I understand that.

It’s not understandable.

But we live in a world of illusions and obsessive separation/categorization, and it is useful to act as if some of those illusions are real, while also holding space for awareness that they’re not.

This is not true. There is what seems to be happening, which sometimes includes an illusion of subject/object separation. There’s nothing useful or not useful. Awareness is part of the illusion of subject/object.

“There is no separation”, sure.

You can dismiss it like that, but it’s dismissing everything.

But in our collective imagined reality, there is, and that dictates a lot despite free will being illusory.

Reality is not imagined. There’s no separation in reality. The self-illusion doesn’t add anything. It’s just a totally redundant add-on that misperceives what seems to be happening as being about someone. There’s nothing wrong with it. It can’t be made to go away, and it doesn’t need to go away. It doesn’t help and it doesn’t hinder. It has no relationship to what seems to be happening apart from claiming that what seems to be happening is all about, by, and for it.

Why would you bother trying to explain your point of view to me otherwise? Because we are having different experiences.

I’m not explaining a point of view. I’m describing reality. There’s nothing here that’s bothering to do anything, or trying to explain anything. You say reality is an illusion, and I say no it isn’t. That’s all. There’s no one having experiences. That’s totally not what’s happening.