I'm Not Myself

I have been thinking a lot about who I am lately and what it really means to have an identity and I thought I would share with you, my reader(s), what conclusions I have drawn.

I shall start with a connected idea. Let's say you have an old wooden ship that you love very much. You love it so much in fact, that once a plank gets rotted and old, you just replace the singular plank rather than buying a whole new boat (this is back in the day when it was cheaper to repair something than buy a new one entirely). So time moves along at its standard pace until lo and behold, you have to replace another plank of wood on your ship. This pattern continues along you eventually have replaced every single plank of wood on your ship. We now have to ask the question: is it still the same ship? If so, why? It has lost every bit of it's original matter that once held it together. It has no mystical soul that keeps it together, or any other measurable force that really defines this as the same ship as before, other than the fact that you love it of course. Now, if it is not the same ship: when did it become a new ship? Was it around the time it was half old/half new? Once you lost the last plank? One you replaced the first one? There isn't really an easy answer, for me at least.

Anyway, I drew a parallel to myself. A good percentage of the matter in my body get recycled, lost and renewed very frequently. Sure, there are some atoms and cells in my brains and bones that never leave me, but I don't really think those cells really define me. So perhaps I am defined by some sort of self that is detached from my physical body. However, with the lack of a soul or spirit, the only other part of me that is really me is the set of my ideas and beliefs. Maybe then, my ideas and my beliefs define me. Unfortunately, those aren't static in the least bit. My ideas and beliefs change fairly frequently when you look at my life on the whole. How am I the same person I was 5 years ago? How am I the same person I will be in 10 years?

The answer I have arrived at: I'm not. I know this may seem trivial, but I really don't believe I am the same person one day to the next. I am in a constant state of death, and in a constant state of rebirth. The guy I was yesterday is gone forever. I don't identity with the screaming infant I was when I left the womb, or the naked child running around the back yard, and I certainly don't feel like I am the same person and some decrepit arthritic man that will have my name.

So I can't manage to believe in a Heaven that makes any sense. I am a different person from one minute to the next. There is no way for 8 year old Sam to go to Heaven; he is dead forever. Even if there is a Heaven, and I am admitted, it most likely won't be until I am quite old. This person writing these words will soon be dead forever (if not already). I can never preserve who I am. It's because of this idea that I don't find the idea of a blissful everlasting comforting at all. I am already dead. Once I die and stop being reborn forever (aka my final death, the death of this strange collection of matter I call myself), I will be no more or less dead than the guy who started writing this blog.