Knocked out two more challenges in Super Smash Bro’s Ultimate last night. Awakened All Fighters in Adventure Mode, and Unlocked >750 Songs. The latter also marked full completion of the “Other” Challenge Board.
The Legendary Dr. Eggman Spirit Battle was quite challenging. Trying to knock out Metal Sonic with swarms of bombs dropping was, for me, a largely luck based endeavor. I attempted the fight around 20 times before I finally won.
I believe I’ve completed all of the Spirit Battles in World of Light, though I won’t know for sure until I see the % completion. All that remains is the final boss fight. I’ve attempted it twice, and failed both times. I was getting a bit frustrated, and it was well past my bed-time, so I decided to call it a night and try it again this evening.
You’re just pretending to be people, aren’t you?
Tip Wilkin – Skin Horse (2019-01-10)
This line of dialogue from yesterday’s Skin Horse gave me pause. I often feel that I am, in fact, pretending to be people. When I interact with others, it seems like I’m acting out a role learned through rote memorization. Following a script with many blank or missing pages and barely legible scribbled notes. It’s almost like Impostor Syndrome, but applied to socializing rather than my career.
What does it mean to pretend to be people? I am people. I can’t pretend to be people, since anything I do is something people do, by definition. That’s where the problem lies. The definition.
Let’s start with the definition of “people”. As a transhumanist, I try to keep my definition of people simple, and inclusive. People are other sapients. This isn’t a universal definition, particularly since we don’t yet have other sapients around[1] to interact with, so it usually boils down to “People are other humans” in everyday parlance.
Looking back on that definition, I think I see the disconnect. People are other humans. I don’t include myself in my own definition of people. I am people, clearly, but I don’t think of myself as people. When I pretend to be people, I’m pretending to be what I see in others. This doesn’t come naturally to me. It takes conscious effort.
I don’t know if that’s true for most people. Most of the people I communicate with don’t appear to analyze themselves and their thought processes as closely as I do my own. From my perspective, this “pretending to be [like other] people” business comes naturally to them. Maybe it does, or maybe they’re successfully hiding their own struggle. Since I rarely find someone expressing similar sentiment, I’ve come to assume the former. Pretending to be people does come naturally to most people. It’s not pretending for them.
This train of logic has led me to classify myself as different from “most people”, and only reinforces the notion that I’m not one of them. I’m just pretending.
[1]I believe research into the sapience of other species of animals may alter this notion in the near future, if it hasn’t already.
Okami No Rei 