What if it's all a video game

What if we made a video game in which we can teleport ourselves into the characters for the duration of play and for that duration, we forget our true selves and live the lives of characters. The game deploys an advanced form of Machine Learning (ML) that allows it to design its own trajectory.

What if we are all in that game right now. We have built our virtual lives and families. We have developed what we call medical science that prolongs our lives in the game. But when we die, it's game over for the character and 'we' gain back our real consciousness. And hey, turns out mum is calling, food is getting cold. We may be left with certain emotions about how this particular session of the game turned out but since we know it was an artificial game, we don't give much thought to these emotions. Meanwhile, in the game, the family of the deceased is devastated by the loss and it changes the course of characters' entire game lives. The children grow up without a parent, the parents grieve for the loss of a child, and what not.

In early days of this game, real world players felt lingering emotions that needed to be addressed by therapy. But over time, a lot of resources got developed to help get over these emotions. Perhaps, a new branch of therapy developed. And then the industry became so pervasive that people learned to overcome such temporary emotions like nothing happened.

And a pandemic is just a new complication released by the developer in the 2019 update of the game. Just to spice things up for the real world players while the characters lives are ravaged.

As they say in our virtual world within this game, the soul never dies. Well, apparently, it doesn't. Because the same real world player will reincarnate in another character in the next session.

So enjoy while it lasts. It's not real. It can't be, with all that's happening in the world!