>>308743>Makes me wonder how real most people are, or if I'm actually clinically insaneMost are not real. Covid should have proved this to you. And what do I mean by “real”? Having intelligence enough to think independently of others.
And you are not clinically insane. No man authentically mad would ever be discovered self-aware of his own madness.
>I genuinely feel like I'm an NPC in a game world at times with broken RNG.You’re just smart and very self-aware in a world in which apparently nearly all are not. Any sufficiently caring and self-reflective human will fall into the belief that he’s beset by soulless people wandering through outwardly random environments as an isolated observer. The ancient gnostics even had a term for this and that term is ἀλλογενής, meaning literally “of a different kind”, but translated as “stranger”. Those who have thoughts like those contained in your post really are ἀλλογεναι (strangers) in a difficult world that is not native to the quality of their souls.
>This is basically every doctor I've met in recent memory for no discernible reason.I can fairly say: me too! Except I disagree with >for no discernible reason. The reason is quite plain: doctors are indoctrinated; not only “intellectually”, that is in how they understand and treat diseases, but also “personally”, in how they hold the most of their patients in contempt as less than themselves. Doctors (95% of the time) are dangerous prideful psychopaths who look down on their patients while having very little actual curative medical knowledge. You should have known this by your age (presuming here that you are 30+). If I can flatter myself, I already knew to be careful around doctors (that they do not make good decisions and are often uncaring toward sufferers) by the time I was in my early 20s.
>Critical failures absurdly disproportionate to whatever was the cause was and miraculous outcomes and rewards/results disproportionate to the effort put in.Here’s an interesting passage out of Plutarch from an essay titled “De Pythiae oraculis (On the oracles of Pythia)”, the subject whereof is the investigation of the truthfulness of the responses given to ancient men who would sue for the attention of oracles in the hope of learning the truth about present realities or the future or whatever:
“ὡς 4 γὰρ οἱ παῖδες ἴριδας μᾶλλον καὶ ἅλως καὶ κομήτας ἢ σελήνην καὶ ἥλιον ὁρῶντες γεγήθασι καὶ ’‘ ἀγαπῶσι, καὶ οὗτοι τὰ αἰνίγματα καὶ τὰς ἀλληγορίας καὶ τὰς μεταφορὰς 1 τῆς μαντικῆς ἀνακλάσεις οὔσας πρὸς τὸ θνητὸν καὶ φανταστικόν, ἐπιποθοῦσι κἂν τὴν αἰτίαν μὴ ἱκανῶς πύθωνται τῆς μεταβολῆς, ἀπίασι τοῦ θεοῦ καταγνόντες, οὐχ ἡμῶν οὐδ᾽ αὑτῶν 2 ὡς ἀδυνάτων ὄντων ἐξικνεῖσθαι τῷ λογισμῷ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ διάνοιαν.’”
(This reads somewhat awkwardly in greek but I tried to render it as clearly as possible):
For as boys seeing rainbows and halos and comets and the moon and the sun do rejoice, and these do love the enigmas and allegories and the skyey changes being reflections of prophecy and illustrative toward mortal kind, they do also desire the cause of the change, not however sufficiently learning, they go away from god clearly knowing, it is not of us nor of them as of things being impossible by reason to arrive toward the cogitation of god.
But again mind the last clause of the paragraph:
“ὡς ἀδυνάτων ὄντων ἐξικνεῖσθαι τῷ λογισμῷ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ διάνοιαν” as of things being impossible by reason to arrive toward the cogitation of god.
I quoted this line twice precisely because it is perfectly true: human reason cannot prevail to capture the logic of the causal system that god (or the demiurge) set in place to govern this reality.
>and not some random outsider having a grand old time messing with me like I used to with insects in a sandbox as a kid.This impossibility of understanding the hidden causation behind human life has led some to conclude we’re trapped inside a deterministic false reality created by a lesser sadistic demiurigic deity. Though I personally don’t believe this as (for instance) the fact that we have free will cannot be reconciled to the notion of a limiting malicious demiurge.
Finally, if you’re still with me, and your attention hasn’t totally been shot by this point, read the words of the Epicurean Lucretius, who well-knew the helplessness humans feel when trying to decipher reality:
“summa etiam cum vis violenti per mare venti
induperatorem classis super aequora verrit
cum validis pariter legionibus atque elephantis,
non divom pacem votis adit ac prece quaesit
ventorum pavidus paces animasque secundas?”
also when the greatest power of the violent wind thru the sea
sweeps a general of a fleet upon the flat waters
equally with strong legions and elephants,
does he not affrighted of the winds approach
the peace of the gods with vows and seeks with prayer second souls?
and also:
“quippe ita formido mortalis continet omnis,
quod multa in terris fieri caeloque tuentur,
quorum operum causas nulla ratione videre
possunt ac fieri divino numine rentur.”
inasmuch thus dread contains all mortals,
because they observe many things to be made on lands and in sky,
the causes of which works they are able to see by no reason
and do adjudge to be made by divine spirit.
These very ancient poetical lines should prove to you that you are not insane, and that searching for larger identifiable causal patterns in a world that is very sparing of them has ever been characteristic of human intelligence.