Entry #1
16 February, 15023
Memories. Man wants to retain his memories forever. For what is Man but flesh and machine that is birthed by others without his own consent? Therefore, it should be true that man have no value and killing another man or removing their existence from this wretched Earth cannot be immoral. And yet it is. I believe man has value. A value unique from any other. Removing a man means to remove all his experience, memories and feelings from the world. Because his memories are unique from another man’s memories, even if they experienced the same event. Even his experiences are unique. That is why Man drew pictures in caves in 7000 BC., carved on tablets in 3000 BC, wrote books in 200AD, recorded films in 1900 AD. I am a Man myself, but even if there are devices that can extract my memories and save them into a virtual storage device, I chose this primitive method, writing a logbook, as it is called in the olden language, a diary. This is my first entry.
Entry #4
17 February, 15023
I have typed 3 entries so far. Writing entries like this is exhilarating, in this world devoid of feelings. But who will read these? Me of the future or someone from the past? Although I may never know the identity of the reader, it would be impolite of me to not introduce who I am, even more importantly, introduce this era.
My name is [REDACTED]. Born from parents of [REDACTED] origin, a race born under a cross of Aryan and African-Dravidian. I am 4099 years old. Enough about my genetic description.
The current era is called the Golden Era, the longest running era of humanity. Most problems of humanity from the past are solved. Cancer no longer exists, nor hunger. No more wars or politics. Space exploration is possible. Genetic engineering is at its peak and we are almost reaching a state of immortality. There used to be eight planets in the solar system, but now there are seven. Planet SS112-01 or “Mercury” has been absorbed by the sun as its mass increased with the passing of centuries. Global warming reached a point where the surface is no longer inhabitable for humans. The current population of the people on this planet is 4 million. Yes, no longer billions but just a few millions.
Entry #352
December 1, 15023
Sleep is a rare phenomenon now. Not because people do not want to but it has become impossible. Most of our body parts are replaced with machines. Our natural body on average cannot live for more than 200 years and replacing them with bioengineered body parts is too expensive and not worth the results. So using machines instead of body parts became the craze. But it did not come without a cost. For mechanical limbs to work properly, some parts of the brain are required to be replaced. As a result, some cognitive functions are lost and people lose their ability to perform basic human tasks. Such as distinguishing colors, arithmetic ability or concentrating on a task etc. For that reason, perceptual augmentations are used by people to regain their ability to do such things. But these are not as familiar as using your organic body parts for cognitive actions. So why am I talking about this? Today, I am going to the machine doctor to replace my heart with a machine. In return, I have to replace a certain part of my brain which gives me the ability to dream. And unfortunately, even with hundreds of years of research, no machines that can be used to grant dreams to a dreamless human could be invented. So, there is no hope for me to dream again. I will have my last dream for now.
Entry #356
December 2, 15023
Although I cannot dream anymore, the memory of my last dream keeps recurring to me as I space out during the day. Maybe this could be a side-effect and there surely exists any drug for it. But the last dream that I had, I am fond of it. I do not want to forget it. So I would like this to continue forever.
I remember this dream. It was about my sister. She was in a garden on her knees, plucking tulips from the ground in vast green meadows. No trees could be seen, nor any people. She wore a plain white dress and seemed happy. This was not just a dream. This is a memory. Even though asking is of no use, will I not be able to continue this dream again?
Entry #661
3 March 15024
All these entries I have written in this book, most of them contained mere description and the state of my work. I did not mention this before in the previous entries, I am an archeologist. My main line of work is to recover knowledge of interest and artifacts from the dark age. Around the year 5500, when humanity finally settled underground, they invented human-like machines or simply Androids who could think like humans and feel like humans. They are robots that work instead of humans on the surface above ground. Once corporations started mass production of androids, they used their own android armies to wage war against each other in battles for resources.
Up ‘till 5600, the hundred years war went on. That is when the population dropped from 28 billion to 49 million. Enough about that, I have lost the joy of this work around the first few hundred years. I always worked under the pretense of my curiosity of finding out how we used to be a long time ago, but this is just fake nostalgia for things I never had. Things I could never experience while those before me did. As I discovered more and more of these, I started to understand that they lived better lives than us. And this whole feeling of despise for them kept me from getting desensitized to having feelings for this work. But now after a while, I cannot enjoy these feelings any longer. If man is made to do something he does not like for the benefit of the society or just for the sake of his existence, will he not question his existence? Will he not question his value? Will I not question my reason for living?
Entry #837
4 August 15024
The only other person from my family that I know of is my sister. She and I were one of the earliest batches of the golden children. In other words, the people with prolonged lifespan. My sister had a kind of immunodeficiency disorder as a side effect of her prolonged life. As a result, she was kept in a controlled environment. Her dome was decorated with tulips growing on fake sanitized ground. But due to global warming, it was no longer possible to keep her on the surface anymore and the tulips went extinct. Before leaving to a faraway place, she wished that she could take some tulips with her.
Entry #998
2 March 15025
Today commemorates the 10,000th death of this year. Overpopulation used to be a problem long before. No longer it exists anymore. It remains only a shadow from the past. Previous eras chose barbaric means for population control. Barbaric by today’s standards. 2070 AD Cheinora or previously known as the nation of China chose forced euthanasia. 3020 AD Endien, also known as India, purged its people once a year. After the dark age ended, Golden Technologies Inc. provided a different solution.
