What is real? I feel like me. I’m real, right? But what is me? Are my molecules me? What about the river of chemicals comprising the coffee I drink, rearrange, then pee back out into the water of the world? Are those chemicals me? When do they begin to be me and when do they stop being me? Are they me when they first touch my lips or when I hold them in my mouth? If I spit them back out, along with other chemicals that were me in my saliva, were they ever me? What about food I eat? Air? The molecules I smell?
Are the bacteria and mites that colonize in and on my body part of my body? Do I own them or do they own me? Am I simply a ship of living flesh gathering, preparing, and eating food when they tell me that I’m hungry?
And what about the air that touches my skin? When my husband’s elbow is near the skin of my elbow on a shared arm rest but isn’t touching me yet is emanating warmth from him to me, is he touching me, the real me? It feels like he is.
And what about the words I read, words that can make me laugh, cry, reverse my perspective? Are those words, sometimes whispered into my ear by vibrations from the audiobook on my phone, are they a part of me? Is sound, light, and gravity me when I take them in?
And when I die? At what moment when I take my last breath but still have consciousness in my brain do I stop being me? I witnessed that twice and both times, I saw the person stop being the person I loved. It was a painful yet wondrous thing. I really knew that what had been them one moment was not them the next. Where did the they that I loved go?
I’ve been thinking about what is real. It’s a hard question.
Thank you for listening, jules