| CC: Hey Rafaël. Thanks for doing this; I know it’s a weird request. RR: Yeah it’s really funny doing this over 'email'. CC: Well since we were going to talk about old times I thought we'd use old ways. RR: Yeah it’s amazing this archaic technology, thoughts separated into sentences... CC: With this interview I wanted to go back to you and who you thought you were in 2007. RR: Just a few moments before the Great Discoveries. CC: Exactly. RR: Where to start? I think I remember most of it... CC: You are one of the few who does remember. In fact you are one of the few who decided to stay alive after the Great Discoveries. RR: I never had the problems everybody else had, it all made sense to me. Who would have guessed scientific progress resulted in the Century of Suicide! CC: It all seems absurd now but that's why we're talking. Did you have any idea at the time what was about to happen? RR: I had some feelings and I think a lot of people did but nobody thought it would happen this fast. The world seemed barbaric to me, I was ready for change, but I didn't think it would really happen. Not in my lifetime. CC: How exactly was it barbaric? RR: Well you know the historical facts but living in that time... man... Society and even all consciousness was based on cause and effect... To go from A to D you had to pass B and C. CC: Theorists had already conceptualized most answers right? RR: Not even. At the time, there were two categories of theory: science and religion. Science was based on the fact that every answer resulted in more questions. Religion gave absolute answers but they were so retarded I could not relate to them. I dreamt of a different world, and I discussed it with people, but this was all fun and games. My reality seemed millions of years away from the universe we live in now. CC: Haha a million years seemed like a lot back then! RR: Oh yes! Time was very important. People would pay you by the hour! Everything was based on time. I remember I would feel guilty if I didn't use my time wisely. I'm serious, I would think about ways to cut down on my sleeping so I could do 'more'! CC: Why would you want to do more? RR: I really felt like an individual. I mean in the literal sense, people thought they were separate entities. And some would feel better about themselves than others. Personal identity was serious business. CC: And doing more would give you something? RR: Exactly. There was competition, and this was the engine of our world. It was there for a reason, everything would have collapsed without it. CC: Do you miss these feelings? RR: No! I clearly remember realizing how slow my brain was, how limited my capabilities were. It was horrible. It wasn't that bad, but all is so much better now. The world was full of fear, and so was I. This was what really bothered me. You know, we only moved one way in time so decisions had consequences. And that’s why I had so much fear! Fear of death, fear of not doing enough, fear of growing old, basically fear of what might happen. You only had one future. CC: It couldn’t have been all bad... RR: Of course, from my point of view then life was actually quite nice. There was much to find out. Because people hardly understood each other, relationships were very mysterious. You could feel very appreciated and celebrated or jealous and broken, even at the same time. CC: You said you started to realize how limited your capabilities were. RR: Well, it was all relative, compared to some I could feel smart. But everybody knew there were more questions in the world than answers. I was always annoyed by this. Why should there be more questions than answers? |