Videos: "What are you?"

"What are you?"

1 October 2009

ZJ: "What are you?" I've heard this so many times, from so many people. What kind of question is that? It's very direct, in a way that few questions are. It's not a question of identity, "who are you?" Nor a question of condition, "how are you?" It's a question of composition: What are you? What are you made of? What do you reduce to? Can you break yourself down into easily digestible pieces for us? When we take you apart, what will we find? What am I?

I am one minute and the ten million that came before. I am the constant march of moment-to-moment experiences, each of them leaving an impression, however shallow or deep, on the material of me. A nudge or a collision, an imperceptible shift, or a radical reorganization.

I am a pattern, a collection of points in space and time, an array of numbers, engraved in flesh. I am a network of chemical reactions and electrical signals, countless microscopic details that add up to a person, the elaborate interconnections that form the machinery of being.

But from the inside... I am the fuzzy branches of half-resolved thoughts, sprawling just beneath the surface of awareness. I am the unpursued concept that spirals off into blackness, and I am the idea strong enough to break through and begin developing its successor.

I am the joy of contemplating elegant theories. I am the moment of anticipation before learning something new. I am the insatiable need to know more. I am the discomfort with inharmonious philosophies. I am motivation grappling with procrastination. I am the comfort zones that must be violated, I am the risks that need to be taken if I hope to accomplish anything. I am the self-doubt that implodes once worrying becomes intolerable.

I am that first impulsive reaction and the conscious judgement that immediately steps in—most of the time. I am the moment of dread when you realize something horrible has happened, and I am the instant of sheer exuberance you wish you could hold on to forever.

And you are all of this as well. I'm nothing special. I'm not so foreign as to be incomprehensible to you. If you really want to know what I am, you need only ask yourself: What are you?

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