s.j. In Focus

Dear  Hannesli,

I’m sorry. I’m
sorry for the choices I make that keep you struggling and make it harder for
you to move on from your past. I put you in the corner and rather ignore your
cry, yet in the agony of silence I know I can hear you. My withheld anger towards
the people who made your life unhappy has left you most of the time in sorrow. Isolation
has become your friend, and if someone comes along to make things easier for
you I distrust and drive them away, I believed it was for your own good if they
don’t know about you. But I was
selfish, many times in the past I let you down, I should have spoken up when
you needed me to.

I admire your self
reliance and self-acquired principles. Through
your struggle you have gained talents and become sensitive to the things around
you. You have become
your own shepherd and follow your own star, but more than often I mislead you
to shallow happiness and into the hands of narrow minded people.

My
insecurities have hurt you more than once, it was never my intention to do so.
You should know that your tears run through my eyes, but my weakness refuses to
let anyone near you to give you a hug, it’s easier for me to lock you up in the
closet. You keep on trying to reach out, but you’re hunting and it makes me
uncomfortable. All you wanted is letting me know that no one but me can put an
end to your suffering.

I hope in time you
will forgive me for being afraid and mistreating you. I love you, and I know someday
you will meet someone who can take care of you better than I manage to. As you
run into that person’s arms, I wish she would see you, despite of me, and
inspire you to let me go. But until then
I promise I’ll try my best to find my way towards my horizon, and to your
happiness… I’m sorry for being weak.
Will you hold my hand and lead me?

Happy Birthday.

Love,
s.j.

Go To: http://seian-j.deviantart.com/gallery/

Like a queen on
her throne, tranquil and majestic raises the Mayon Volcano above the Albay
gulf. But don’t let her calmness deceive you, her temper is feared even by the
farthest villages across the lands. Too
many times they have felt her mercurial rage, and when there was word among the
people she was again about to erupt, they prepared for the worst, like they did
during this times before, but no one could foresee that something else was
coming towards their direction three moons later.

(Bugtong Road)

(Near Cagsawa Ruins)

(Bridge in Ginubatan)

It
has been four months now since typhoon Reming made its way and brought the
harshest winds in Bicol and black, roof-high mudslides that cascaded down from
the Mayon and took many houses and families with it.

“The
water came in so fast”, one of my grandma’s neighbor still remembers like it
just happened yesterday. Within minutes the mud rushed into their houses
gradually increasing in elevation. Some
hurried to the first floor (if they were lucky to have one), others abandoned
their home completely to the nearest and highest point they could climb to, and
many weren’t that fortunate.

Like
several around my grandma’s house in Malabog, Manong Puldo and his family found
shelter in a church which was located on a nearby hill, as he decided to check
up on their house later in the evening, he only came to find that little was
left.

“Everything
was gone.” he recalled for me that moment.

“Our
things, the television, our clothes, not even a piece of underwear… Nothing was
left.”

He pointed on
the other side of the river. “That’s our house.”

(Manong Puldo’s
house)

As
I made my way through the devastated areas in Daraga (among other places I
passed by) and visited a couple of evacuation centers, one cannot fail to
notice that the progress in rehabilitating and rebuilding is unnecessarily slow
paced. The lack of equipment and
engineering vehicles such as bulldozers and excavators force the workers and
inhabitants (and even children) to clean up the devastation more often than not
manually. They spend their day digging
through massive areas of black gravel and rocks and separating the sand from
the stones with man-made coarse sieves, which is then loaded on trucks and
transported to deposit areas (for further use I suppose).

“Thank
You,” Manong Hermez said as I approached him with my camera. In his face I could see that he meant it. The
lines in his expression revealed his age and that he had been doing this kind
of work for a time.  It seemed that he
was genuinely happy to see me, or that it made him feel not forgotten as I asked
him if I could shoot a couple of frames. He gladly insisted and expressed his
gratitude repeatedly. I can’t deny that moment moved something in me.

(Manong Hermez)

(Hard Work)

(young worker)

I
spent a morning on the fields with a group of workers and I was already
exhausted walking under the early sun. I went home with shoes filled with sand
and dust all over me.

