The Free Radical

“What are you?”

Sometimes it’s impossible to identify the specific voice of the speaker… Some days the fog never lifts… And yet in seeming isolation, self-conception continues to expand…

I answered the question as cleverly as I could. “I’m a perspective, a unique identity in a universe containing only identity.”

“Adequate.” Just adequate? What the hell! I thought it was a damn fine answer. “And where are you located?”

“Um… here?” Not quite as good an answer… quite lame, really. “Where is this going anyway?”

“Self-conception. I would speak to you today on how you define the ‘self.’

“Are you aware that you are a community?”

“You mean as in the multiple lives my soul has participated in?”

“No, simply as you are now, here, in this human body. You are a community. It is impossible to accurately define your ‘life’ as a singularity… unless willing to include all. Though your perspective is absolutely singular– being defined by your unique experience– ‘you’ are an amorphous ambiguity, impossible to pin down.

“On some level, you are aware that the material makeup of your body is in constant flux. You are exchanging atoms with the cosmos unendingly. From moment to moment you are never the same being twice… yet ‘your pattern’ persists. The cells comprising your physical expression number in the many trillions. However, the cells sharing your unique DNA are vastly outnumbered by the many microbes living within and upon your body. Your physicality is the nexus of a complex community. Without the co-operative interaction of these trillions of microbes, your life functions would cease. Your ‘life’ does not truly belong to you alone. It is a collaborative endeavour among countless conspirators.

“Now, the ‘self’ is the game-field. It is the entire sphere of your activity. You can only ever act within the strict confines of your self-conception. You cannot choose to act outside of your own perceived abilities and limitations. Self-conception is the complete basis for the power to act. Any expansion of the concept of self necessarily results in the commensurate expansion of the field in which that self may act.

“I ask again… what are you?”

Hmm… I think I have some thinking to do. “I’ll get back to you.”