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the focal point of what fucks me up about this "reality vs. fiction" interface is "magic" like we obviously love magic in fiction, we can't stop writing about it, meanwhile unless you hang out explicitly with people who are into magic you are not supposed to believe it is "real"

i didn't write about this because it was like the 4th most important thing that came up but last time i did acid i learned that i sincerely and deeply believe that the real universe is fundamentally devoid of magic

moreover i never went through a childhood phase where i believed otherwise. i never for a second believed that i was actually going to get a hogwarts letter or anything like that. and like... where did i get such a strong anti-magic prior from???

i don't have a better guess than these Big Books About Science i read when i was maybe 8, that pretty much purported to tell me how the entire universe worked and i pretty much believed them 100%

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· Jan 22, 2021

the ultimate visual dictionary of science had a big impact. the two stephen hawking books were great. and i had a big black glossy book on astronomy i won't be able to track down because it was called "astronomy" or some shit. all these books sunk in real deep i think

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and it's worth pausing for a second to note explicitly that this was basically just indoctrination. it's not like i independently verified any of the claims in these books. the scientific materialist worldview was just shoved into my head

there is this magnificent and beautiful concept in japanese called "chuunibyou" which refers to a young teenager who believes they have magic powers or w/e. it's supposed to be cringe but in some sense these are just kids who refuse to be compartmentalized about fiction