactly who I am.
The real world is not digital. It cannot be quantitized. It cannot be explained, or reasoned, every single time.
My God. What have we done?
Match.com rules the world.
Modern psychology rules the world.
Personality has become numeric.
Emotion is explicable.
Individuality is destroyed, because somewhere out there... someone's numbers match yours.
How sad. How sad!
And I believed it.
Wake up, Justin.
Wake up.
Wake up.
But... I realized, today... how much I love being... alive, and social.
Talking to people, and understanding that they have eyes, and a mind that you are inside.
Yes. I think that's what did it.
It is... quite sad, really, to say. But this winter has opened something up for me that I thought I had figured out by now.
There are other people out there.
I mean... okay. Duh. I've known there were other people out there. And I've known them to be real, and respectable, and worthy of being treated as I would love to be. There have always been other people in my mind.
But... it's something different. It's something different to see that you can actually be a part of another person's mind. It's something else to realize, for once...
That when I stopped talking with every person I saw today... ringing out their groceries, passing them on the highway, or nearly killing them on the way home from downtown...
Every single one of them has a mind.
Every single one of them is thinking about something, right now. And not just the people I met, either.
There are billions of them. Billions of minds, each containing billions of thoughts.
And suddenly, it all becomes a number again. Why, oh why, did I ever take coding? Everything since then, it's all been about me trying to reduce everything I see to a structure, a class, with variables, with functions, with processes.
I've tried to turn human existence into a class.
I've tried to turn emotion and thought into a predictable function.
People have become... units.
When I spoke to you, you were just a being. Not a mind. Not a person.
You were a programmed class that I could speak to one way, and recieve a response, or speak to in another way, and recieve another response.
And she reminded me. With every word the world inside my mind produces...
...another world is touched.
At this point in time, if you've read this far, I have had at least a few minutes during which time I... me... myself... my world... my mind...
...was inside yours.
And of course.
Of course I don't know why I like Kashur.
Or why I want to start eating right.
Or why I worked six hours that I knew I wasn't scheduled to work, and then another one.
Of course I don't know why I want to learn to draw.
Or why I started with tracing...
...and then realized that there's more to it than that.
Of course I don't know why I am the way I am...
...and of course I don't know exactly who I am.
The real world is not digital. It cannot be quantitized. It cannot be explained, or reasoned, every single time.
My God. What have we done?
Match.com rules the world.
Modern psychology rules the world.
Personality has become numeric.
Emotion is explicable.
Individuality is destroyed, because somewhere out there... someone's numbers match yours.
How sad. How sad!
And I believed it.
Wake up, Justin.
Wake up.
Wake up.