The Athenian
It's not unusual for early spring nights to be cold, but tonight, the chills are working their way through to even my bones. The “warmth” southern winds carry on their backs when migrating from the bay of bengal is losing the fight for now.
It's quite an interesting thing to observe. When this battle of nature takes place, the losing side is always the trees. The soldiers hide behind the leaves and when the war is over and as the warmer wind wins, the trees lose all their shade. Quite symbolic if you know what I mean. That's how it is, even for us humans, is it not! When in war, the only losing side is the people who are ordinary, no matter who's fighting who.
If you somewhat believe in what I just stated, you also somewhat believe in Stoicism. And like me, you believe in how there are some greater patterns to the cosmos beyond our control. Romans called it “The dichotomy of control”. Simply put, as a part of nature, the only thing within our reach is our own thoughts and actions. Is it so though? If you wonder the same, please feel free to participate in the thought experiment we are about to embark on.
Have you heard the term “The ship of Theseus”? It's an age-old paradox that has kept many philosophers scratching their heads when trying to define what the “Nature of Change” and “Evolution of Self Identity” is.
Once there was a hero named “Theseus” who embarked on a great journey aboard his ship called the “Athenian”. The journey took so long that Theseus and his crew needed to regularly repair the ship. And at one point, none of the original parts of the ship remained. It's as if a completely new ship was built over the span of their journey. It then made Theseus ponder upon a question that can not be answered by simply applying the established laws of nature. The question was, can the ship be called “Athenian” anymore? As none of its original planks are present anymore.
If you have read till now, you can already guess where this is leading to. We humans too go through change. The cells in our bodies are completely new after a cycle of cell regeneration which is constantly taking place every second. If we apply the same logic to our bodies, do we remain the same person going through life? Will it be the same me right before my death, as I was when I was born? Does that not make you question the nature of your individual reality?
Personally, I would like to believe I will remain the same person. Thinking otherwise would be just absurd. In that case, what makes me, me? Or incase of any person. What trait of theirs continues throughout the life that gives them an individual but constant identity?
Prominent philosophers answered this by saying it's our memories, our histories, pasts, and desires are what cumulatively gives us that identity. Those elements too are subject to change. Our memories change over time, decay, fade and introduce imaginary elements to themselves. So do the other ones. And so I have developed my own answer to this dilemma of finding my own self identity. Unlike what everyone believes, our identities actually change over time. It's the cumulative culmination of our actions leading up to our death. And only after we see the light for the last time, our identity becomes a constant. And that is the only thing we can control.
From now on, if you think about who you are, give this a thought. You, me, and everyone else are not the same persons as we were moments ago. Even if the thought is unsettling, it may be the truest of truth. "Wheels of life" turn and churn out only change which is beyond our control.
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Well-read and thought-out article no doubt. And your argument about not being static a person is sound.
I myself lean towards identity being all about memories (experience will be included there) as if someone were to lose their memories, they'd be entirely a new person. The changes throughout their life are an essential trait of the memories, as memories need not be static.
So we agree on this then. Doesn't it make you think how fragile we humans are? susceptible to so many vulnerabilities.
We are vulnerable in many ways, more instant ones. And without caution. Im thinking of the thousands of people who died in the last earthquake in Turkey. Losing memories is a far-fetched one on that scale.
We are very fragile individually, there's no doubt.
I don't know about the ones around me, but if I talk about mindset, then I say that it's been changeless, since my late teens and early twenties.
Yet, there are changes, in the many other aspects. There are ups and downs, rapture and regret, gain and loss. As a naturally flawed human-being though, I am learning, I am growing, I'm changing for the better, also changing for the worse. And I say this process goes on non-stop, every damn second we are going through miniscule changes, that I can't deny.
These changes may seem scary at first. But along with how this makes us seemingly fragile, don't you think this is also what makes us strong? I think it does. its the ability to rejuvenate ourselves and let go of our weaknesses is what makes us strong. It even allows us to love even after the most serious of heartbreaks, even after a catastrophe befalls us. I find all of this, this paradox, all the others like this one extremely fascinating to say the least:P
Of course, in some aspects there are changes, ones that have made me more fragile. After a certain point in life, I never even expected such frail reactions from myself; yet, it was all so abrupt, I just couldn't fight it off, or maybe I just didn't want to...
But, at the moment, the ones who I'm delicate towards, my weaknesses, they are also the reason behind all my strength.
Yes, there is rejuvenation, always. But there's also the collection of callouses we don't usually talk about; the ones some of us have tucked away or chose to ignore. One heartbreak after the other, one failure after the other, these callouses develop in those areas, so that next time our dumbasses don't get hurt as badly.
We will fall again, we will learn again, but the pain won't be as penetrable.
What doesn't kill us....
May what we deserve finds us right when we deserve it.
Gives us something more to write about. 😂
Here's hoping. 🔥
To me, it's also our experiences and memories that make us who we are. And we are constantly experiencing one thing or another. There is a saying that true constant, and although physics goes againts this saying, I still think there are some truth to it. Everything around us is decaying, regenerating. I for one, surely am not the same person I was two years ago. Even if my core belief stayed the same, my surroundings, my values, they evolved, some towards good and some bad.
To me, creation is chaos. There isn’t anything simple about it. So there is no wonder that everything related to it will also be like a labyrinth.
I am extremely sorry that it took me this long to reply. Sickness and everything else included made me over look this reply. I didnt even see the notif.
Spoken like a true stoic lad there:P I agree with you and would like to add that, good and bad are also relative. Once which was a normative action a decade later might became a heinous act. That I think changes our core beliefs too. At times this change can be observed as a pattern even. Like a snake shedding its skin periodically. All this are just part of being human. All we can do is just accept it maybe.
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