Okay I Lied, It's Only Partly Fun

Seeing Things
How clearly can you imagine an apple? Do you see its shape? The color, the bruising. Do you see it as 2d or 3d? Can you move it around in your head? Is there any lighting? Is that lighting dynamic? What about the texture? Can you see it? Can you feel it? Imagine taking a bite. What does it taste like? Can you taste it? As though it’s on your tongue. Now imagine tapping it. What does it sound like? Does tapping the stem make a different sound? If you can only do some of that, it’s okay. In fact, it’s normal to only be able to do 2 or 3 of them. If you can’t do any of those, then it’s very likely you have something called Aphantasia, which means you can’t picture things in your mind. But if you’re like me and can do most of, if not all (in my case, I can do all of those but the taste), then it’s very likely you have something called Hyperphantasia.
Hyperphantasia is the ability to imagine on an extreme level. With so much realism, it’s as though you are recreating the imagery by bringing yourself back to a prior experience. Hyperphantasia is different from photographic memory. Hyperphantasia is the ability to relive the imagery, to have such a vivid imagination that it is almost reality. Photographic memory is the ability to recall something to the minute detail, but that does not include feelings or emotion, nor does it entail anything beyond what was consciously present in the moment.
Hyperphantasia is arguably a great condition to have if you are in the arts. As for me, I am a game designer, meaning I dabble in everything from 2d art to story writing to music. Hyperphantasia lets me visualize what I want to make in my head. It’s vivid and detailed, which helps me design what is usually almost a fully completed game very early on. Another benefit from Hyperphantasia is an increased ability to problem solve and to critically think. But with Hyperphantasia comes some downsides. Concentration issues are common, whether that be lack of concentration from lack of stimulation or lack of concentration from being unable to turn off one’s mind. I personally find that I am so often lost in my own head, daydreaming about alternate realities, that I often auto-pilot through my day-to-day life until something I don’t want to do pops up, like homework. I’d rather place myself in a fictional world of dungeons, monsters, and adventure. The world of homework, of writing on paper, or typing up an essay is so blah. But it’s because of that lack of concentration that I love game design. I get to write out the worlds in my head, create an image in other people’s minds, and share the adventures I subconsciously go on every day.
Work Consulted: Essen, Jonas von. “Hyperphantasia: The Truth about Photorealistic Imagination.” memoryOS, 31 Jan. 2024, memoryos.com/article/hyperphantasia-revealing-the-truth-about-photorealistic-imagination.
Generations Of Engineers, All For This Moment
Stress is the measure of an external force that acts upon the cross-section of an object. There are two types of stress, normal and shear. Normal stress is from the perpendicularly applied force, and shear is from the parallelly applied force (Boston University). For normal, think karate chopping a stack of wood. For shear, think of chalk on a chalkboard. Rubber bands are also a good example. As you pull and bend the rubber band, it experiences stress. Once the stress goes beyond its measurable limit, the rubber band snaps. While different from the stress people experience, both have a similarity. Once the stress limit has been breached, the subject in question will break. If a material is brought beyond its stress point, the material snaps, cracks, shatters, etc. If a person is brought beyond their stress point, they break down.
Work Cited: Holmes, Douglas. “Mechanics of Materials: Stress " Mechanics of Slender Structures: Boston University.” Mechanics of Slender Structures RSS, Boston University, www.bu.edu/moss/mechanics-of-materials-stress/.
Free Willy! Wait Not The Movie, I Meant Free Will.
“Voluntary choice or decision” and “freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention”. These are definitions given by Merriam-Webster for free will. It’s the idea that you have full control over your future, that every decision made is one you make without a “divine” force guiding you. Free will is often mentioned in religious texts and arguments, which is why I say divine. But ultimately, free will is just the practice of choosing your own future. As said by the Stanford team behind the text Free Will, “free will has traditionally been conceived of as a kind of power to control one’s choices and actions.”
Everyone has their own ideas of what free will is, everyone thinks they do or don’t have free will. I personally think that everything I do is of free will, but it all leads back to one's destiny. You may argue that what I said is contradictory, but it plays into the idea that the path you take to your future is up to you to choose, but the future is still the end goal. A destiny set in stone. If the paths you choose each go separate ways, some longer, some shorter, some windy, and some straight and narrow, then your choice still matters. It’s still up to you to choose that path, still up to you to not walk into the woods, or to walk into the woods. Yet you will still always, seemingly magically, end up at the same place every time, just with a different story, which could possibly affect the connotation of that endpoint.
Work Cited: “Freewill Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freewill.
Work Cited: O’Connor, Timothy, and Christopher Franklin. “Free Will.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 3 Nov. 2022, plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#NatuFreeWill.

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