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commit f33614b7f8b7d8df4699e1d2a8948bc5e165de3a629539885bede40d5701f663
Author: yihanwu1024 <yihanwu1024>
Date: Tue Feb 13 00:00:00 2024 +0000
create essay on my loss of the feeling of sharp perception in 2017
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+<article xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xml:id="c27fc3af7c0545c4fa7fcf081e199506a73343b4dcc8366999d41d0658763780">
+<title>Awake</title>
+<para>In the beginning of 2017 I lost one feeling.
+The feeling of thinking sharp.
+I said the “feeling” because I could never know if it was merely a feeling or I was actually sharp at thinking.
+I used to look pay a load of attention to my surroundings, while walking, taking transit, or in a new building; and all of that information would get processed and stored, <emphasis>efficiently</emphasis>, almost passively and in parallel, all while I was very aware.
+<emphasis>Awake.</emphasis> That is the right word.
+<emphasis>Perceiving sharply.</emphasis> Although, when it came to abstract matter this distinct feeling did not exist, so it might not have been relevant to abstract thinking.</para>
+<para>At the same time my vision also became bad enough to require glasses.
+It was a bliss to put them on so I could see every detail.
+Details that exist in my consciousness which others may not notice.
+More than a bliss, even—everything I saw was <emphasis>real</emphasis>, just <emphasis>as it was promised</emphasis>; now the more I looked, the more good I attained, and more than any point in the past, I did not want to stop looking.
+<emphasis>Perceiving sharply the real.</emphasis> But my eyes would strain like hell if I kept wearing those glasses, so I only used them intermittently; I might get the better bifocal ones, though.</para>
+<para>No, I have not been able to recover that feeling of being awake by correcting my optics.
+It was a rather clear divide.
+Since 2017 I have woken up every time not to supreme energy and clarity, but a fuzzy world.
+One might hypothesize that my vision and mental state are not correlated.
+I would hope this to be true, too, but never actually thought about it.
+After all it was quite a sudden—so much that I did not end up grieving for even one second.
+And no one told me they noticed anything.
+Good, so I carried on.
+I think this was the first time I had to deal with fate.</para>
+<para>7 years could be a long time for the development of a young brain.</para>
+<para>Interestingly enough, I never lost my geospatial abilities, which had developed preemptively.
+I also became better at basic physical reactions which I previously had problem with.
+I learned many new things, too, including the fact that creativity is not given.
+Yet I rarely became awake again.
+<emphasis>Because I grew?</emphasis> Because I had better information than direct observation?
+Or the reverse?
+In any case, it seems to be a strenuous task to gain it once it is lost to reason.</para>
+<para>I was awake when I saw galaxies and thunderstorms from the equator onboard QF 98.
+When I was looking at Los Angeles from 10,064 feet.
+When I was standing in an unnamed park, with a certain number of people nearby chatting differently and the urban noise casting in spatially, so I recognize the direction and distance of all motions around me.
+When the sun arrives at a certain angle, and every particle outside <emphasis>trembles</emphasis> as if they are thrilled about their new lives.
+The same kind of awakeness did not occur while I was driving, or studying math.</para>
+<para>When I was 5 and allowed to roam about in an apartment complex—a modernist one—I noticed that the elevator buttons used an uncommon typeface, and I liked it.
+It felt clearly artificial, <emphasis>canonical</emphasis>, and very good for this world.
+I loved it so much that I learned to draw nearly every letter of it, restoring all features that were intended to be there.
+Later, the typeface was found to be Helvetica, which was quite uncommon in China.
+(Most elevators in China were, and still are, designed by foreign companies.)
+If my memories are reliable, it was either the original Helvetica or Neue, or with marginal possibility, Swiss 721.
+But how was my observation possible?
+How could I cease to have such discoveries?
+Though impossible to answer, it is hope.</para>
+</article>