They lead the invention of the golden elixir, a serum when injected into a mother’s womb would prolong that child’s lifespan to a few thousand years. Within the first 500 years the population increased from 49 million to 2 billion. But then it dropped. It dropped to 700 million in the next two thousand years, dropped to 100 million, dropped to 30 million, and now it is a mere 4 million. They chose the most ethical method of population control. Letting the population die out by their own choice.
When you live over a few hundred years, you know there is nothing left to experience. You get desensitized to almost all arrays of emotions. And while it was thought by intellectuals before that the number of possible unique emotions produced by a human being is not finite, it was proved wrong. Human emotions are really finite. They are more of a range in a spectrum rather than uncountable discrete numbers. When you feel emotions similar to one, you feel that emotion rather. And at one point, emotions gained from the best of human virtues and the worst of human sins, even those become desensitized. Takes less than a few hundred years to get to that point.
At that point, life becomes nothing but a burden. At that point, if you are given the choice of natalism, the responsibility of creating life, or your death, you would choose the latter. Because the latter is noble; There is nothing more humane than saving another soul from existing in this meaningless cycle of life.
Entry #1511
December 31, 15025
News arrived about a planet very similar to old Earth, found in a nearby solar system. With the advance of space travel, it is easily possible to go forth and back from that planet to Earth. I have ordered a few batches of tulips to be planted, it should come within a few years. Whether I find her or not, I shall keep a treasured item like this to me. Maybe this could make me sensitized to feelings once again. It could invoke an old memory of mine maybe, if not in dreams, maybe in real life. Maybe if I ever visit my sister, who now lives in a faraway place, I might take that with me.
Entry #3442
April 3rd 15027
Feelings lost their importance in the realm of experience. Rather, you cannot feel any experience. Not because of biological reasons nor the reasons of sensitivity that I mentioned before, but there is no reason to feel at all. I am desensitized to all sources of gratification. All my work is done by machines and artificial intelligence. Entertainment, music, creativity and even arts are done by machines. Even I am tired of my curiosity. These machines themselves are now their own civilization, advancing, having a purpose destined by their masters. While their masters, who we are, have no purpose at all to live. So, the machines took upon an idea to build a haven for seemingly purposeless people like us. They are known as the Mortalization Center, where the ultimate goal of our life is achieved, ceasing existence peacefully. Men powered by their lungs and heart are injected with anesthetic poison gas to die in peace and for Men powered by pacemakers and machines, a simple electromagnetic pulse will silently kill all the voltage in an instant, leaving no reaction for the brain to even know it is dying.
And how has humanity reacted? Nothing. The machines did their purpose, serving humanity. And it is us Men who by choice chose to end themselves like this. And so, there were no conflicts between nations, because there was no nation of man. There was no politics between parties, because there was no need for ideologies. There was no requirement of killing, because people forgot what fear feels like. In fact, the whole idea of ending another man’s existence by your own hands was forgotten long ago, because there was no need to. The machines solved it all. A perfect civilization held only by logic and servitude to their master.
Before the machines could consider taking our decision for us, we took our decision by ourselves. Our happiness came with fulfilling our purpose of life, and it seems when there was no purpose in our life, there could be no happiness. And since there is no reward for living, by laws of necessity, there is no need for us to live. So we humans ourselves took the decision to die when we are done with life. The word killing no longer existed, because suffering in this crisis is the true purpose of our life and nothing can be more cruel than that. Our life being born is enough reason for us to suffer and killing anyone out of a pedantic grudge only seemed forgiving while considering the possibility of their desensitization. The machines are serving us well. Serving with a purpose of fulfilling the purpose of their masters, the masters who do not have that purpose themselves.
So, all life ends by going to their final destination, the faraway place through the gates of the Mortalization Centers. And that is why, after playing God for the last few thousand years, only 4 million souls are operating now in this temporary existence.
Final Entry #4999
November 30
The tulips are to arrive today. Tomorrow is my birthday and I wish to celebrate with my sister. I have filled up the forms required for me to enter into the faraway place with her. Although it was not known to me at first, it did not take much effort to find out which Mortalization Center took her to the far too distant utopia where everyone ceases to exist.
But I cry. I cry not in fear of the Earth. I cry not in fear of the soul. I cry not in fear of what else exists in this world. I cry in fear of meeting with her. What if really there is a faraway utopia where everyone is living peacefully? What if I do get to meet with her. Maybe there will be tulips that grow all over the gardens. Maybe she is happy. Then who am I to be with her? The sensitization I get for feelings like these exhilarate my mind. Theory suggests that I will reach the peak of these feelings once I am sent away to the faraway place through the centers. And in those faraway places, the feelings perpetuate without any desensitization. In those centers, the value of a man is maintained for the deeds he did in this world. His experience bears a value for its uniqueness. And yet this theory could be wrong. Maybe there cannot be any way for me to regain my value of life. Maybe I will cease to exist and that will be it. The whole idea of existence seems vague to me and the idea of ceasing to exist is incomprehensible. But once I could experience this, even if it ends my ability to experience, this one experience will be unique and I will finally be able to comprehend what it means to exist.
Tomorrow I shall find my place in this wretched eternity. Whether it be true that the faraway place exists or not, I will be able to dream again.