I think about odd things and I always have. It helps me see the world in a bigger light. It helps me question things. It helps me find the truth.

For example, when I was in third or fourth grade my best friend and I were on the playground conjecturing about where dreams came from. Our working theory was that we went to an alternate universe when we slept. So, being the little scientists we were, we went home to sleep—and hopefully interact with this alternate universe. When we got back together the next day we found we hadn’t learned a goddamn thing. Worse, I realized there was no way for us to verify, one whether or another, whether or hypothesis had any basis in reality.

And this was a good lesson for me. A lot of things are like that in life. Come up with an idea. Test it against reality. Sometimes you can confirm it or throw it away. Sometimes you can’t do anything with it. That’s okay.

Another similar one I sometimes think about is the nature of time. Maybe it doesn’t exist. Maybe the entire universe, every molecule and atom, is at a set, unchanging state. How would we know? The universe would literally be in a single state like a Polaroid snapshot and at any given “time” we’d assume things had happened because that’s the current state of the universe. Again, something probably not provable, but interesting none-the-less.

Why don’t we wake up another person in the morning? I’m always me. Why can’t I wake up Trump one day and Taylor swift the next? Then again, maybe I do. How would I know? If I wake up Trump I’m not going to have any knowledge of my old self, given that I’d have Trump’s brain in my head, and if Trump became me he’d have a similar problem. Maybe we’re always becoming different people in the morning but have no way to know because that’s not how matter and memory work.

(On a related note, I’ve often wondered that if we have souls, maybe they flitter around the universe and push themselves into life forms to “take a look” through the eyes of said creature for a moment before going onto the next thing, sorta like someone sneaking through secret passages in a haunted house looking through those painting eye-holes)

Also, why don’t I wake up at different points in my life? Maybe I could wake up in third or fourth grade and tell my friend I went to another universe where I was a fifty year old software engineer. Could happen. Maybe it’ll happen when I die, like I’ve fallen off the ledge during Super Mario Brothers. Who knows?