I work in physics myself, but wish I'd discovered Aubrey's works before I'd gone to university so I could have gone into biochem instead. Unfortunately the cost of going back and retraining is astronomical, another reason why I wish I was boorn in the future where automation would reduce the costs of everything!
I'm not sure whether I have depersonalisation/ dissociation, because my thoughts and feelings *right now* do appear as my own. It's only my past which seems sort of dissociated from me - I know that my past experiences happened to me rationally, it's just the subjective element of them that eludes me. My aphantasia also means I can't dream - I literally don't have a "mind's eye" (or nose, or ears or tongue) .
I don't actually know anything about philosophical presentism - I'll a look online for more info. Hmm it's strange, personally I think objectively that the flow of time is real, but subjectively it feels like all of my existence is just this single moment in time.
I do have have moments of happiness and peace thanks, but my problem is that because my life essentially seems to just be this single moment in time, if that moment isn't pleasant it seems like that is my whole life which is what makes life - not unbearable, but more unfulfilling because it's not possible to have a life where every moment is amazing.
[EDIT] It's why I intend to leave, because to me nonexistence is preferable. I imagine it to be like when I'm asleep, or the time before I was born. Just nothing
I don't think I've related to anyone online as much as you
Living in a continuous, single moment: couldn't agree more.
I actually have parosmia (decreased sense of smell). Also
used to have a fully functioning sense of smell until 2 years ago, and my mood never returned to normal levels.
Most of all: had I been born at all, it's clear to me that this strip of spacetime colloquially known as the first half of the 21st century is not for me. 'Spatiotemporal misalignment' is the large-scale background reason for why I'll be cutting my stay here short.
Not possible to have a life where every moment is amazing: Due to the inherent
abrasive character of time as we experience it in the given universe, whether or not other universes actually exist. We have to work very long and hard for the
chance to reap a shorter, more fragile benefit.
Yea, automation & UBI ftw. Same here with university, I lack any
good path to getting there. I'll be leaving my younger brother behind, and the thing that gave me some insight into my own reality, is that he even he said "I was born at the wrong time" (around the age of 14, before I had taught him anything about automation, UBI, transhuman/post-human, anti-ageing biotech, etc.)
To be assembled here into an untimely/mismatched era relative to one's disposition, then having to struggle financially in secrecy to obtain the necessary substances, equipment, & accommodations... just to go back to that plane of timelessness and sleep ...odd place this is. I hope and plea for the expedient construction of a post-human world including those declining fertility rates, --those who are already alive, and those born into a smaller pool of their peers will already be far better off than we were. Humorous to think we missed the boat by a mere couple hundred years, virtually nothing in cosmic time. Take care, my friend. I'm sure I'll see you around before I make my escape ;)