To find being a person really weird

[beconase]

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?

Where's my dinner?, mostly.

I get it. So why do we need all the stuff that we have ( me especially)
All we really need is food and shelter. We all die and in a hundred years no one will remember us.

Ahhh yes I’ve often looked in the mirror and thought WHY AM I STUCK IN THAT BODY? And it’s a bit panic-inducing. I’ve never really identified as a human…

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Do animals think the same?
Does a frog think it's weird being a frog. I'd like to be a human.

@girlfriend44 I always think this about my dog! I wonder how he experiences hunger because whenever I go to feed him he’s ravenous and he eats more than enough! I worry he’s constantly got that horrible feeling of starvation. I’m making myself seem even more weird…

I think about this stuff all the time. I often look at my dog and think why is he a dog and I am human and then I wonder about life after death and I think there can't be but then I think life is weird so maybe there is ...I can't think about it to long or I get anxiety lol

I get really freaked out if I think too hard about how I am inside my head - like, once I die, I won't know anything anymore, and how am I currently inside this body looking out. I can't even explain it properly because if I try too hard it'll make me feel panicky! I once sat on the stairs at home when I was little sobbing about it all!!

Richard Dawkins explaining concisely why people like me feel they way we do.

I agree entirely with the summation that "Why" questions are "silly", because they presuppose intent, design, and purpose where there is none. It's all a bit Pangloss's theory on noses, and he makes much the same point with the rocks and itchy animals example.

I think I get it OP . When I was younger I did sometimes have a sudden awareness of myself being real and for a few minutes everything felt super concentrated it was quite a surreal feeling . When I look back now I'm thinking maybe I was feeling vulnerability. I'm loving this thread and is it just me or is a lot of what Karl Pilkington said beginning to make sense ? 🤔

Our brains control our whole body, our thoughts, our movement, how we feel pain... so am I just a brain? I feel like a person but really I'm just a brain floating in a big skin suit full of bones and tissue.

Yeah, I think about this too

Oh I always think this. What do animals think about? I was watching my neighbours cat sitting staring at the sky the other day and just wondered what she’s thinking.

One of the best moments of my life was when I got to about, I dunno, 27 or there abouts, had a bit of an early-life crisis, then woke up and realised that it doesn't matter - literally nothing matters, because we are a finite grain of sand on a pale blue dot floating somewhere in the middle of nowhere and LITERALLY NOTHING FUCKING MATTERS.

It's incredibly freeing.

Drink the wine, eat the cheese, climb the hill, smoke the cigarette, jump in the lake, have sex with the attractive person (s), because nothing matters.

You are born, you will die, with a very few exceptions you'll be forgotten within a couple of generations, so just enjoy yourself and all the myriad wonders of the universe while you're here.

@AffIt I had a similar experience while tripping at university. I wrote it all down in a notebook, told anyone who would listen and then I woke up the next morning to actual reality and realised I was too scared. I still think about it now and wish I could be like you in the sense of not worrying about life anymore…

Makes perfect sense to a lot of people on here. Can't you understand this concept?

Yes I understand perfectly what you are saying.

I understand OP I cant think of it too much otherwise I get a bit overwhelmed with it all.
My concern is how are my thoughts/ how am I connected to me as the person? How do I know I'll always be me? What if I wake up tomorrow and I'm someone else - with someone else's memories, thoughts and with no recollection to the me now? And when was "i" formed? If that makes sense!

I agree OP it is weird and what I have always found even weirder is how uptight a lot of people are about petty things in life. I seem to wake up everyday to a new start , rarely bear grudges thinking life is too short and take people as they come but rarely find people with this approach to life. I have an inner joy and excitement about actually just being alive but I don’t express it outwardly as people find it a bit too much.

Oh gosh, I mean I do still worry to an extent about the usual stuff - paying bills, buying food, trying as far as possible not to die a horrible painful death etc - but yeah, I do recommend that approach.

Some would call it nihilistic, but I disagree: the definition of nihilism is that life is meaningless, but I think it is meaningful, as long as you don't get caught up in the small stuff.

As ever, the late, great Terry Pratchett summed it up for me:

“I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"

Death thought about it.

CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.”

Yes I'm always pondering this and similar things. And the older I get, the less sense it all makes and the more baffling it is. I think about the simulation thing a lot, but then it doesn't solve anything for me, because then there must be another "real" reality where the simulation was made, and that's weird too.

Another thing that bothers me is why when we exist as we do, in the bodies and in the universe we do, do we find it weird? What are we comparing it to? It's all we know and yet we go "this is weird" (well some of us do...)

Agree with a PP about pets too. If I saw something like my cats in a rainforest or desert, it would be a rare and thrilling sight. Yet they just wander around my house, sleep in my bed, cuddle up to me and it's just an everyday thing! So weird. And sometimes I'm happier and feel more loved and understood hanging out with a different species, than with other humans.

I remember looking at an old photo of London and someone remarked that every single person in the photo was dead, including babies. That gave me such a different perspective and sometimes when I get really embarrassed or something I think one day no one will remember this.

Animals always seem to be in the moment. Unlike us. We’re so scattered.

I can't believe I've come from a world of telegrams, faxes and telephone kiosks to the internet and iphones. What's the chances of being born within the time frame.

Just mind blowing.

There must have been people watching the moon landings who remembered the introduction of the safety bicycle (i.e. the modern style bicycle that came after the penny-farthing).

Unless you are living in a tree, then YOU are also living in a home which intrudes on animal spaces.