Every hand you've ever held was a ghost.
When you reach out to touch someone, you're grasping at emptiness wrapped in skin. This seems dramatic until you examine the mechanics of consciousness. Your private bubble of awareness never actually connects with mine.
Remember that time you felt so connected to someone – perhaps during sex, or a deep conversation, or that magical mushroom trip – when boundaries dissolved and two became one? Total illusion. Two never became one because two never existed. The dreamstate created a convincing hallucination of unity, but you remained alone in your bubble, they in theirs, like astronauts waving through helmet glass.
Physics confirms it: no atom ever touches another. The electromagnetic repulsion between electrons creates an uncrossable gap. Your most intimate moments happen across an abyss…
…yet you'd die without these phantom connections.
The Cosmic Prank
Connection is the universe's cruelest joke.
We've evolved elaborate mechanisms to believe in something fundamentally impossible. Our brains flood with oxytocin and dopamine when we "connect," creating a chemical illusion of togetherness that feels more real than reality.
Consider your cellphone – a device explicitly designed to "connect" you with others. Yet notice how the more connected we become technologically, the more isolated we feel existentially. This isn't a coincidence but a revelation. The tools designed to bridge the gap inadvertently highlight its existence. Each text message bounces across the void. Each social media interaction reminds your unconscious that you're faking intimacy with avatars while sitting alone in a room staring at light patterns.
The universe loves symmetry. The more ways we invent to "connect," the more painfully obvious our fundamental isolation becomes…
…it's the perfect cosmic prank.
The Survival Paradox
We need what cannot exist.
Human babies die without touch, despite touch being physically impossible at the atomic level. We're wired to require the very thing reality prohibits – actual connection. Your survival depends on buying into the greatest fiction ever sold.
I once watched two strangers fall in love on a train…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to NirvanaNuke: The Ultimate Unveiling to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.