Virtual

So, is this what it is now? 

Bike rides are cyclists on trainers pedaling into webcams?  Bars are rows of tiny heads sharing picklebacks online?  Standing around a fire means reclining in your living room while gazing into the warming glow of your computer screen?

Okay, I’ll take it; it’s better than nothing IMHO; IIRC I LOL’ed IRL a lot, so there’s that.

I did get out to pedal a bit, too. 

First, I did a fly-by the usual meet-up spot, making sure to maintain my social distancing, in order to simulate the usual experience.  Having been assured by the expert with the public health degree that riding around on the eerily empty streets had essentially zero probability of increasing my risk factor, I felt relatively confident I wasn’t a bad person for enjoying the opportunity to take all the lanes as I headed home through neighborhoods that looked more like 2:30 in the morning on the way back rather than 7:30 in the evening on the way out.

Then, after an hour or so around the virtual water cooler, becoming increasingly amused by different views and perspectives made possible by the tiny camera eyes, (and increasingly intoxicated by available intoxicants), I rolled out for a little spin around the deserted neighborhood, stopping in a nearby pocket park for a quick smoke just to remind the Universe that we haven’t totally given up; life goes on during the plague even if we’re plagued by doubts and worries.

I guess we can get used to this and I guess we have no choice but to, at least for now. 

And anyway, as philosopher Nick Bostrom’s “simulation hypothesis” contends, we’re all just simulated minds thinking we’re biological ones anyway, so what’s the difference if what’s happening isn’t real; it isn’t real anyway.

Of course, the ancient Vedic rishis knew this, too.  All of it—me, you, bikes, parks—is just Maya; all is Brahman, man, and Tat Tvam Asi.