Alistair,

I was put to sleep on a planetary explorer ship, class XY. I woke up thousands of years in the future to find out that my berth was the only one that worked. Everyone else stayed awake and built an entire life and civilizations on the ship itself. It just kinda… moved on without me. How do I cope with being not only out of touch but also being the only living creature that remembers the original purpose of the ship?

Crewmember 1 in El Paso

Crewmember 1

Well, the ship has, as you say, moved on without you. In this plane of existence, it’s more or less up to you to manufacture a meaning for your life. Yours was Something – discovering new worlds or something similarly optimistic, or perhaps fleeing the maws of a great entropic destruction – and now it is no longer that Something. In a straightforward way, you’ll have to find a new Something. Gardening, cooking, crime fighting, studying rare species of butterfly. Whatever it is that makes your little corner of the class XY ship a little brighter.

On the other hand, you could also preach the news on street corners. That has some ethical merit, but is a far less enjoyable way to spend a life that has already suffered from being more or less flash frozen for at least a double handful of centuries.

Alistair