What defines our identity? If we change, are we still the same person? Most would say yes. But what about incidents that change our brains, affecting our memories, personality, or behavior? This reminds me of Theseus’ paradox, a thought experiment that asks whether an object that has had all of its components replaced over time is still the same object.
Maria Popova thinks soul is the best shorthand to describe that continuous center within us, and excepted this beautiful quote by Virginia Woolf:
The man* who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness. He alone lives, while other people, slaves of ceremony, let life slip past them in a kind of dream. Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.
Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotch-potch of impulses, our perpetual miracle — for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death: let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says.
I’m not sure if we should always follow our hearts. But it seems like many of us don’t pay enough attention to our inner selves. Embracing change, listening to our soul, and having the courage to be ourselves seem like good advice for many of us.
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