Right after Reming passed by there
was news of the Cagsawa ruins being ultimately ruined, and this information is
far from the truth. The opposite, the church, which was buried by molten lava
in 1814, had become more than a tourist spot. Miraculously the mudslide split before it reached the church and
streamed on both sides leaving it unharmed. Since then it had become a sanctuary for the people.

My
first attempt to get to the ruins of Cagsawa failed, the streams of water from
the widened river made it impossible to pass through the gravel area other than
by foot, but this didn’t keep several tourists from visiting the church, I
guess it gives them a sense of adventure. Since we were traveling by motor, I decided to go back next opportunity,
which came the other day.

Unlike several
nearby structures such as souvenir shops, restaurants - and I think there was
some kind of park, the church’s bell tower stands tall and soundly. In addition to the postcards of Mayon and the
Ruins, children made a business selling photographs of the devastation around
Cagsawa. But moreover there is a change
which cannot be witnessed through the eyes. Cagsawa ruins has become quiet, it is no longer solely a tourist
attraction, but a holy place, a memorial for the victims.

In 1814 Mount Mayon erupted and buried 1200 people who gathered
inside the church, thinking they would be saved. 193 years later everything
around Cagsawa was buried, leaving the church ruins untouched. Is this the balance of nature? 

(Cagsawa Ruins)

(tourists)

Numerous inhabitants began to
rebuild their homes on top of the gravel without waiting for the area to be
cleaned, who can blame them, no one can live without some kind of shelter, and
it has been four months. But as I hiked
above the gravel and rocks, the thought there still might be (and most probably
are) dead bodies underneath hunted be throughout. Among scattered pieces of clothes, unpaired
shoes, deformed toys, and bed mattresses coming from nowhere, it wasn’t hard to
imagine.

        Which
reminds me of the case of Esthela K., who lost her sister-in-law and cannot
claim the money of her insurance, due to the fact that the family is not able
to provide the body, not even a piece of cloth of her sister-in-law as prove.

(A family)

(Buried)

“Mam, “ an aged man approached us asking
my aunt as we were walking home,

“Whom will you
vote for these coming elections?”

“Who
ever can help us,” my aunt replied.

The
man already knew that answer, yet there was little hope as his tone of his
voice changed.

“We lived here,”
the baseball cap made him appear younger, but a closer look revealed silver
hair,

“Only my own
family survived, but my cousins and their families are still missing.”

He pointed to
several areas in the gravel.

“Our houses used
to be here.”

It was hard for me
to follow which spots he meant, everything looks the same… Even the people,
like Manong Jakob and other individuals I’ve met during my stay in Bicol, many
of them have similar stories to tell, an experience how they lost their houses
and families, and how their hopes slowly vanishes into dust and ashes. They are
willing to share them to you, hoping that someone will hear them.

(Manong Jakob)

For full-view and
other images visit: seian-j.deviantart.com

I wasn’t in the
mood writing, so I made this mangaka style, and like a manga it is read right
to left.

Arigato!

It was a late
afternoon in autumn. Long angled sunrays turned the sky into a twisted glow of mauve
and copper, the sun itself was little energy. The open sea was calm and tiny
boats where moving slowly along the horizon. Everything looked peaceful and
small up here. Under the sheltering roof, watching the drizzling of the sky
that silently painted a rainbow above the city.

A
rainbow. . . a fucking rainbow, I was thinking.

This
is great. A perfect now-or-Neverneverland moment. What am I going to do? Almighty
from above, just tell me what you want! What?!

Not
daring to look at her, I kept my head positioned to the rainbow and tried instead
to concentrate on the song that began to play in my head, a Bossa Nova song
sung by Astrud Gilberto. I adore her voice with the Latin accent. Starring at the fucking rainbow I could only
remember the first line:

‘Never trust the stars

When you’re about to fall in love…’

Think!,
I told myself. Just focus on that rainbow, after all you haven’t seen one for
ages. Isn’t it beautiful?! And so many
colors, one… two… three… fou…

“Love
is just all in the brain.” she interrupted my cerebral counting, “It’s just
chemicals, dopamine, Biochemistry, whatever.”

