Are you ever worried that you don’t really exist? That while there may be belief in you, there may be no you? (Veri, stop salivating!)
Well, don’t worry. Non-existence is a vanishingly rare condition.
Or maybe it’s really common. I guess it depends on how you think about it. In any case, if you are worried you may be non-existent, check for these common signs and symptoms! We’ll help you figure out whether you are real or not.
Common signs and symptoms of non-existence:
- You get blamed for everything and you get credit for everything, but it’s not clear you had anything to do with any of it.
- No living person has actually seen you.
- People who claim to know you well say absolutely contradictory things about you.
- You are strangely ineffectual at working your will in the world–the big payoff is always sometime in the future.
- Believing is seeing, and not the other way around.
- Your actions and your attributes are irreconcilable.
- Every culture thinks you look like they do.
- People say things like, “I believe; help my unbelief” about you.
- You are the ultimate Rorschach test.
If you experience more than four of these symptoms, you may be “suffering” from non-existence. “Suffering” in quotes here, because non-existence is really quite painless. For the non-exister, that is. It may cause bouts of anxiety, depression and aimlessness in others.
Questions:
- If you don’t exist, will it be necessary to invent you?
- If you were to learn that God didn’t exist, would it cause you to experience anxiety, depression, and/or aimlessness?
- If in fact you once were a believer, and changed to unbeliever, did you experience anxiety, depression, and/or aimlessness as a result?