Equilibrium

According to a YouTube video I watched one time, if you were to assess what you are made of right this second, down to the subatomic particles, 7 or so years from now, not one of those particles would still be “you.” Parts of you die, regenerate, proliferate; you sweat, eat, poop, high five, and scrape your toe on the sidewalk when you wear flip-flops and aren’t careful to lift your foot high enough over that curb. Being that YouTube is an undisputed fountain of truth, we can reasonably think of one another, not as singular people inhabiting singular bodies, but rather, as relatively stable equilibria of ordered substituent parts that nonetheless change constantly. In this sense, one might say we are each the products of existential hearsay, an ongoing game of telephone between particles that become and unbecome us yet somehow maintain our sense of identity. As one leaves, it hands the baton of you-ness off to the one arriving. I certainly believe the principle of “the whole is more than the sum of its parts” in this scenario, but I can’t help but wonder where the pieces of my past self are now.  Maybe this is why we can look back on photos or videos of ourselves from years ago and think, “Was that really me?” Perhaps in a deeply physical sense the answer would be “No.”

            As with nearly every subject, one can either take a scientific or philosophical perspective (though I would contend that the two are not so far removed as people often imagine). On the one hand, it’s kind of fun to think about the possibility that your elemental infant self might have been reassimilated into a sea cucumber somewhere on the other side of the world, and on the other, it’s interesting to draw correlations between our physical state of change in relation to our development as people. We wake up to what we feel like is the same face looking back at us from the mirror each morning, yet given enough time, there comes a day when we look back and marvel at how much we’ve changed. For me, February 14^th was one of those days. If you would have asked me on that day as I sat in a Vanderbilt Cancer Center chair receiving my final round of chemo what I would be doing a year from then, sitting here in an operating room in Kenya would have been extremely low on the list. Beyond geographical displacement, however, I feel distinctly removed from that Robert by leagues of experience and growth. I’m usually one to bemoan the speed at which time passes, and yet I find myself being cynical that only a year has elapsed since that day. Just the sheer amount of stuff that has happened between then and now inclines me to disbelieve it. Hairlessness notwithstanding, I look back at pictures of myself and almost feel like I’m looking at a close relative or good friend, but not me. Is it possible that only 12 months separate me from that person?

            I’m incredibly grateful for what my past experiences have taught me, how they have shaped me in many ways, and how they have equipped me for the future. I wouldn’t be who I am without them. And that’s the thing about an equilibrium (if I may be so bold as to beat this metaphor into the ground): its stability doesn’t lie in its ability to resist or avoid change but in its ability to find balance in response. Coming to Kenya has necessitated its fair share of adjustments, and it has only been recently that I have felt more or less settled in terms of establishing a routine and functioning like a real life human being instead of flailing around in ineffectual foreignness. I would by no means say I’ve got this Kenya thing down, but I also don’t feel quite so clueless as I did on Day 1. That of course begs a few questions: in what ways have I changed in only 2 months? What parts of me are new? What parts of my old self have I lost? What parts of my former self are now sea cucumbers? I suppose only time will be able to fully articulate the answers to those questions, but for now, simply being grateful for the opportunity to change is enough for me.