I’m talking to you. Yes, you. That mass of gray matter, with millions of electrical impulses sparking at any given moment. That blob of red, gray, and white, with more synapses than galaxies in the universe, more stars than the milky way. I’m here to ask you some questions.

Are you isolated from me? As in, is this supercomputer protected by my skull a separate entity from my consciousness? Are you the subconscious machine, ticking away, calculating the best way to ensure your survival, while I, the personality that you created through infinitesimal experiences, am purely a means of security? Did you, rather than I, learn, build connections, construct right and wrongs, truths and lies, from abstract rewards and punishments? Are you computing to maximize pleasure and gain while minimizing pain and loss?

I know you contain me, but do I contain you? Are you the software, while the rest of me is the hardware? Has society shifted and changed to best suit your growth and propagation?

I understand that all of my body is a tool to ensure your nutrition and health. My lungs inhale the air around me. Then through miraculous, magical processes that near science fiction, you are able to dissect it, and take the necessary oxygen into my blood stream.

The blood that carries this life circulates by the force of a powerful pump, known as the heart. It flows oxygen rich blood up towards you, and oxygen deficient blood down, back into itself.

The digestive system acts as a purification plant for your fuel, receiving complex products and breaking them down into it’s most necessary components, ATP and glucose.

Kidneys and livers sift through what is consumed, liquid and otherwise, taking what is required for your subsistence, and removing waste.

Water is your oil, your lubricant, that allows you to function to your fullest capabilities. The rest of me is to ensure that you have the sufficient amount of this fuel and oil to prosper. From my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, emotions, instincts, fears, to my deepest fantasies. They are for you.

Even my desire to have children is to create a newer version of you. One that is new and fresh, that can have all of your knowledge uploaded into it, without the fuss and effort you exerted. Every fiber of my being outside of you is to carry on your existence.

Those who do not wish to continue, for whatever dark, personal reasons that are plaguing their life, are still ensuring your comfort. In a very counter intuitive sense, that is. You have learned how to minimize suffering, and by shutting yourself off, you have succeeded in avoiding that hurt. At least in the temporary, given moment.

Everything I know, everything I perceive and see, everything I believe, is first filtered by you. I can claim that my desires are my own, but how can I be certain? I can claim I see and feel the objective world, but how can I know when it is definitely subjective? How can I call something blue when I have no real concept of what color is?

Since you are constantly evolving, absorbing knowledge for better outcomes, how can I decipher what thoughts are my own, and which are from other equally intricate, chaotic minds that also wish to be validated and preserved?

Hello?

Helloooo?

Brain?

Can you hear me?

Can you answer me back?