First Existential Moment – Gator Days
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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Reject existential worries, embrace good times with friends
First comes the existential realization….
Then comes the existential ***dread***.
oh wow, I had a very similar realization about thoughts when I was little. I feel ya Gustopher
I came here straight from Bluesky, ready for the bonus material. I’ve never been here this early before.
…it’s spooky. 🙂
And then you find out some people just don’t have an internal monologue. Sure they can think and an image may come to mind, but there’s no internal “voice”.
Literally me everyday
Aww, don’t worry Gus!
Poor little Gustopher, that first feeling of sonder as you people watch can be a little overwhelming and lead down a terrifying rabbit hole.
New ability unlocked: theory of mind.
Ludo ergo sum?
Eh, Ultra Horse Party lost its luster after the developer lost its director.
Now MEGA Horse Party? That’s a title that still holds up to this day.
I learned this has a name. Sonder. Where you stop to consider everyone else having a vivid a life as your own.
boltzmann brain paradox my beloved
Gus almost let the intrusive thought win, but then video games.
Yo they’re playing ultimate chicken horse
The first two panels are called sonder. Not sure if the third has a proper term
Sometimes I think…
Then I forget 😀
Gustopher went from level 1 to level 9 in metacognition
Gustopher! Gustopher! Wake up! You’re stuck in a Nissan ad!
It’s so weird that after a few years of existence, you just wake up and become aware.
Like at 5, I just woke up one day, and I was aware I’m a human being who exists, then it went downhill from that point.
Sonder, my child…
My small crocodile it’s even worse
[https://www.schooltube.com/living-in-the-past-the-fascinating-lag-between-reality-and-perception/](https://www.schooltube.com/living-in-the-past-the-fascinating-lag-between-reality-and-perception/)
Google Boltzmann Brain (or don’t if you don’t like existential crisis at the quantum mechanics level).
I remember when I was 5 I had a dream that I woke and my entire life had been a dream and that every night I’d dream a new entire life.
Kinda blew my little 5yo mind and made me a very conspiratorial child. I remember being suspicious that my entire family was just acting and that I’ve day they’d torture and murder me for fun and my entire childhood was a lie…
Kids are fucking stupid but also really smart at the same time lol.
Ultimate Horse Party is definitely a Matt Inman game
In a sea of shitty political memes trying to convince the already convinced these comics are a fresh breath of air.
Thank you for these!
When I was a child, I was raised in the LDS (Mormon) church. We were always taught that the ultimate reward for following God was to go to heaven and live forever. Eternity.
There was a time as a child that this idea really bothered me. Something about the concept of eternity, that it was endless, that in a thousand billion years it would still be the same, really got under my skin.
I don’t follow the Mormon church anymore, but I still wonder about things like that – the existence of a soul, whether there is something after this life and whether that lasts forever. It still scares me a little bit, frankly. I’d prefer to know that I get my 80 years, and then I get to be done.
As a kid sometimes I would think to myself, “what if other people can read my mind?” But then I would freak out because I would start actually wondering if my mind was currently being read
It’s called “Sonder”.
The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it.
Who reads these comics? Is it for 10 year olds? Or emotionally broken adults. I can’t tell
I once had a trippy existential episode thinking about how our names are words that encompass everything about us. Everything we are, were or will be down to a name.
Is the Ultra Horse thoughts real?
Ok but what are Hannah, Liam, and Olivia’s existential thoughts like?
It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who keeps randomly thinking about metaphysics for no reason
wow relatable
I remember wondering if our world existed in a snow globe as a kid. Existential thoughts hit hard
He just like me FR
I think thoughts are very real, and the fact that everyone who has ever lived thinks as much as I do just shows how grand the scale of human consciousness is. Its a wonderful thing how big it all is.
Mine was sight and my thought process was like I can see their faces but I cant see mine without a mirror am I seeing the same things with other people? Why does it feel like I am the only one who can see
I remember my first existential moment as a kid was why am I me and not someone else.
Maybe it’s just me, but I swear Gus looks taller here. Like he grew a little.
Or it’s just the counter being leaned on.
This reminds me of how a “I’ll have a small edible and do dishes” turned into mind melting existential angst. Still got some dishes done but also ranted for *awhile* into my phone notes app.
Ah yes, theory of mind, welcome to the club of existential pondering bucko
Wait till you see yourself in the mirror and go ‘wait, that’s my face!?!’ before remembering that yes, that is your face.
As we all know from experience, Ultra Horse Party can quell the existential dread.
A game will only distract him until he realizes that fictional worlds like video games also exist (not on the same level as the one we live in, but they’re still materially present in physical/digital manifestations and in audience memories that are all rooted in equally evident biological stuff). You’re welcome, Gustopher.😈😄
Games make everything better.
Hits a bit too close.
Brain caught Gus slipping! Glad he had a friend to pull him out 🙂
Some people don’t have inner monologue voice… do they still have thoughts?