I
smiled, also because she broke this awkward silence, and replied with my head
unturned.

“Well,”
I paused. “love is more than scientists
can ever explain. Some things are meant
to be mysteries, like believe or miracles. If we had scientific explanations
for them, it will take away their essence.”

“No,
no, no. Look, it’s just chemical reactions!”

I
smiled.

I
guess I belong to those people who believe that love will always be more then
the sum of its natural parts, but of course she was right. For a long time scientists weren’t interested
exploring a phenomenon that has been around since Mankind itself. Science is cold and hard. Love is mushy and touchy feely. Science is
based on facts. Love is vague and fuzzy. If gravitation, according to Einstein, cannot be held responsible for
people falling in love, what then is this thing bound to that makes our world
go spinnin’?

Cupid’s
arrows wouldn’t be effective if they weren’t dipped first into a cocktail of chemicals
with an ingredient called phenylethylamine (PEA), which triggers the other substances. PEA is responsible
for that silly smile on your face when you see your crush. When we see someone who is attractive to us,
the PEA factory is in full steam. PEA
can also be found in strawberries and chocolate. But wait! Before you start
chewing that Snickers bar, you should know that the body naturally builds up
tolerance to PEA and therefore takes more and more to produce that special love
kick, the reason why from the earliest days our human mating pattern has been
“monogamy with clandestine adultery”. Some end up craving the intoxication of falling in love so much that
they move to one affair to another as soon as the first rush of infatuation
fades. (You may continue eating that
chocolate bar now)

If you’re lucky to survive the phase of
infatuation and its floods of fizzy amphetamines, another set of chemicals takes over,
namely endorphins. These are soothing substances that give lovers a
sense of security, peace and calm. That is one reason why it feels so
horrible when we’re abandoned or a lover dies. "We don’t have our daily
hit of narcotics."

Now
you can see a contrast between the heated infatuation induced by PEA, along
with other amphetamine-like
chemicals, and the more intimate attachment fostered and prolonged by endorphins.

Early
love is when you love the way the other person makes you feel. Mature love is when you love the person as
how she or he is. It is the difference of passionate and compassionate
love. It’s Bon Jovi vs. Beethoven.

Oxytocin is another chemical also called
the cuddling chemical, that sets in during the attachment stage as well. It increases the bonding between lovers, and
is also released during childbirth and production of breast milk. 

Another
chemical is Vasopressin, the monogamy
chemical, which is responsible for creating strong partnership bonds. Only
about three percent of mammals are monogamous; mating and bonding with one
partner for life. Unfortunately, as already mentioned, humans are not one of
these naturally monogamous animals.

So if I know that Love is just some cerebral
chemical reaction, can I choose with whom I fall in love with? Or in other
words, can I consciously fall in love? Well, it’s not that easy. You see,
nature has wired us for one special person. We draw an image of our ideal partner based on persons and experiences from
our childhood. A record of whatever we
find exciting or disgusting. Brown eyes
or long hair. The way our fathers
treated us and how we were taken care of by our mothers. All that
information gathered while growing up is imprinted in our brain’s circuitry by
adolescence.

Of
course no person will ever meet all the requirements, but it takes only a
sufficient number of matches for our brains to signal “jackpot!”

In
addition nature seeks the best compatible genes as these genes will be passed
on to our children and ensure that they are healthy, which is a complex
process.

And
how do we do this? We sniff out Mr. or Mrs. Right through Pheromones. They are smellprints which are as unique as
fingerprints. It is a force which overpowers reason and dictates where cupid’s
arrow will land. That’s how powerful Pheromones
are. 

Now there you
have a scientific explanation of love. Love broken down in less than 1000
words. Satisfied? Probably not. Love will still remain a mixture of reality and
Nonrealidad. Poetry and phenylethylamine. Facts and fuzziness.

The last sunrays became longer and as the
rainbow slowly faded I said,

“See that rainbow, we both know it has
something to do with the sunlight shinning onto droplets of moisture in the
Earth’s atmosphere, but we end up with technicalities that we don’t see the
rainbow at all. Before you know it… it’s gone. Sometimes explanations don’t
matter.”

