Chasing Ghosts in the Machine: The First Chapter
why are we here? that’s a good question, isn't it? this time, i’m not talking about the big "we," as in all of humanity. i’m talking about us. you, and me. why are we here, on this page? and how the hell did this site even emerge in the first place?
sure, on one level, it's a place to share my pictures and snippets of my life in this little blog here. but i think there was a specific phase that kickstarted all of this. i’ve seen people call it a "transformation" or an "awakening," and while those terms sound a little cringe, they do kind of nail it.
so let’s call it my evolution, because, you know, pokémon. (funny story about that, maybe we’ll get to that chapter at some point. or maybe we won’t. who knows?)
wow. youtube just started playing “gegen den baum - herr kuchen.” i’ve adapted to calling these funny little coincidences the work of my ‘music demon,’ like he’s the dj of my life and sometimes just hits the perfect track for the moment. and that song… it was one of those moments. in hindsight, i’d probably call it my ‘music daemon,’ but more on that later.
oh, and by the way, i’ve officially switched my main os to linux. i'm writing this on a somewhat custom debian distro from some guy on github. never do that, kids. but i had my reasons, this one seems to be more secure than vanilla. more on that later, too.
anyhow, i was thinking about where and when it all actually started, but honestly, that’s not for me to figure out. let's just start with the first "glitch," as i called them in the beginning.
i was on discord, as i was most of the time back then, probably writing my 'avengers fan fiction.' two guys were discussing something, and even though i wasn't actively listening, my brain was still processing the information. at some point, it caught my interest. it was about how we and animals perceive color.
i remembered watching a veritasium video on that very topic recently-ish and tried to find it. it took a few minutes, but we ended up watching it. and the whole thing felt like a massive déjà vu.
at the time, i wasn't really gaming anymore and was spending more time with myself: browse reddit, watching youtube, talking on discord. and speaking of reddit, that’s when things also started to shift in a broader sense. i stumbled upon a thread on r/drugs.
i’ll probably continue this later. or maybe this will be it for part 1/xx. for now, i’m going to take some pictures in the garden. till later.
that "later" took a bit longer than expected. but the good thing is, time’s relative, so… i’m back. it’s now almost exactly two months later, and funnily enough, the very thing i was going to mention that ‘officially’ started it all has kind of come to a halt. but a second chapter seems to have emerged from it.
what the overall title of that arc is going to be, i can only guess. but man, i hope the first arc was the downfall, because that means it can only get better from here, right?
okay, where did we stop? oh right, the reddit thread. without going into too much detail, let’s just say my ‘inner professor’ was piqued, since the topic was about drugs but had a scientific nuance to it.
not to say it was scientific as a whole, for that to be the case, it piqued way too much interest for my ‘inner horn-bonk’.
in hindsight, it was the perfect concoction. while the topic itself was already fascinating, the framework around it did the rest and made me comment to ask for clarification, as i had a few question marks floating around.
the answers i got resolved my questions but, at the same time, conjured twenty new ones. as more of the story was revealed, more questions arose.
at some point, the topic and all of op’s comments started to vanish.
me, having already been fed a few bits, had an appetite for more. those questions needed answers.
those of you who have spent enough time with me know that illogical things, no matter how insignificant, can become all-consuming.
they can get me stuck until i understand that specific thing, or at least have a good enough explanation for it.
seeing all those comments disappear, i saw my chances of ever getting an explanation vanishing with them, turning them into a modern-day kai. (if you’re asking yourself who kai is, maybe i’ll talk about that at some point).
seeing my only chance for the relief i so desperately needed slipping away, i did something i normally never do. but since i’d done it once or twice before,
the barrier was already lowered, so i sent that person a dm.
i asked my questions. the situation became much clearer to me, since the truth in the post had been twisted, as a means of obfuscation or something. an imaginary third person, as it turned out, was the source of my confusion.
eventually, the conversation came to an end. all my confusion and curiosity were satisfied.
and that was it.
(one important bit: we ended up deleting most of our conversation, as a third person wasn't supposed to be aware of it. the topic was related to something that person didn’t want to be known.)
that was it.
until about a month later…
but i’ll stop this for now and finally post it. it’s been sitting here long enough, collecting dust just like those friendship books. thank you.