It's not dissociation per se (the DID or desensitized kind). But oftentimes, I find it hard to remain grounded, to be attuned to my senses, and to simply "live my life".

It's not social media overusage. I only use it as a means to an end; to communicate, to collate information, or for entertainment (educational YouTube videos).

It's about knowing a lot of things. Both the good and the bad, and the absolutely horrid (which I don't even want to talk about; my only thought here is, "Anything can happen when no one's looking around"). The propensity and desire to analyze concepts, events, people, systems, and science and break them down to their essential bits. Though I am not necessarily a genius.

My mind is slow, but that is fine for me; I am proud to be a philosophizing human, rather than to be someone who has the skills that a computer can simulate. But I am also not too knowledgeable. It just desire to know a little bit of something about everything. Rather than knowing everything about something.

Being meta and self-aware. And knowing how harrowing human actions can be. And seeing evidence and testimonials of various human hideous acts are oft weighing me down. Both events from the past, events today, events in the future, events that we have heard, and events lost in the darkness and never brought into light. They don't scare me. But they also tend to reinforce my cynicism. I am an idiot, once a naive idealist who wholeheartedly believed in merely doing what I thought was right. "To do to others what you want others to do unto you."

I feel like I've gazed long enough in the abyss. I can imagine it. I can see it. The lowest of lows. Nevertheless, I still remain intact. My morals. My beliefs. Even though I must protect myself, I will still uphold those beliefs to those who will reciprocate it. Quid pro quo. Do ut des. Social contractualism.

But I still remain hopeful, albeit alone. It feels alone. I feel there's a philosophical answer to existence. But humans have always had incomplete and insubstantial answers that they presume to be truth. Whether you believe in deities, or in atheism, or that there is no meaning, all of them are wrong, or at the very least, unfounded. No evidence. We still have to search. And I think I know where we should head. But still. I find it hard to believe that for 10000 years of civilization, nobody else has ever thought of the same thing as me.

Yet instead we waste our time. Greed. Lust. Pride. Lack of esprit de corps. Lack of human empathy. That's how assholes rule the world. I simply cannot comprehend it. Game theory, Economics, logic, and compassion, all point to us cooperating, but no. The world is like this.

Not to mention how our own inherent biases, subtle differences in brain chemistries, and differences in how we view, see, perceive, and filter the information we receive from the world all affect our collective perception of ourselves, of family, of friends, of others whom are not part of your culture. Of your bubble.

We project on others what we see on ourselves. That already, by itself, is the beginning of tragedy. Or at the very least, the core of all human misunderstandings.

All of this is very tiring.

Almost as if being incredibly aware you are naught but a speck of dust in the grand scale of the observable universe. But countless other specks of dust walk alongside you. Inspecting the same world. But growing and ending up wholly different from you.

The knowledge you are not alone. That you are a part of history. That you will end. That all of this will not last forever. That all this suffering is caused by humans, nature, and by virtue of living.

I can't unsee this. I can't forget this.

I can no longer live a normal life.

I can no longer delude myself in to having a normal life.

My conscious and grandiose sense of self-ware existence cannot accept merely dying as someone born from dust and to return to dust. But I feel alone. That one puny human cannot do everything himself.

I don't know.

I need advice.

I believe that everything is connected. The past lead to me. The past lead to everyone and everything now. And all of we in the now will lead to the future. And that my nonchalance, ignorance, may lead to a terrible future. But even so, as I am not in a position of power, I can never ever overturn the future. Heck, I don't even have the power to overturn Putin right now. So.

How does one ought to live?

I know nobody knows the answer to that question. Or even if they answers, they are all wrong. As we're all masquerading in the world as if we're civilized, but we have not a single idea, of how anything, everything, works.

Is it abnormal to seek answers like a kid?

To demand answers, even if some answers are unanswerable (pertaining to the Hilbert problem)?

I don't feel I am philosophically mature.

But I also don't feel like we have ever learned from Socrates at all. That we do not know what we do not know. And to presume otherwise is utter arrogance.

I don't know.

I really don't know.

For the past two decades, I feel like I have been nothing more than a brain in a vat.

An existence whose only meaningful contribution to life is thinking, and nothing more.

I have an inkling of where I want to be.

But I really have no idea where to start. Of how to start. Or how to live life without feeling I am just a brain in a vat. To be so grounded. To feel as if my thoughts become efforts that become actions that lead to something tangible. For my thoughts to transcend onward, to no longer be a mere brain in a vat who is afraid of human connections, and of failures, and of being backstabbed yet again.

To no longer be a brain in a vat that is easy to manipulate, easy to take advantage of, and easy to be discouraged. To be able to smite down who are evil, and to be kind to those who deserve it.

If anybody has the time and effort and care.

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Haha bro just chill out my nigga
Shits tough out there you just gonna walk around look at the sky and be happy