“…he's like, what? and I'm like, who cares?" 

Overhearing this conversation on the street, Bayli doesn't understand how someone can be like who cares. As a diligent student studying in the monastery since early childhood, and being giftedly insightful, she struggles to figure out the simile.

- bayli
Does it mean the person really cares, but only acts as if they don't care? Or is it a description of a temporary state?

Or, is it an intrinsic acknowledgment of the idea that all things are metaphors, are only brief reflective manifestations of a constantly changing reality?

- wse
I don't know the moment when this meme entered the data streams. But we seem to reference our experiences to stories, and in our culture, usually in the form of TV shows, games, and movies. "...I was like that guy in Dark Forts who thought he was a voodoo priest because at the moment he thought about how he detested his father, his father had a heart attack in Arizona..."

Humans often reference these fictional events in films as if the events are real, and people have always used stories to learn, through comparison, about themselves and the world. But perhaps the imaginary worlds we've created - with the formidable technical storytelling tools we possess now - are becoming indistinguishable from what we perceive in our apparently real lives.

And 'like', inserted into every sentence as we speak, could be our newly designated signifier for this awareness.

Perhaps we are on the cusp of fully understanding the lack of difference between outwardly perceived objects and our inwardly perceived dreams and thought objects that we construct in every moment of our existence.

On second thought, nah, that’s not happening. It’s like, a dramatic gesture…