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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To find being a person really weird

152 replies

beconase · 16/08/2023 00:27

I know that sounds odd, but every now and then it hits me how weird it is just being a person and having a mind. Does anyone else ever get this?

OP posts:
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5
RichardsGear · 16/08/2023 01:25

JustOneMoreBiscuit55 · 16/08/2023 00:57

I sometimes find it weird looking in the mirror and thinking that is me. Like I'm suddenly aware I'm inside my own head. I don't know how else to explain it, but it is all very weird if you think too much about it.

I sometimes have a random thought that we will go through our entire lives never actually seeing our own face with our own eyes, rather than as a photo or in the mirror (which is not a true representation). Sometimes it gives a mild claustrophobic feeling, like I, me, my mind is trapped inside this head with a face I can never actually see for myself.

I think I need to go to sleep!

Wisterical · 16/08/2023 01:26

Yes, what weirds me out is thinking about how my experience of being myself is so different from other people's experience of me. And how I am utterly meaningless to almost everybody that exists in the world.

TakemedowntoPotatoCity · 16/08/2023 01:29

I sometimes wonder why I (my conscience) is in my body rather than someone else's. Who decides that?

Deep.

catin8oots · 16/08/2023 01:30

Oh god you lot have just taken all my 4am mitherings and put them in a thread 😁

DeeCee77 · 16/08/2023 01:53

Soon as I saw the topic I immediately thought (and others have since stated it) existential, a subject which is very common. It would be strange never to think about our existence.

The big one for me though is space... just to look at the sky on a clear night at the awesome sight and contemplate. We are on a spinning ball of rock, in a solar system, in a galaxy, in a universe made up of billions of galaxies. We are not alone that's for sure.

Keyworks · 16/08/2023 02:06

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off · 16/08/2023 02:13

Don't worry, the distances involved make it almost impossible for us to ever meet any other inhabitants of the universe, and the timespans involved mean we probably wouldn't overlap temporally anyway.

I find it unspeakably sad, but there you go.

guiltyfeethavegotnorythym · 16/08/2023 02:16

I despise the arrogance of humans .

Nepmarthiturn · 16/08/2023 02:16

This reply has been deleted

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Finding signs of alien life would be the worst news humanity has ever received.

waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

RosaCaramella · 16/08/2023 02:22

I hear you OP.

I don’t really have any answers. We humans think we know so much but there is a lot more that we can’t explain.
I have to trust in the process whenever those cogs in my mind start spinning out of control. Try not to overthink it. Xx

bunchofboys · 16/08/2023 02:40

fullbloom87 · 16/08/2023 01:06

Yes it's weird. The weirdest thing though is some people are still so sceptical of anything unusual, like aliens. The afterlife etc.
I think those people just don't think that deeply.

Expressed so well. I conpletely agree.

autienotnaughti · 16/08/2023 03:19

Yes we wake, we seep, we eat we wee and poo. We work,we try to maintain relationships, we have kids. We die. Why?and why is money so all consuming that people die for it/because of it. We are a blip in the universe yet all consuming. What's the point?

Furries · 16/08/2023 03:56

Totally normal, yet still mind-blowing! I get it.

You are you, but if certain circumstances hadn’t happened, then would you be here and after that thought the questions keep on rolling.

truthhurts23 · 16/08/2023 05:06

I think its weird that we are on a tiny rock planet, floating around a gigantic ball of fire

hygieneversustheplanet · 16/08/2023 05:26

Ducklake · 16/08/2023 01:11

It would be weird not to be completely flummoxed by what it all means / why we’re here occasionally!

But what is the answer?

42 of course!

EveryOtherNameTaken · 16/08/2023 05:34

@Ducklake
Yep.
Now I'm thinking 'I'm me' and how weird the odds are and then 'Why am I me'. 🤯

Tassen · 16/08/2023 05:48

Perhaps we aren't real in the sense of we're just avatars in a simulated world game?
Whether that be us in the 'real world' playing a different character in 'this world'
Or maybe other beings are using an avatar to be us

Or maybe we are the aliens & we took over Earth & enslaved & simplified the animals?

Or maybe this is actually hell? And when we die our consciousness goes to the next level/plane according to DF?

Or like Bobby in the shower it's a dream?
Or like Donnie Darko we've flipped the worlds/universe around

What I find amazing is that we have this 3lb white grey fatty play dough like lump in our head that works & controls everything in our body.

Now my head hurts 😬

Misty84 · 16/08/2023 06:14

I feel sombre when I think that unless we do something marvellous or notorious, we’ll be forgotten about in a few generations time. Our lives are so all consuming to ourselves, but what does any of it really matter?!
On the flip side this does help me deal with a lot of things that happen in life.

WWYDIYWMRN · 16/08/2023 06:18

Yes, I know what you mean! I vividly remember once as a child of maybe 6 looking in the mirror and thinking 'why am I me?' 'why do I have my brain and thoughts and no one else's?' 'why am I this person?'

Life is strange when you think about it.

PurpleGreenandWhiteAreTheNewPrimaryColours · 16/08/2023 06:23

WeetabixTowels · 16/08/2023 01:05

Are you stoned OP?

I thought this too.

It doesn't matter its still good armchair philosophy

patterpittercake · 16/08/2023 06:27

Ducklake · 16/08/2023 01:11

It would be weird not to be completely flummoxed by what it all means / why we’re here occasionally!

But what is the answer?

42

Idratherbepaddleboarding · 16/08/2023 06:32

Yes, how do a bunch of chemicals turn into thoughts and feelings and how do these chemicals make people think and act in different ways? How do these chemicals know what shape to grow our bodies in to?

AtomicWambsgans · 16/08/2023 06:33

I've only ever had these thoughts when I was a teen or in my 20s with little to do or completely out of my mind. So no, not for a loooong time.

NewCracker · 16/08/2023 06:41

fullbloom87 · 16/08/2023 01:06

Yes it's weird. The weirdest thing though is some people are still so sceptical of anything unusual, like aliens. The afterlife etc.
I think those people just don't think that deeply.

Yet some of these same people can happily believe a creator is responsible and then worship said creator. But aliens, ghosts....absolutely not 😵‍💫

110APiccadilly · 16/08/2023 07:16

Ducklake · 16/08/2023 01:20

Yes I can see why people turn to religion.
Exactly if a creator is needed to explain why everything exists, who created the creator? It’s not logical is it. I don’t know how you can be a logical person and believe in god. Or believe for sure there isn’t.
There is no explanation.
Perhaps god can be a word for ‘everything’.

If you don't believe in a pre-existing God, you have to believe that matter always existed in some form, don't you? The Big Bang doesn't posit, as I understand it, the sudden creation of matter, and even if it did, that just moves the problem to why did that happen. I'm not sure either option is uniquely logical.