Walking Reset My Mind

``Wow MT, another entry in near-quick succession?''

Yeah... I declared a ``mental well-being day'' for today and went outside to touch grasswalk like an idiot, doing 19+ km in less than 4 h. The route wasn't anything exotic like Windsor Park or Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, but just the humble Northeast Riverine Loop that I usually cycle during lunch hour on days that I work from home. Taking nearly four times as long to walk the route really makes me appreciative of the speed that one gets from a bicycle.

My pinky toes are lightly blistered, my knees feel wrecked (yes, I was walking on flat ground, but unlike the paths in the other more exotic areas, these are almost all concrete), but my mind feels so much more at ease. I feel ready to face the world again, and thus to deal with whatever is coming my way.

And that is a good thing.

As I walked through the stupid heat (with sunglasses on!), I started to do lots of thinking. I've been playing Cyberpunk 2077 [again], and one of the key themes within the game is that of transhumanism in the form of ``chroming up'', i.e. to use cyberware implants as a means of enhancing and sometimes even outright replacing various functionalities of the person. It's a milder form of what Battle Angel Alita, since much of the implants still leave the people more-or-less human-shaped, while in Battle Angel Alita, more exotic physical forms take hold, even as the brains are kept roughly as what they were supposed to be.

All that thought of transhumanism made me think: if given the opportunity, would I be interested in cyberware implants?

I.. don't think I'd be interested in such cyberware implants. It's weird, considering that I'm a technologist, but hear me out. My work/day job are heavily mental in nature (thinking abstract stuff, and implementing systems that run off such abstract stuff in the form of computers). In that context, the cyberware implants might be fine.

But I don't live for work---I live for the stuff that I do outside of work, and strangely enough, I find that the things that I enjoy outside of work, they are quite physical in nature.

Take music-making for example. There was a moment where I tried composition, but in the end, I found that I preferred just playing the flutes, saxophones, and dizi over the mental process of putting together a piece. There's just something about the need to regulate my breathing, coordinating it with my fingers and eyes in a skillful way that makes it very satisfying.

Then there's the whole cycling/walking (I daren't call it ``hiking'' when I know of hard core hiking that Brian does) thing---it's also very physical. The feel of the sun on my skin, the sweat off my brow, the cajoling of the muscles to move despite their reluctance from exertion after being sedentary for too long, the eventual aches and soreness that come, followed by a deep, relaxing sleep with a refreshed mind---these are what makes life worth living [without having to rely on another person to ``provide'' that kind of proof-of-living].

It is that literal visceral feeling that I seek outside of work, and having enough body parts replaced via cyberware implants seem to remove quite a bit of what makes me, well me.

So for now, if cyberware implants were made available, I might not want to partake in them.

``MT, what if they are prostheses for replacing damaged body parts?''

I don't know. Considering that I've already been more or less ``looking forward to being dead'', perhaps the natural outcome is to ignore such prostheses. But that does not mirror what is happening in real life---otherwise why would I go through the process of taking care of my weirded out left eyeball through observation duty, or for that matter, attempt to take care of whatever nonsense my skin decides to throw at me?

Contradiction.

I think that while I am ``looking forward to being dead'', I'm not looking forward to suffering before I am dead, and as a result, have been taking actions somewhat consistent with that kind of behaviour.

``But MT, what about health screening? Why aren't you doing anything about that?''

Good question on that one---no real answer. Why screen for things that I already have a good sense of (I know I'm fat), and for things that I have little to no reason to take care of (e.g. cancer---if I'm hit with it, I think I'm more likely than not to refuse treatment and just die from it, at least, as at now)?

The time hasn't come for me to off myself, so I'm not going to do so just yet.

Anyway, those are just matter-of-fact discussions---I'm feeling much better from the released endorphins from that long-ass walk earlier in the day.

I'll end this post for now to turn in early. It'll be a good night's sleep ahead.