We were both silent again.

“Yeah, whatever.”

I
nodded amused and glanced at her while she was still watching the rainbow
slowly disappear into the young soil
of the evening.

I’m not talking about the current performance
of Globelines Broadband internet connection that has already been going on for
several weeks now after the Taiwan quake, although let me add one point on that
matter. . . It sucks!
        But
just think, in a world where we are the first overcommunicated society, we fail
to communicate; more is said, but less is understood. Our means of reaching people has become
faster, yet there is no progress in unity.
        Communication is the single, most
common, most universal reason people give to their problems. Business problems, government problems,
marriage problems. But the problem is communication itself.
        I
wonder if we unplug ourselves from society, government, religion, from
everything, do we start to connect with our inner selves? It is society that shapes us. It is the
government that makes rules how we are being shaped. And isn’t it because
of religion there is war? If we forget
how to talk, will we learn to listen? Then, we should start to listen to ourselves first, hear our inner voice
and not other people’s thoughts about who we are expected or not expected to be.
Everybody wants to be somebody, but nobody wants to be themselves. Allow me to unplug and reconnect.

Peace.

Okay. I’m
telling you. Starting today, upfront and straightforward, I’m going to write this
like everybody else is writing a blog, Raw and uncomplicated. No dictionary, No
thesaurus, straight from my brain. Just let me think of a title, or maybe I
should write down a concept or at least an outline, or maybe I should give it
some thoughts first, let it roam in my head for a couple of time until I get a
clear plan of what and how I’m exactly going to write, after I finished a
general research on the topic and grabbed one or two reference books from the
shelf, but before that, allow me to introduce myself.
        My
name is Johannes Seian Manzanilla (a.k.a. Mr. Sennahoj Boredom, as I currently
call myself) and I am a perfectionist. Don’t think I’m a freak and everything
around me has to be dust-free and placed in its designated arrangement. I whish
there was little order; my room is perfect, a perfect mess! But come on, am I
the only person who has a hard time writing without being conscious of sentence
structure and vocabulary?
        Perhaps
it is worth mentioning here that I didn’t grow up with the English language and
its grammar, although I naturally learned it when I was a kid through family,
growing up in  Switzerland we mostly spoke German, outside and inside our home. Do I use this as an
excuse? Whichever, I’m still a perfectionist in many other aspects: Daily
Routine CHECK (for example, I just avoid the long line in the canteen during
lunch time plus you can’t describe the service as exquisite!), Music CHECK (but
in recording you need to be), Relationships (well, uhhmm, that could be
material for a different story) BLANK. Life in general CHECK (what’s wrong with
thinking ahead, but I guess 25 years is way far ahead), and why am I doing a
Check list in the first place?!
        Ask
why I became how I am and I won’t be able to give you a clear answer, it is a
myth to me as well. One of my theories
is that I look at my parents’ lives and the choices they made in the past. Do I
want to walk the same path as them, or am I already on it; can I learn from
their mistakes (in my opinion) and use it to find a shortcut or to set foot in an
opposite direction? - Well, let’s just cut that crap! - Someway or another you
know what I mean, right? We deal with the same problems and frustrations; we
are all subject to the Laws and Principle of life. And this is where we arrive to
my second point (if you still care to spend your valuable time with Mr.
Sennahoj Boredom, or perhaps we are related?).
        My
class starts at 7:30am, whether I like it or not, I arrive at school 7am. I
mostly wait in the lobby, the benches and hallways are empty. The chairs in
every classroom are polished and neatly aligned by row, anticipating the bell
of disorder, but for now at 7am, everything is in a state of tranquility. A
great time to reflect.
        After
10min, the first students arrive, sitting on the benches. Another 10min pass, the
first crowds make their way to their classrooms with the neatly aligned chairs.
3min before the bell of disorder sings, swarms of students, teachers, and
workers, and their hums are streaming the hallways. In the midst, there I am on
the bench, and observe.
        They
just do what they think they ought to do, day by day, or maybe they don’t think
at all anymore. I imagine if one of them just stops in the middle of the
rushing crowd and realizes that she needn’t to do what she is doing, or at
least that she’s conscious of her actions in that very moment, her individual
actions. “To stand out from the crowd existence” as the Existentialist would
say (but don’t worry I won’t start breaking it down for you philosophically),
what I’m asking is, Are they conscious of life? Are they aware that they are
aware? Do I only do what I suppose to
do, or am I thinking too much?? –CHECK (with a fat black marker!) –
        As
a perfectionist you end up thinking, and thinking why you are thinking because
you are aware that you are thinking, until you realize you are aware that you
are aware of your thinking, so you get back thinking what you are suppose to
think about in the first place.
        When
I was considering to start my own blog few months ago, I began to study other
people’s blogs, made a research on blogging itself, and read books about
writing, I must have read at least five books and skimmed through a lot more
(and counting), I enjoy the later, although I cannot confirm major improvements
on my writings, but sometimes I read them for the sake of doing something – I
am Mr. Boredom, remember? -.
        Currently
I’m reading Steven King On Writing,
to be honest, it never occurred that I had read one of his novels (I guess this
is because I cannot seem to find Steven King stuff around the house, except the one I mention here), but what I am more
interested in right now is his insight about this craft, and he has definitely
the experience and know-how. In his
opinion, a plot should only be used by a writer as a last resort, because life
itself is plotless! – Mr. Boredom can relate to that indeed! - He explains
further that he just gives enough space to let his characters shape their own plot.
And it dawned on me that life is exactly like a story:

