Why Can't I Be Someone Else? Vol. Trapped in my body

[hugo]

you are not alone

 

[kramer]

Just think of all the problems that would create

 

[ajmasta]

OP

I seriously think about these things all the time. Especially when I see the stars. I keep thinking to myself "what is it going to feel like when I die? Am I going to even feel anything? Will I even know that I'm dead?" It also puzzles me to think about "So what did I feel before I was born? How am I ME, why is it that the body I control and posses just happened to start in 1988? Why didn't my life start in 1800's or something?" It amazes me that all living organisms look, act and live so differently but when it comes down to it, nearly all of them are existing for the same 2 purposes: To consume and re-produce. I also think about how many several millions if not billions of different organisms there are on this planet alone and how I am so lucky to be part of the dominant species. Think about it, imagine how bad it would suck to be an endoplasmic reticulum, or how horrible it would be to be a worm or a snail, but then again we wouldn't know what its like to be anything else therefor it wouldn't suck would it? I think there are other life forms out there that probably look and act so strange that we as humans wouldn't even be able to acknowledge that they are living beings. I also believe that somewhere out there in the universe there are intelligent life forms out there capable of space travel, just not capable enough to reach us. I too would love to venture further into this universe and get answers. I'd say about 30% of all of my thoughts dwell on topics like this, constantly asking questions that I will never have answered, always brainstorming wondering how? or what if?

 

[mrbrown]

LSD seems to work or give you the experience.... along with other substances made illegal by the man

but why illegal?

yes op thats why

 

[antonlavey]

Wow are people on NT really that slow they didn't get what club was tryna say?

 

[classy freshman]

Originally Posted by LUKEwarm Skywalker

If you view your situation as being "trapped", then perhaps, you aren't ready for the out-of-body experience.

You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

R.M Rilke.

Also, perhaps, this view of things will sooth your heart, for the time being:

The Egg

You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?

 

[majik214]

Originally Posted by AJMasta

OP

I seriously think about these things all the time. Especially when I see the stars. I keep thinking to myself "what is it going to feel like when I die? Am I going to even feel anything? Will I even know that I'm dead?" It also puzzles me to think about "So what did I feel before I was born? How am I ME, why is it that the body I control and posses just happened to start in 1988? Why didn't my life start in 1800's or something?" It amazes me that all living organisms look, act and live so differently but when it comes down to it, nearly all of them are existing for the same 2 purposes: To consume and re-produce. I also think about how many several millions if not billions of different organisms there are on this planet alone and how I am so lucky to be part of the dominant species. Think about it, imagine how bad it would suck to be an endoplasmic reticulum, or how horrible it would be to be a worm or a snail, but then again we wouldn't know what its like to be anything else therefor it wouldn't suck would it? I think there are other life forms out there that probably look and act so strange that we as humans wouldn't even be able to acknowledge that they are living beings. I also believe that somewhere out there in the universe there are intelligent life forms out there capable of space travel, just not capable enough to reach us. I too would love to venture further into this universe and get answers. I'd say about 30% of all of my thoughts dwell on topics like this, constantly asking questions that I will never have answered, always brainstorming wondering how? or what if?

OPs post is 

 It really gets someone thinking.
@AJ Masta: I agree with you 100%, I think these types of things too. It's like...out of all the species in this world, how is it that I was fortunate enough to be a human? Why not an ant or some insect. 

To piggyback on your train of thought...anyone ever sit back and find it amazing that out of all the sperms that your father produced, it was you who managed to reach the egg. Think about it...everyone's pops probably smashed and jerked it thousands of times, causing him to release a load in a rubber or something outside of a vagina. Now probability is heavily against you at this point that the load that you're contained in will be busted in a vagina, but you lucked out. Now think about this...out of all the hundreds of millions of sperms within that load that entered your mother, you were the determined little sperm that beat all the others to that egg so you can develop into what you have become today. An NTer. Mind = BLOWN!!!

 

[Peep Game]

Originally Posted by moundraised23

Originally Posted by megatron

Originally Posted by VeintiSiete

i know what you mean.

for the longest time i felt like a man trapped inside a woman's body.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler [+]

Spoiler

but then i was born.

 

[grizztheboss]

don't worry op experience the human experience & you'll get to see the others, but you must experience this one first, & have fun.

 

[sillyputty]

Originally Posted by Hendrix Watermelon

Sup guys, hendrix here with some questions that I have the answer to, but yet I don't, so you come and give me your input to make sense of all this.

Just my thoughts and response...

I've been thinking recently, you know? contemplating the impossible as far as physical aspects go. 

Just don't assert what you can't justify. At this point its nothing more than speculation and intense wishing. Nothing valid can come from this.

Why is it that I'm trapped in one body?
You're aware of your own existence. This plagued a lot of philosophers, especially those struggling with defining epistemological presmises. 
They also wondered the extent that other animals were aware of their own existence.

Why can't I separate my conscious and travel OUT of my body?

There is only evidence that your "conscious" is merely your mind. Altered brain states produce different senses of consciousness. Without any other changes, it only deduced as your brain at work. Nothing more. Nothing less. 
Think about it, everyone with brain damage or different conditions doesn't have those sorts of outerbody experiences...its merely that their brains aren't working in way thats similar to the vast majority.

not on some out of body experience you get from drugs. I'm talking bout a real life type situation where you can just leave yourself. Why can't I do that?

I don't think you're even aware of what you're asking.
You can't separate your "mind" from who you are physically. Your brain is who you are. 

Granted we don't understand it all, but its just as dishonest to continue to assert things wildly.

