Hmmm ... sort of like Childhood's End, as I think you mentioned in another post. Could it be seen as imitations of the ideal hero's journey through various incarnations in various contexts? With the number of variables these days the complexity of our individual and collective life choices becomes almost a marathon in detail and variables. At the same time, as humans experiencing the current 3D human condition or any other, I find a consistent quality in the process which could be seen as "imitation," or as variations on the theme. As for the metaphorical embers we find ourselves in as we grow old, well yes, I've been dealing with some of those. Again, it just seems part of the ontological growth of individual human consciousness; and we have the freedom to try to rekindle those embers, or enjoy the glowing warmth of the best of our experiences in life.

Is the "swallowed inside world" not that of our personal life experiences (in or out of the matrix)? I've had both positive and negative, but have chosen to try to grok/digest the negative to improve my conscious understanding, and to savour the positive memories, like a cow chewing its cud! :-)

I'm reminded of one of my favourite Star Trek Next Generation episodes - I'm sure you know it ... I've posted a link below to the essence of it. "Darmok" and the value of (Tamarian) metaphor and imitation of essential human(oid) values.

sonar

: Poetry

: I came upon this yesterday, at random, so I believe it
: establishes a kind of synchronicity. I see references to my
: condition below - in our embers, whale- Soul's immensity,
: Child (whale) Ruler - His whole vocation were endless
: imitation

: O joy! that in our embers
: Is something that doth live,
: That Nature yet remembers
: What was so fugitive!
: The thought of our past years in me doth breed
: Perpetual benediction: not indeed
: For that which is most worthy to be blest;
: Delight and liberty, the simple creed
: Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
: With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—
: Not for these I raise
: The song of thanks and praise
: But for those obstinate questionings
: Of sense and outward things,
: Fallings from us, vanishings;
: Blank misgivings of a Creature
: Moving about in worlds not realised,
: High instincts before which our mortal Nature
: Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: But for those first
: affections,
: Those shadowy recollections,
: Which, be they what they may
: Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
: Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
: Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
: Our noisy years seem moments in the being
: Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
: To perish never;
: Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
: Nor Man nor Boy,
: Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
: Can utterly abolish or destroy!
: Hence in a season of calm weather
: Though inland far we be,
: Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
: Which brought us hither,
: Can in a moment travel thither,
: And see the Children sport upon the shore,
: And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

: Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
: Thy Soul's immensity;
: Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
: Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
: That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
: Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—
: Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
: On whom those truths do rest,
: Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
: In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
: Thou, over whom thy Immortality
: Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,
: A Presence which is not to be put by;
: Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
: Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
: Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
: The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
: Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
: Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
: And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
: Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

: Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
: A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!
: See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
: Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
: With light upon him from his father's eyes!
: See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
: Some fragment from his dream of human life,
: Shaped by himself with newly-learn{e}d art
: A wedding or a festival,
: A mourning or a funeral;
: And this hath now his heart,
: And unto this he frames his song: Then will he fit his tongue
: To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
: But it will not be long
: Ere this be thrown aside,
: And with new joy and pride
: The little Actor cons another part;
: Filling from time to time his "humorous stage"
: With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
: That Life brings with her in her equipage;
: As if his whole vocation
: Were endless imitation.

: William Wordsworth
: Ode: Intimations of Immortality

: CHRIST

: PS. Thought of another attribute of a Swallowed-Inside world.
: The air, unlike that of Earth before 2004, is very stale ,
: and there is less of it. Smells linger, sometimes for days.
: This is a situation you might encounter in a closed
: Environment, like a Belly.