The Author (“of
all characters and settings”) from above provides nothing but a basic outline and
a starting point, where his characters shape their own plots. We are just a part of a paragraph or even a
sentence within a chapter of an epic story, and as we move, each word, each
sentence is continuously written, page by page, and defines what lies in the
chapters ahead of us. But more than often we put down pen and paper, and waste
the ink of time thinking what our title might be.

It is a cold morning in late December. The shops and bistros
along the  Limat River are triste.  Like a blade of ice, the wind cuts sharply through
the cobblestoned streets of the Altstadt. Not far from the  Limat River,
in a modest apartment on Brunn Gasse, a young man sits by his desk. Only a
shade of pastel bleaches through the nearby window, around him shadowy objects.
A bed, a cabinet, few unopened boxes in the corner, beside, a mid-sized
bookshelf. Once in a while the young man stands up, walks few steps between half-opened
books and magazines cluttered on the parquet floor, looks up at a clock on the
opposite wall, and returns on his desk. He stares blankly on an unread
newspaper in front of him, but his mind is not empty, not at all. Should he see
her? Should he go and visit the pharmacist woman? He hardly knows her, she’s immature and deceiving.
But her touch, her lighthearted nature, the way she soothes his restless mind. He
must see the pharmacist woman again.
    At the Rudolf Brun Brücke Station by the  Limat River he
takes the streetcar number 4, passes by Bellevue Platz, and descends at
Fröhlichstrasse, where she lives near the  Zurich Lake .
She already awaited him at the door, they have tea on the couch in her living
room, and within heartbeats she feels his growing weakness, yet it is his
insecurity that draws her more to him. They make love, intense and with passion. After an hour, she says she must leave for
work, they say goodbye to each other.
    On his way home he feels empty, he does not get on
the streetcar number 4 at Fröhlichstrasse Station, decides to walk. He passes
by the mourning trees in funeral costumes and the tomb-like benches along the Theater
Strasse. Under the struggling pale behind the drapery the wind is bitter, but
from his face alone one could not tell the young man is aware of his
surroundings. Near the Grossmünster Cathedral he makes a right into the winding
cobblestoned alleyways of the Altstadt, and arrives on Brunn Gasse. By the
door, he gets today’s newspaper from the mailbox, walks up the staircase, and
enters his apartment. Only a shade of
pastel bleaches through the nearby window. He sits by his desk and stares
blankly on an unread newspaper in front of him.

