I don’t think he approved of my VR for some reason, - Dennis E. Taylor

It seemed sometimes that life was nothing more than the accumulation of emotional baggage — memories, regrets, and lost opportunities.

Yep. Just when you start to get ahead in the rat race, the universe delivers bigger rats.

I had three issues that bothered me. Was I conscious? Could I actually consider myself to be alive? And was I still Bob? Philosophers had been going on and on about this type of thing for centuries, but now, for me, it was personal. A human, regardless of their opinion on the subject, could depend on being a human. The minister’s offhand reference to me as ‘it’ and ‘replicant’ had stung at a level I was just now starting to appreciate.