me_irl

To be fair, the if you look at the scientific evidence at face value, free will and the sense of self are probably both illusions that work because our brain is not a magic computer but a survival machine. It’s made to process input and help use information to aid survival. It simplifies, cuts corners, and creates an illusion of a narrative self.
- I would enjoy talking to you at a party.
  
  Only if I can start that conversion remotely and at a time I decide.
- Got any books in this direction?
  
  "Free Will" by Sam Harris is a good one. Also "Why Buddhism is true" by Robert Wright. If these tickled your fancy there are tons more. It's a surprisingly flourishing area of science. Also, remember, nothing of this is anything you have to believe in, it can all be tested by yourself. All very free of "woo woo". If that is something you would like to explore then I recommend Sam Harris app "Waking Up". Enjoy!
- But our consciousness influences our mind (we can store in our memory what we feel/sense for example), so my take is that the self has a role, probably in survival because it's cheaper energy wise, but still. What do you think?
  Not saying it's free will, just that "we" influence our lives from time to time.
  
  Yeah, but your consciousness was itself shaped by your experiences and genetic predispositios. There's no "you" that can be separated from your material circumstances.
  
  Self is made of thought, there is no control center anywhere that is "self". Thoughts appear by themselves spontaneously, you can't stop them, you can't make them, you can't foretell what they will be. And thought has been proven time and time again to appear after the fact that a decision is made, a movement is started. There's science behind this but you can also experiment with this by yourself.
  It is not for the faint of heart and it may lead to a rabbit hole of other insights that might feel scary. The good thing about that is there have been many walking that path, so there is guidance to be had and that scary feeling is also "just thoughts".
- Very well put! I love that you explained it from the scientific perspective.

People who think they're in control of their life are just like maggie driving the car in the simpsons intro. It only looks like control because of a narrow viewpoint. A wider understanding shows this can't possibly be true. We no more control our lives than a mountain controls how erosion shapes it.
- You can control a million things about life. You can change almost anything. It doesn’t mean you can do anything, let’s be real, but every second of your life you have a choice.
  You can get up tomorrow and be a completely different person. Hate your job? Get rid of it. Hate your friends? Get rid of them. Go to a coffee shop and talk to new people. There is literally nothing stopping you from taking control over your life.
  Yes, there’s limits. You won’t be a millionaire tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean you’re just sitting in the car being driven somewhere. Just get out the fucking car.
- Your life must be a cruel joke if you think this is in any way true
  
  We live in a deterministic universe and control is just not real. It's not something that could possibly exist.
  I do find that funny in a lot of ways, and the universe is cruel is many ways. But mostly I find the illusion of control a silly joke, or sometimes a kind joke.

People realizing slavery never stopped
- Oh you are free now, free to choose which sidewalk you starve to death on

The asexual experience, stumbling through kinks to see if anything hits. (It won't)
- mood.
  at best I've been able to finagle some kind of gerry rig of empathy where i can tell that someone else is enjoying it and i can kinda emulate it...
  ... this has been little more than a survival camouflage, however, to blend in temporarily and only long enough to slip by.
  only after realizing and accepting that I'm asexual does it finally click why the "locker room banter" I'd always encountered in life felt so DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE for me. relationships too when we got close to particular milestones. then i wouldn't be able to maintain the illusion and they would recognize SOMETHING was "off" about me and become obsessed with trying to "solve" me like i was some kind of riddle... OR WORSE: they began assuming that whatever i "must" have "really" been into "HAD" to have been some really fucked up shit.
  these people were literally incapable of comprehending that shit didn't do anything for me.
  at least i can appreciate aesthetic beauty in the same way that i appreciate waterfalls or sunsets or shit like that but I've never wanted to fuck those either >_>;

I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

This is what a burnout and depression can feel like.
- PTSD/C-PTSD too. Trauma can lead to a state of numbness and partial dissociation, like you're just floating (kind of apathetically) through your own life.

The real NPCs were inside us all along.

And boys is how your mother found me at the gang bang.

I'm in a long distance relationship with my own body, fam.

I feel that and I plan for the future like crazy but the best laid plans and all. Heck nowadays I have actions for plans for different scenarios that to some degree contradict each other.

...again...

I had this feeling until my egg cracked and I realized I'm trans. Apparently it's one of many signs of dysphoria.