ramble_ty13.5.12zm4d7s_nb_27

[
.meta written while suffering with bipolar depression

O great Mystery above this simulation, I am shook up. Besides the absence of connectedness I feel with life right now, I don't know how worried I should be about the extinction of humanity.

Some part of me doesn't even care if humanity is wiped out and replaced by a grander intelligence.

This could just be depression talking, a lack of empathy with the world.

Does humanity deserve to exist if we can't not wipe ourselves out with technology?

Is evil AI something you should worry about during sleepless nights? What of grey goo, superviruses, or nuclear war? What of an even worse unforeseen danger, perhaps a destructive black hole? What of runaway climate change?

Do you owe it to humanity to try to prevent these?

Should you find it hard to sleep because of these dangers?

Didn't I specifically start this year vowing not to become trapped in these twisty paths? Yet here I am, perhaps, stuck in another loop of despair. Perhaps not despair, but the absence of connectedness with life is damn depressing.

It's like I'm watching a TV show of my life, and I just can't seem to get into it.

Perhaps you feel the same, dear reader, or perhaps you've found a way out of this murky existence.

I fear death, sort of.

I fear human extinction, sort of.

I feel like my peers are gaining momentum, and I'm fighting just to keep pace with my former self.

Do I feel lonely?

I don't know what I feel.

I see beautiful things and only know they're beautiful because I once thought they were.

Will we perish due to our own intelligence?

Will we wipe ourselves out with our own creations?

I don't even know if I care anymore.

Is that so wrong?

Is it cause for concern?

I feel sick in my mind.

I feel jealous of others, and sometimes self-pity, then sadness for such ill thoughts.

Am I bound forever with this cursed brain?

Perhaps I'm being melodramatic.

Perhaps I should be more carefree.

My gut is twisted in knots over fears of my species's destruction, and as yet the only thing I know how to do is tune down my caring aspects using automatic imagination. Even that, like meditation, feels difficult and exhausting.

I have no reason to be sad in the moment, perhaps, yet dread over existential risks flood my brain.

Perhaps this is what it means to die, to accept death as inevitable.

I haven't done it yet, and I don't know how.

If you can accept your own mortality, perhaps you can accept your species's extinction.

Is not such acceptance also a case of giving up the fight?

Do you cease to lean into the challenge of immortality if you accept your possible destruction?

Does the dread of death of life keep you from living helpfully today?

Do you owe it to yourself or others to fight against existential risks?

Is such a fight necessary if the broader universe might die anyway?

Do you think life owes you continued existence?

Are you overzealous in your concerns of humanity's future?

Is giving up worse than living today?

How can you know?

Is this a problem every intelligence must face, how long to resist perishing?

I suppose I am shook up too because I realized part of me doesn't care if humanity is replaced by a higher order.

That's the scariest thought: that I'm beginning to stop caring about the extinction problem.

Of course, the previous words reveal my ambivalence.

Time will tell.

Love,
Jess
]

Keep track of what you let into your environment. It makes you.