Nettle Briar @Ulfra_Wolfe@awoo.space

@Zaiaku At the same time? There's something about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that feels enjoyable. Like it's a world that wouldn't be *fun* to be in, necessarily, but I mean I *did* play an Interactive Fiction game to be there. I'd even go there as a 3D self, just as long as I never ended up in a moment of being tortured.

@Zaiaku I think the best part of that whole story was that massive civilizations put their all into the answer instead of just living.

America's New Slavery: Black Men in Prison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGRvJThLQN0

@Zaiaku (The extra level of thinking is "What is happy? Existence is about just feeling happy, or else there'd be no pain", but I'm losing myself in my thoughts again)

@Zaiaku It leads me to think -- do we presume the past is innately inferior, a child that had to learn to grow? Or was it bad to be a child? Did we really need this extra dimension of space to be happy? I'm thinking about this question on multiple levels now.

@Zaiaku I don't wish to brush aside the quandary because I found my own personal answer, mind! It's actually a very interesting quandary to consider.

"What did I used to be?" is an interesting question for a soul to ask, and I feel like Salvia has given me some idea.

@Zaiaku I was faced with that quandary and I decided it didn't matter. If it resonated with me and it was fun to experience and I felt free with it, it didn't matter.

@Zaiaku Now there's an angle I wasn't looking at. Very interesting perspective. Once you add limitations, things get interesting.

I never want to get used to the wonders of life.

There's some magic lost between "This is a new ability for me!" and "I'm used to this ability, people are used to having this ability, others have this ability, ugh, time to get past teenage years..."

Fun part: Adding and subtracting tiers.

"Oh, you're 2 dimensional lifeforms? I can barely imagine! Oh, you're not able to move at all? I can barely imagine!" Then imagine creatures that look down at you as if you're the 2nd dimensional lifeforms. It all gets wonky

Eventually you just accept that everything is different and has and doesn't have things they can do, but that human being dreaming of being a fox will be a LOT happier being a fox than a fox born a fox and learning how to live!

Here's the real kicker: This is all in a world where we can't just shift our shape on a whim. What if we could? If it happened right now, it would feel *freeing* (and terrifying -- what shapes are others choosing?), but if we grew up with that, meh.

If we always were in a world where shapeshifting were common, the ability to *not* shapeshift would seem like a crippling disadvantage. "You can't shift? I'm so sorry. :( I can barely even imagine. I won't bring it up again, promise."

I love it whenever someone shows off their furry form or some other furry form they identify with. It's like they're saying "This is ME -- far closer than my meatsack and interests in worldly things"

@zeezeemoomoo
I suddenly want a cow maid

@chara
https://youtu.be/9eA2sXukqRQ

@chara And even then, I had no words for anything. There were no words for Hazel or Willow or Wight. They were just these vague images of friends in a totally different dimension I wanted to pull through the window -- and the window was the only physical thing I saw. Otherwise I was in a warm sunny playground. The window was pretty 2D.

@chara Yes.

I'm not sure I had a full ego death, but it was close enough -- when I was made a child again, it blasted away everything other than the sheer joy of experience and curiosity.

It was only my connection to Hazel and Willow that brought me out of it, and the between-state between child paradise and the real world was harrowing to go through. I felt suffocated for aeons and saw Wight's laughing cross-legged body floating in the cosmos for forever.

@chara You can approximate being real in this dimension with these rules and this way of experiencing, with this geometric plane, with your experience of time as it exists, yes.

@chara I know this much now: I'm not afraid of death anymore. Not that I'd end it myself, that would destroy everything I'm in this life to do.

But wherever you focus, there's more in the fractals, and I probably will/am/have experience/experienced it endlessly. Also felt a motherly presence twice, but very abstract. Just "mom's there".

@chara You're not real, you know. All they said about the universe being an illusion is true. We're all just projections here, living our own lives, experiencing the world, as we probably have done with countless lives with countless rules, in and out of time, who knows?

But at core we are much simpler than we seem and much more complex. With all of reality being fourth to fifth dimensional fractals; branching time & space endlessly.