Would you rather live in a world where you felt love and happiness, where you suffered, lost and felt pain- but every experience was real, all yours on your journey? Or would you prefer to have everything you could ever wish for, with no heartache, pain, suffering or illness… but it’s all artificial, whilst your body lies in a tank?
I’ve thought a lot about this over the years. The first thing I would think of was Descartes’ quote “Cogito ergo sum”: I think, therefore I am. Meaning, if I’m in a machine at all, going through that process, I must exist somewhere on some level. That is of comfort to me, because of all my fears I fear ceasing to exist the most.
Yet, because I have that fear, I must not be in a tank. It’s a real fear. Shouldn’t I be content that out of the … billion sperm meeting egg, that I made it, I won the lottery of life at all? Don’t get me wrong, but as lucky as I feel I can’t help thinking just surviving isn’t enough anymore. I’ve started getting the urge to live out as many lives as lives have been lived, as if each new life is a simple as reading another book. When I die I don’t want to have any regrets or missed opportunities or ‘what if’s?’
I want to walk in the footsteps of giants, and hear the songs of heroes from the battlements. I want to stand in the ruins of empires. I want to fly on other planes of existence and feel so that I never stop feeling. I want to stop being a scared little girl inside trying to fill the shoes of a confident woman. I want to banish fear back into the darkness, the fear of death of nothing and being forgotten…
…and of dying with regrets.
If I live with no regrets, isn’t that enough? It’s more of an opportunity than some people ever have.
Liliana's Chains 