I have been rendered into but a mere mirror image, a mirage, of who I once was. Although I look the same (give or take a couple pounds and a few inches of hair), and although I have never for a moment ceased to exist, somewhere along the way the person “I am” turned into the person “I was”. It was not an experience to be had altogether at one time, but rather, slowly, layer by layer I was stripped away to reveal something entirely new. Sometimes voluntarily I would peel off pieces of my former persona, other times my schema would be left on the pavement as wounded skin remains with a scraped knee. But sometimes, and most times, the winds of time would gracefully sweep past me gently removing the excess and unneeded surface of self that had been rendered into dust by the new formation of ideas and ideals that now found my identity.

It is a curious thought to ponder, though. For in reality all of the cells that made up the material me have since died and been replaced, but it is my consciousness that remains. I am a doppelganger of my past-self, a look-alike with a shared stream of consciousness. A similar history with memories that fade just as quickly as they come, and that are skewed with the same ease as a politician’s promises amidst a campaign. To believe life is experienced by one body throughout time is a flawed way to think, it is like the ship of Theseus — when every last piece of it’s original build has been replaced in repair, is it the same ship? Not clearly. Am I the same person? Again, the answer is not clear. In the same way, is it fair to believe that just because my consciousness does not take physical form (save through their creation via brain cells) that it is impermeable to the inevitability of renewal? Am I the same person? Again, the answer is not clear.

Who I am is not who I was, but without who I was I cannot be who I am. They are unequivocally and necessarily separate, but muddled together by the murky waters of time and circumstance that ebb and flow through me. Eroding away the river walls in the streams of my consciousness; forming new pathways as they meander through my very mind.Through it all I am forced to maintain an identity with steadfast hopes and dreams unshakable to catastrophe and impervious to turbulence that comes thereafter. Though I am a ship with the same name, every last piece of me has been removed and repaired, I am forced to venture down my ever-changing stream of consciousness and experience life.