“…this prompts me to marvel at our madness in cleaving with great affection to such a fleeting thing as the body, and in fearing lest some day we may die, when every instant means the death of our previous condition. Will you not stop fearing lest that may happen once which really happens every day?”
Seneca
I love this quote, which takes aim at the irrational fear of death that most people (myself included) experience.
By bringing to our attention that every instant that we live necessarily brings with it the death of our previous condition, Seneca was able to strike on something over 2000 years ago that has only been further validated by science in more modern times. This is incredibly profound, and (of course) fits nicely with my own biases.
It seems that most people appreciate that their middle-aged self is not the “same” person as their 20-year-old self, but I am quite certain that most people don’t reflect on what that might mean. Each of us carries the same name and history through time, but that doesn’t make us one-being so much as a series of beings that share something in common. And while we know our selves to be malleable, we don’t always acknowledge or appreciate that our experiences actively re-wire our brains moment to moment, changing the very architecture of the wet-ware that fuels those same experiences. It is easy to forget too that we are not composed of the same atoms, molecules, or cells as when we were born; they are constantly changing, morphing, and turning over throughout our lives. In this way, we are more verbs than nouns, more inter-relational processes than discreet beings. Every moment or instant lived, on every scale, results in the death of the self as we knew it before, but we don’t mourn for those moments.
Is there any sense in mourning the last?