Being able to fully read young adult books (Harry Potter) and having unrestricted internet access at age 10 was a big shift for me. Before that, I am not even sure I was really conscious, but more akin to a clever animal? I don't think I had coherent, continuous internal monologue. Basically an NPC who took the mushrooms and became a human. But maybe that is a superior form of existence, since overthinking wasn't possible.
I first took on "edgy" views at age 14, and then at age 17 wondered if I wasn't just trapped in a secular pseudo-religious messianic delusion of grandeur. I had many ideas but they seemed to be totally useless. I autistically studied history and maps, and I started to interpret this as pornographic desire for power without any path to real instantiation. I went camel-mode, attempting to do STEM to make as much money as possible, and then flunked.
If I was successful at STEM maybe I would be happy doing that. But since I wasn't, I started trying weird and bizarre methods to attain meaning, like recording videos of myself talking alone in a room and writing hundreds of articles on Substack. So maybe NPC -> 10 year old lion (cheetah?) -> 17 year old camel -> lion (hyena?). If I give up on this lion thing I suppose the lazy camel is waiting for me. Or burn the boats, since YOLO.
Being able to fully read young adult books (Harry Potter) and having unrestricted internet access at age 10 was a big shift for me. Before that, I am not even sure I was really conscious, but more akin to a clever animal? I don't think I had coherent, continuous internal monologue. Basically an NPC who took the mushrooms and became a human. But maybe that is a superior form of existence, since overthinking wasn't possible.
I first took on "edgy" views at age 14, and then at age 17 wondered if I wasn't just trapped in a secular pseudo-religious messianic delusion of grandeur. I had many ideas but they seemed to be totally useless. I autistically studied history and maps, and I started to interpret this as pornographic desire for power without any path to real instantiation. I went camel-mode, attempting to do STEM to make as much money as possible, and then flunked.
If I was successful at STEM maybe I would be happy doing that. But since I wasn't, I started trying weird and bizarre methods to attain meaning, like recording videos of myself talking alone in a room and writing hundreds of articles on Substack. So maybe NPC -> 10 year old lion (cheetah?) -> 17 year old camel -> lion (hyena?). If I give up on this lion thing I suppose the lazy camel is waiting for me. Or burn the boats, since YOLO.
Just from memory I think the camel/lion/child transformations were a guide to become an Übermensch and not descripetive of normal human development.