Tag: philosophy

What if We Used to Be the Same Person?

It’s possible that atoms in my body right now used to be part of Isaac Newton or Sappho or Judas.

Hubble Traces a Galaxyu2019s Outer Reaches by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

What if we used to be the same person, you and I? Or will be the same person in the future? Or both — were and will be? These are the kinds of thoughts that can take over my brain in the middle of the night.

Several years ago, I read Bill Bryson’s popular science book A Short History of Nearly Everything. One point stuck with me, and I ponder it often, sometimes even in broad daylight. Since matter is never destroyed, only transformed, that means all of the atoms that make up our bodies used to form the essence of other things. Or people. 

This insight rated an out-loud “wow!” when I read it. Some of my current substance could formerly have belonged to other people. It’s possible that atoms in my body right now used to be part of Isaac Newton or Sappho or Judas. I never believed in reincarnation as I understood it (or possibly misunderstood it.) But now I might? In a way.

I was already stunned enough knowing that the elements of us used to reside in stars — the hydrogen and carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, sent on their voyages billions of years ago. Those particles have been cycling and recycling through time, and now they’re us. Here we are, repurposed star matter.

I was sleepless the other night and musing on all of this existential stuff once again. Somehow, as many times as I’ve thought about the wonder of it all, and what it means on a spiritual level, my brain had never taken the next step. Until now. 

If some of the atoms that make up my body used to belong to someone else, and some of the atoms that make up your body, dear reader, used to belong to someone else, isn’t it possible we both have previously owned atoms from the same source? What if we used to be the same person? What if we both were Sappho or Newton? 

Even if we never were together in the same incarnation in the past, we could be in the future. We could be on a journey toward becoming one new person together a few hundred or thousand years from now.

When I gave birth to my first child, I looked at my husband differently. The two of us have had our relationship ups and downs over the years. Yet once we’d created a human life together, I felt we were forever bonded. Even if we eventually separated and never saw each other again, we would be together, still, in this new person. 

Now I see this could be true of myself and any other human. Everyone who ever lived is possibly a forebear, even those who “died childless.” Every human yet to come is a possible descendant, of a sort. Here we all are, trading our component members back and forth like baseball teams, forming and re-forming into a multitude of configurations. 

Since making this mental leap, my new middle-of-the-night ruminations center around what it means, or should mean, for how I judge others. I was raised in the Christian faith and am well aware of Jesus’ teachings on the topic. “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”  These words seem a lot more literal to me now.

Many faiths have similar tenets, of course. When asked how we should treat others, the Hindu sage, Ramana Maharshi answered: There are no others.

There are no others. We’re one with the stars. We’re one with each other. I’ve only recently become aware of this on the atomic level.

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In praise of unstructured being

Haven’t gotten much writing done lately. A cold has been working it’s way through the family, so lots of having the kids home from school. I’m trying to look at it as an opportunity to enjoy having some time with them, though the proliferation of snotty tissues detracts a bit. As soon as both kids were well again, school let out for a teacher work day. I’m off work from my steady paycheck job on Fridays, and I usually try to get in at least a morning worth of writing.  But again, I decided my kids won’t be around forever. They’re 13 & 10 right now, and the older one especially is gravitating more toward friends than parents. But yesterday, I had them to myself.

Besides, the weather did a turn-around.  Tuesday’s overnight low was around 6 degrees F.  Friday’s daytime high was around 67 degrees F. The 10-year-old needed a haircut. Since the salon we used is next door to a sandwich place, I decided we should pick up some lunch there.  My daughter (the teenager) suggested taking our food to a park for a picnic.  It was at this point that I realized how easy I am. All it took for me to swoon with joy was finding out she still wanted to do such a thing with her family.  

It was one of the happiest afternoons I’ve had in a while, a day at the park with the kids. We had no pressure, no agenda, no school or other activity for which we had to rush off, no goals to accomplish, nothing to do except enjoy the weather and be with each other.  We ended up at a creek that was still thick with inches of ice, despite the warm day. It doesn’t get a lot of sun, so the thaw was slow. The three of us spent a good hour sliding rocks and sticks on the ice, then throwing rocks to see if they’d break the ice, and occasionally examining rocks for fossils. 

Did this activity educate us in some way? Don’t know.  Did it improve their chances for future employment? Probably not. Was it worth the time we spent on it?  Absolutely. At the end of the day, I was in a better mood than I have been for ages. The evidence shows the kids were, as well. 

My favorite memories of family time all involve unstructured, unplanned, informal hours  of doing not much more than hanging out. We all recall with fondness a night we set up an indoor tent using bed sheets tied to furniture, then took turns sitting in it while other family members made designs on the top with glow sticks. I can’t remember who first thought of doing it. It’s not something you’d find in a magazine article about enrichment activities for your child. It’s the kind of thing that can only happen spontaneously. 

Sometimes I think we tend to get so scheduled and so concerned with development or enrichment or improvement or whatever that we don’t leave ourselves time just to be. But it’s okay sometimes not to be able to give a list of accomplishments for the day.  Sometimes it’s okay, and even preferable simply to hang out, to spend some time enjoying our existence.

Book thoughts: How having a stroke is like going to school

Note: This isn’t a review. It’s a summary of some random thoughts I had while reading.

I began reading My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor after watching the author’s speech on TED . Taylor is a brain scientist who experienced a stroke at the age of 37.

I’ve never been in the hospital with a stroke. So why did her experience seem so familiar as I read about it? The answer revealed itself with this sentence: “I wanted my doctors to focus on how my brain was working rather than on whether it worked according to their criteria or timetable.”

Aha! It was much like having a kid in school, I realized. Substitute a few words and you have a sentenced uttered by some parent somewhere at least once every day, especially if that parent has been through the IEP process.

“I wanted the educators to focus on how my child’s brain was learning rather than on whether it learned according to their criteria or timetable.”

I may have uttered those exact words. I know I’ve said something at least very close. 

There’s also this sentence from the book: “My ability to cognate was erroneously assessed by how quickly I could recall information, rather than by how my mind strategized to recover the information it held.” 

Familiarer and familiarer.

Taylor credits many thoughtful healthcare professionals who offered her real assistance and compassion. Nevertheless, it’s clear they were working within a strong institutional culture that made it difficult to operate outside the proverbial box. Likewise with teachers. Most of the ones I’ve known are great individuals, working within a strong institutional culture that allows teaching to a narrow range of learning styles and not much more.

We parents are asking them to meet our children’s needs, while the boss – the institutional culture – is requesting them to get the children to meet the needs of the system. This is why left-handers used to have to be cured. They smudged the paper too much; it caused problems with institutional efficiency. 

In the chapter titled What I Needed the Most, the list again seems like one that should be sent to educators as well as those working with stroke survivors. For instance: “I needed the people around me to believe in the plasticity of my brain and its ability to grow, learn, and recover.”

Some of the other needs she mentions – love, encouragement, dreams – are things we all need. May we all grow, learn and recover from our lives’ traumas if we remember to supply these to each other.

I encourage everyone to watch the talk on TED, even if you don’t read the book. It’s got good information on stroke, things we all should know. But it’s more about life and love and compassion, things we all should know as well.