Why is it that we just have one planet we can inhabit?

That we know of.
And think of this, you happened be alive now. Not then, not in the future. Right now. You can't really know if there is another place or if we'll ever find it. 

I understand our technology isn't on teh level of intergalactic space travel or to even host our organisms on a different planet, but why is that I have to reside here, on earth? I'm tired of living on this planet man. I'm tired of just being a human, why can't I be something else? why can't I morph into a bird? I just wanna fly away 

 

You're going to need to embrace your reality.
You think therefore you are. 

We look funny. We're funny looking creatures. If you think about it while you look at yourself in teh mirror.

One's ability to perceive something as "funny" or "odd" is subjective. 

You think life is beautiful but its really dangerous when you take things all into account. Before modern medicine half of this board wouldn't have lived past the age of 3 and even fewer would make it to 18. The sun gives you food...and cancer. Water gives you nourishment...and tragedy. Its all about perspective. 

You think we're funning looking, only because you have no other entity to relatively compare it to. Your standards for perfection are merely taught and/or preferred in specific communities. 

The universe is indifferent to whether you live or die. All you can do is to move through it in such a way that you find a way to embrace who you are and to limit your exposure to innately hostile situations. 

I'ts amazing that we're here, right, talking to each other through the internet. Like, who could have imagined? 
As opposed to what?

I mean again. its not that surprising when you look at the developments we made on many small levels. The internet is the same as it was yesterday...just a little bit has changed. if you go back day by day, you'll see a clear change over a longer period of time, but each day, you won't be be able to tell each day of the net from another.

We have eyes, we are a culture that through evolution has evolved to what we are today.

Culture? No...more like species with a complex genetic history.

We have subconscious needs that need to be met when reproducing. We find beauty in symmetrical faces, like who would of thought? It's a beautiful thing being a human, but what's it like being something else?

Symetrical...up to a point.
No one is perfectly symmetrical, no matter how you want to gloss over the details.

The point is, that when investigated, things aren't as "unique" as they sound...a lot of things are rather ordinary and unremarkable compared to the attention they garner.

Also, if you think about our reproductive organs majority of animals have a penis and a vagina, right? Yes, others reproduce differently, it is understood, but hol up. Our penises look extremely a like to that of other animals, why is that? same with vaginas? 

Evolution?...I mean if you ever needed proof...

I don't knwo man, I wish I could be something else just to feel it.

Wanting something doesn't make it more valid, true, or real.
You're just day-dreaming a little too hard

Be a life form outside of our system of known species and be like "HO HO HO, LOOK AT THOSE HUMANS WITH THEIR SILLY BODIES AND FUNNY LOOKING FACES, HO HO HO"

That would be cool...too bad you can't do it.

What's you guy's opinion on these thoughts? Do you contemplate such things? or only when you're under the influence of something?
I think you want to experience other forms of existence and are struggling to come to terms with the notion that the "soul" or "mind" doesn't exist as an entity but more of a state of awareness. 
You're lost in your thoughts and aren't really substantiating anything.

inb4 being john malchavich reference (i spelled his last name wrong, I'm sure)

Uh...ok... yeah, sure? 

Originally Posted by AJMasta

OP

I seriously think about these things all the time. Especially when I see the stars. I keep thinking to myself "what is it going to feel like when I die? Am I going to even feel anything? Will I even know that I'm dead?" It also puzzles me to think about "So what did I feel before I was born? How am I ME, why is it that the body I control and posses just happened to start in 1988? Why didn't my life start in 1800's or something?" It amazes me that all living organisms look, act and live so differently but when it comes down to it, nearly all of them are existing for the same 2 purposes: To consume and re-produce. I also think about how many several millions if not billions of different organisms there are on this planet alone and how I am so lucky to be part of the dominant species. Think about it, imagine how bad it would suck to be an endoplasmic reticulum, or how horrible it would be to be a worm or a snail, but then again we wouldn't know what its like to be anything else therefor it wouldn't suck would it? I think there are other life forms out there that probably look and act so strange that we as humans wouldn't even be able to acknowledge that they are living beings. I also believe that somewhere out there in the universe there are intelligent life forms out there capable of space travel, just not capable enough to reach us. I too would love to venture further into this universe and get answers. I'd say about 30% of all of my thoughts dwell on topics like this, constantly asking questions that I will never have answered, always brainstorming wondering how? or what if?

This would be super cool...if one thing could take place...

That you had proof something happens to you after death.

You know what ALL of this is? A guess.

Thats it. Speculation. Potential postulates. All wild assertions with no attempt to justify any of them. 

Why were you born in the 80s? Because you were the ONE sperm that didn't end up in a condom or a tissue somewhere. Lets be honest.

You won the race of life. You were the ONLY sperm. That in itself is fairly interesting...

I think what might help you maybe some works by Peter Singer. Its a famous animal ethicist and he talks about the sentience of other animals and how we learn about empathy and what that means for the ethics of our society. We often must deal with situations in which we take into account the existence of animals that are capable of higher thought and have the ability to understand more than we think they do. 

Theres a lot of people in here that are struggling with defining their own existence...  

 

....interesting nonetheless. 

 

[da doc03]

Originally Posted by VeintiSiete

i know what you mean.

for the longest time i felt like a man trapped inside a woman's body.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler [+]

Spoiler

but then i was born.

  

 

[patrick bateman]

Originally Posted by VeintiSiete

i know what you mean.

for the longest time i felt like a man trapped inside a woman's body.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler [+]

Spoiler

but then i was born.

 

[soversotowel]

Sillyputty,i hope I can be as well spoken as you one day.