 
Time is a circle, infinitely repeating itself; we are
trapped by each oscillation of its pendulum, while time never grows old. The
young man stares at his life, transfixed he loses sight of the things around
him that must be done, realizes that the only certain thing is time, like the
date on the newspaper.

 May
you make decisions that matter this year around!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            - S. J. M.

Every year millions of Christians around the world are
busy decorating their homes with Christmas trees, lights, and candles. Malls
and shops are in full steam competing with selling and marketing strategies
through seasonal advertisements, dramatic window decorations, and anything that
would give the consumers a feeling of warmth, in other words, to attract and
make a sale. Whether you like it or not, whether you have a commercial or
religious point of view of it; Christmas season is in the Air. According to
Odon, my younger brother, the smell of Christmas is the smell of burned out
Christmas light bulbs and gift wrappers. But there is something more to unwrap
about Christmas, behind the festive lights, the truth of Christmas is
forgotten, mostly untold.
The holiday that unite Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, all
customs of it, existed long before Jesus Christ was born.

The origin of Christmas is found in the
Pagan time, when Pagans celebrated the last day of winter as the night the
Great Mother Goddess gives birth to the baby Sun God.
The Romans converted this pagan legacy to a celebration of the god Saturnus,
and the rebirth of the sun god during the winter solstice period. Solstice
means “sun stands still”. In the northern hemisphere it is the shortest day and
longest night of the year, occurring on the 20th, 21st or 22nd of December.
The winter holiday became known as Saturnalia and was characterized by
gift-giving, feasting, and singing.

To avoid persecution during this Roman
Pagan festival, early Christians decorated their homes with Saturnalia holly (a
tree having red berries and glossy evergreen leaves with prickly edges).
Time
went by, more Christians observed these celebrations, and as Christianity
spread, the Church became alarmed by the continuing practice among its members to
indulge in pagan customs and celebrate the festival of Saturnalia. The futile
attempts of the Church to prohibit these practices made them eventually decide
to adopt the customs and make them better suited to honor Jesus Christ.

In 274AD, solstice fell on 25th December.
Roman Emperor Aurelian proclaimed the date as "Natalis Solis
Invicti," the festival of the birth of the invincible sun. In 320 AD, Pope
Julius I specified the 25th of December as the official date of the birth of
Jesus Christ.
Five years later, Constantine the Great (the first Christian Roman emperor)
changed the ancient solstice celebrations into Christmas, an immovable feast
celebrating the nativity of Christ.

The real birthday of Jesus, according to
scriptures, is dated around midsummer:

Luke 2: 8: "And there were
shepherds living out in the fields near by, keeping watch over their flocks at
night."

In Palestine - as in the rest of the Middle East at the
time - shepherds stayed with their flocks in the fields only from spring to
autumn. They brought their sheep in during the winter to protect them from the
cold and rain. It is thus unlikely that the shepherds went to Bethlehem in December.  

Besides of the Shepherds, there are other references to the possible birth date
of Jesus Christ.  In the 6th Century, the Roman monk-mathematician-astronomer
Dionysis Exeguus unintentionally committed what has become “history’s greatest
numerical error in terms of cumulative effect”. In reforming the calendar (as
we know it) to revolve around the birth of Christ, he miscalculated the
Nativity by at least 5 years off. Thus, the reference to the Birth of Jesus
“2000 years ago” is wrong. Knowing this and considering the star that the Magi
followed, also known as the Star of Bethlehem, which could be any of the astral
markers that appeared in 6, 5 and 4BC, Jesus was born in or before 4BC. 

Today, many Pagan customs are reflected in
Christmas. The Christmas tree, mistletoe, gift-giving, even the colors (red,
green, gold etc.) associated with Christmas, have Pagan origins. Jesus was not
born in December, yet his birth is celebrated on 25th of December, the time of
solstice.

