![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
No, really. It is. They feel mostly the same.
You know that feeling when you've got food poisoning and you are lying in bed, and you start to get nauseous, and you know that this is going to either be miserable for a while, or be miserable for a while and then you'll end up puking, but you're not puking yet, and maybe, if you're VERY VERY STILL, it won't get to the "puking" stage. And your skin breaks out in cold prickly sweat and you feel simultaneously hot and cold.
Yeah.
It's EXACTLY that feeling. The actual stomach part feels SOMEWHAT different, but even that is similar. There are times when I've woken up with food poisoning, and it's taken me a couple minutes to figure out whether I've got food poisoning or existential fear.
Last night, what triggered it was thinking about the Pyramids. And how, when they were built, they were faced in limestone, so that they were gleaming white monuments shining across the sand.
And that the ancient Egyptian culture was a culture. With people in it. Who had entire lives. That an ancient Egyptian peasant who farmed the banks of the Nile had a life. And experiences, every bit as real as mine, in a world every bit as rich as mine.
As did a Roman citizen. Or someone living under the rule of the Golden Horde, or in the Caliphate.
And that all those lives are real, as real as mine.
And that, therefore, mine is only as real as theirs.
And that ALL of these lives happen on a single planet, in an amount of time that is insignificant.
And that, in fact, it's quite possible that the universe itself keeps collapsing and reforming, with different basic universal constants.
That EVERYTHING is insignificant.
That my life is finite and tiny.
And, at night, I feel that.
And it feels like food poisoning.
The thing is -- Lis, for instance, can think all these same thoughts. And they don't bother her. Because, well, why SHOULD they?
I have no explanation as to why I feel the insignificance of our universe, our planet, our time, humanity, all human endeavor, and my own life, so viscerally. And I MEAN "viscerally". "Viscerally" means "relating to the viscera" -- the internal organs in the torso. And that's where I feel it. In my guts. As nausea.
There's no way to think my way out of this. The nausea-inducing insignificance is real. I see things in perspective -- and that IS the perspective.
And so I don't understand why other people DON'T feel this. Why isn't every single human being a quivering mass of horror, quaking at the sheer enormousness of the universe?
. . . but why SHOULD anyone feel this? In realistic, everyday terms, none of this matters. So why can people like Lis focus on the fact that this sheer vastness of everything is basically irrelevant to our lives, and other people, like me, can't?
You know that feeling when you've got food poisoning and you are lying in bed, and you start to get nauseous, and you know that this is going to either be miserable for a while, or be miserable for a while and then you'll end up puking, but you're not puking yet, and maybe, if you're VERY VERY STILL, it won't get to the "puking" stage. And your skin breaks out in cold prickly sweat and you feel simultaneously hot and cold.
Yeah.
It's EXACTLY that feeling. The actual stomach part feels SOMEWHAT different, but even that is similar. There are times when I've woken up with food poisoning, and it's taken me a couple minutes to figure out whether I've got food poisoning or existential fear.
Last night, what triggered it was thinking about the Pyramids. And how, when they were built, they were faced in limestone, so that they were gleaming white monuments shining across the sand.
And that the ancient Egyptian culture was a culture. With people in it. Who had entire lives. That an ancient Egyptian peasant who farmed the banks of the Nile had a life. And experiences, every bit as real as mine, in a world every bit as rich as mine.
As did a Roman citizen. Or someone living under the rule of the Golden Horde, or in the Caliphate.
And that all those lives are real, as real as mine.
And that, therefore, mine is only as real as theirs.
And that ALL of these lives happen on a single planet, in an amount of time that is insignificant.
And that, in fact, it's quite possible that the universe itself keeps collapsing and reforming, with different basic universal constants.
That EVERYTHING is insignificant.
That my life is finite and tiny.
And, at night, I feel that.
And it feels like food poisoning.
The thing is -- Lis, for instance, can think all these same thoughts. And they don't bother her. Because, well, why SHOULD they?
I have no explanation as to why I feel the insignificance of our universe, our planet, our time, humanity, all human endeavor, and my own life, so viscerally. And I MEAN "viscerally". "Viscerally" means "relating to the viscera" -- the internal organs in the torso. And that's where I feel it. In my guts. As nausea.
There's no way to think my way out of this. The nausea-inducing insignificance is real. I see things in perspective -- and that IS the perspective.
And so I don't understand why other people DON'T feel this. Why isn't every single human being a quivering mass of horror, quaking at the sheer enormousness of the universe?
. . . but why SHOULD anyone feel this? In realistic, everyday terms, none of this matters. So why can people like Lis focus on the fact that this sheer vastness of everything is basically irrelevant to our lives, and other people, like me, can't?