I am all there is

I am all there is. Floating in a bottomless ocean of emptiness, my senses had faded some time ago. The only thing that still proved my existence were my thoughts. In this state of nothingness, the only sound I could hear were the echoes of cheers and cries of those who had come to say goodbye still ringing in my head. I had planned to fade in the background when the world started to leave me behind. I may have started this journey with a bang but I had no intentions to end it with one. Yet the people didn't let me.

They had orchestrated a goddamn festival without me knowing.

"What festival?" my closest friends and colleagues had said, "They just happen to be outside today and feel like saying goodbye to you. What a coincidence, am I right? And would you look at that? A pedestal with a microphone!"

It's a clear sign that the system needs to be reworked if the leader of the New Earth can't tell what the people they are leading think. Without doubt, the people no longer need a leader. We have come far enough. A single mind trying to lead the humanity of today. Ridicules. Its brilliance can't be contained. The best a person can do is manage it.

And I am not fit for that role anymore.

After seventy years of duty, I resigned. Not in my office, with my declaration written on a piece of paper as I had intended. But with a final, honest speech in front of the good people I had come to respect. Yet I did not cry.

Since now I can continue the dream of fantasy I've had since childhood. I can live the life I had given up on to carry this responsibility no one else had taken on their shoulders. The design I had finished back then when I made the choice, perfected for seven more decades.

Virtual Reality -machine so advanced and versatile it questions reality itself. One that can create a world with adventure and mystery. A more fun world.

A second chance. I can start again and this time, there will be no responsibility for me to carry.

I did not fear this empty and senseless state. After all, I designed it. In fact, I embraced it. No sensations meant no pain. Since the only thing that existed for me were the thoughts in my head, there was nothing to fear except my own mind. So I let it run free. The echoing cheers constantly fade as I start to accept the end - or more accurately the suspension - of my old life.

I traverse the library of my memories. The pictures of all those dear to me are picked from flowing waters of my thinking mind and immortalized into the books of all that I know. One after the other I pick up the open books from the floor and the tables, write the endnotes and put them on the shelves. Once the floors and tables are cleaned, the shelves are neat and organized, and the flow of water has stopped I walk to the front door. I open it and with a dramatic finalizing movement step outside while closing the door behind me.

I clear my mind and turn around. I no longer see the library but I will always know where to find it. I start walking in no direction in particular. I simply let my mind lead me. I let my beliefs and convictions fade into the most primal components of consciousness.

I feel the invisible hand of the simulating AI, the storyteller, lead my mind to an empty space of pure awareness, pure intent. This space is the pinnacle of modern technical psychology. Where philosophy and reality diverge. Here, the storyteller and my most personal parts of consciousness talk and decide on the world that will be constructed for me. What kind of world will perfect "me" in the most efficient way?

My imagination drives me. My mind thinks of concepts, images, words, emotions, sensations through ways that cannot be put to words. It mixes them together looking for the type of awarness that would create the most accurate reflection of my very soul. I hear emotions, see reality itself and think using sensations. I hear the promises of scenarios that the AI proposes and I can feel some deeply unconscious part of me respond. And all that I can see in geometry that I have never seen. At first it changes shape constantly in a way I can only explain as a very vivid DMT -trip. Then it solidifies somewhat. Some parts take permanent shape. It is like a rope being tied together, except the rope is a multidimensional shape and I can somehow see every part of it at the same time. I embrace the fact that I won't be able to view all this if I hold on to my old idea of perceiving information. I lay my trust in my subconscious and the AI.

As the part of my mind that holds the perceiver, the ego, lets go of this concept, through trust the unconscious mind gives me a new point of view and the AI adapts to it. I can now perceive what is only a concept. I can tell what is a creation of my imagination and what is the work of the storyteller, its proposals. Yet my perception can still handle more. Through the teamwork of my unconscious mind and the storyteller, the entirety of my consciousness, my soul manifests itself before the storyteller. Then for a short time I can sense a dissimilarity. The difference between what I am and what the storyteller is. But as a perceiver, I can no longer tell which sensation comes from which existence. For this short time, I can feel genuinely unpleasant sensations. Then an agreement happens.

My perception reaches its limit and collapses. When I return my focus, I again see multidimensional tapestry. This time it no longer moves. This time it makes sense. I understand it. And it gives me an overwhelming sense of purpose.

As I explore the ideas that the tapestry holds I can see similarities. Bridges between concepts. The tapestry changes to fit my idea of it. Where I see a bridge, a bridge forms. Where I see similarity, the tapestry becomes symmetric. The more it makes sense the more I feel something is missing. Once the only thing that doesn't make sense is the concept that is missing, the missing concept starts to make sense. Just as shadow can only exist where there is light, something can only exist where there is nothing. And so tapestry changes. Lines and pools of nothing giving meaning and emphasis to space and geometry of something as water gives to land. As I contemplate the usefulness of nothing, I understand that nothing is also something. So what is true nothingness?

Looking for the answer I understood the depth of what I thought was nothing. As there doesn't exist only white and black but also different shades of gray in between. So I came to understand that nothing doesn't exist. Since according to definition non-existence doesn't exist. If it exists, it isn't nothing. But then what is nothing? Madness overtakes me as I look for an answer to an impossible question.

Now the tapestry is a beautiful geometry of different shades of gray. And the greatest thing, the most colorful spot on the tapestry is in the center. It calls me. It calls me to explore it. However I don't want to. Not yet when I haven't even understood all there is in this tapestry. So I explore more shapes and different patterns. Asymmetry in symmetry and symmetry in asymmetry. Polarity and everything in between. For each geometry and each concept. And as my understanding of it grows, so does the tapestry expand. And so does the colorful spot in the middle. Becoming ever more vibrant and enticing and unknown. But my curiosity for nothingness overweights my interest in anything. I look for the edges in the tapestry. It overlaps and goes within itself, so there are no edges as a picture would have. There is no end to any line. Only a point and another point and the space between. I look for the zero between two numbers. Reality itself gets confused as I force more and always more complicated questions onto it. And when I finally feel that I am reaching something new, a force pulls me back. The gravity of the center has become too great. The vibrance of it and the need for it to be explored starts to overcome my madness. Like a rubberband, everytime I reach for the edge the center pulls me back, harder each time.

I push against the pull and stretch the pattern to the thinnest slivers of gray. Only then can I see something. An edge! But not of everything. The edge of me. And then the disappointment makes me slip And I slide to the center. I fall into the vibrant centerpoint.

From the center comes sensations. I feel blinded by light, deafened by unbelievable noise, and feel like someone is wiping my body with a million different textures. My mind goes blank. Or was it already blank? Confusion takes over me as I feel myself expand into a new shape. And the shape doesn't fit. And it hurts.

IT HURTS SO BAD!