I breath in the air, and it becomes a part of me. Travelling through my lungs, into my blood, fueling my thoughts and movements. And what I breath out passes to others, to trees who "breath" the CO2 and animals that take in the unused oxygen and such I didnt keep. A glass of water now in me, was once in the ocean and the clouds. I am part of nature, as it is part of me, we are not separate, we are all one.
All the atoms that current form me were once something else. Same goes for the atoms that make up you. Some of our atoms were formerly shakespeare, mozart, joan of arc, birds, bees, lemons and lizards.
We are constantly replacing the cells in our bodies, so if none of what I am now is the same as when I was, say, ten ... if all of the atoms that currently choose to be me were previously something or someone else, if Everything about us changes, how are we still us? What does it mean to be me? or you?
I mean, Im not the person I was before, Im taller, fatter, there's a very recently little irritating bump on my left index finger, my hair is moving on to its third natural colour (blonde, brown, grey), but Im still me, right?
Or am I?
Not only have all "my" cells changed, and are continuing to change, but apparently a human body contains 10-20 times more microbes than it does cells. Perhaps people are just pudgy appartment complexes for a few thousand generations of microbial civilzations.
Maybe that little bump on my finger is a new microbe strip-mall. So what if - physically - the cellular me who's typing this (and the billions of little bacterial buddies bouncing around in my fingertips as I type) soon won't exist, on a cellular level, and is mostly not "me" at all, but rather "my" microbial amigos ?
What if all that strings me together is the story, the unwritten narrative my brain sorta pieces together (some chapters peridocially gone missing, like the one that tells me where the hell i put that cup of tea down)?
All the atoms that current form me were once something else. Same goes for the atoms that make up you. Some of our atoms were formerly shakespeare, mozart, joan of arc, birds, bees, lemons and lizards.
We are constantly replacing the cells in our bodies, so if none of what I am now is the same as when I was, say, ten ... if all of the atoms that currently choose to be me were previously something or someone else, if Everything about us changes, how are we still us? What does it mean to be me? or you?
I mean, Im not the person I was before, Im taller, fatter, there's a very recently little irritating bump on my left index finger, my hair is moving on to its third natural colour (blonde, brown, grey), but Im still me, right?
Or am I?
Not only have all "my" cells changed, and are continuing to change, but apparently a human body contains 10-20 times more microbes than it does cells. Perhaps people are just pudgy appartment complexes for a few thousand generations of microbial civilzations.
Maybe that little bump on my finger is a new microbe strip-mall. So what if - physically - the cellular me who's typing this (and the billions of little bacterial buddies bouncing around in my fingertips as I type) soon won't exist, on a cellular level, and is mostly not "me" at all, but rather "my" microbial amigos ?
What if all that strings me together is the story, the unwritten narrative my brain sorta pieces together (some chapters peridocially gone missing, like the one that tells me where the hell i put that cup of tea down)?