The meaning of this holiday is more
important, than the origin of the traditions that came along with it. Whether
it is December or some time in September, any day of the year would be a good
opportunity to reflect on Jesus Christ; His life and sacrifice for us.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

When i ask myself that very question, i remember an
article i once read for my philosophy class. I forgot the Author’s name, but
what he wrote changed the way i saw myself. the title was "Who" and
it started with a simple question:

Who are you? Of course the first thing that comes in your
mind is your name, but your name isn’t who you are, it just refers to you. Who
then are you? The Article continues by asking how old you are. Of course you
know your age, but your age only refers to your body, so is your body that makes
you, you? Or is therefore your Soul the essence of you? The Author then comes up with the “Soul
Theory” which suggest that you refers
to an immaterial soul, which means you could be millions of years or even
infinitely old. Another theory in the
article compares you with a river
based on the “You can’t step into the same river twice” aphorism. Since the
water of a river constantly changes, the river you stepped in once doesn’t
exist any longer. You too like the river are in a continuous state of transition. A following hypothesis proposes that you refers to your collection of neurons
– your brain, raises the question whether the brain matters to the preservation
of your identity and makes an analogy between people and sound structures which
considers that when you would make a qualitative equal copy of Beethoven’s
fifth Symphony onto an exactly similar type, what matters to the preservation
is the music not the tape on which the music is recorded and goes even further
with the scenario of teleporting where the exact pattern of your mental and
physical structure is replicated and the original destroyed. Would it still be
you? Another theory goes back to the age question and supposes if you refers to your mind, your mental
states – your sensations, emotions, and thoughts, then you can only be at most
a few seconds old, since your present conscious mental states are constantly
changing every second.

One of my favorite parts in the article was the
theory comparing ourselves with a river and its constant changing water. I think the theory originated from Heraclitus
and his flux doctrine, where he believed that beneath the apparent   harmony and stability of things, everything is in a state of flux and there is a constant battle between conflicting opposites. More  importantly    that   somehow these opposites are the same… "All things are one".

Suppose it is philosophical true that you cannot step
into the same river twice, which leads me to the question that therefore you
cannot meet the same person twice? For
the second time you will meet a person, he would have changed in many
ways. He would have new memories, for
example. So there are actually two
persons you’re going to meet. The Person you met first, and the person you will
meet on the second time. It doesn’t make
any “sense”. I try not to take it too
literally. The river has always been
symbolic for oneness of constancy vs. change. A cloud symbolizes the same thing. It is always changing while remaining the same cloud. People are constantly changing too, but
remaining the same person. We are
constantly being, while becoming.

In another part of the article the author comes up
with a teleporting scenario, where a person’s structure (physical and mental) will
be replicated and the original atoms destroyed. To me it is similar intriguing
as cloning, but in cloning,

there is a replica but the original isn’t
destroyed. When I underwent such a
procedure, would the replica of me still be me? My answer would be No, but what if you consider two bowling balls, both
of them weight the same, both of them are black, both of them share exactly the
same molecular and sub-molecular make-up. These two balls are qualitatively the same: they share the same
qualities. But they aren’t numerically one and the same ball: there are two
balls not one. So there can be qualitative sameness without numerical sameness.

The author talks about “masked” in the article, where
assumption-laden interpretations become so familiar that eventually they
generate a feeling of obviousness. When my Philosophy teacher asked me the
question “Who are you?” during a class, I was surprised, not of the question
itself, but because how hard I tried to think in that given time, I just
couldn’t find a clear answer to it. It
is another evidence that we take everything and also ourselves for granted. We
are not looking beyond of what is obvious, but every so often when I think
about life or while studying philosophy, I rather be satisfied with a “common
sense” kind of answer, than to break my head about different theories. I believe that everything that happens in our
lives happens for a reason, which sometimes get me to think too much. I end up
looking for signs and meaning in things and people, and I try to decipher the
why’s in my life, that I actually forget to just live it.

Going back to the River; suppose I went for a tour to
visit the  Mississippi River. In the first day
I would go to northern  Minnesota where the
Mississippi River origins from lake Itaska, then I would drive along the River and end up
somewhere in  Louisiana
the other week. You would agree that the
part of the River where I was the first week, and the part of the River where I
was the other week are parts of one and the same river, the  Mississippi River.

Why? Because the part of the river that I was the first week
and the part of the river that I was the other week are connected to one
another by a continuous series of other ‘parts’ of the river.

People are made of parts too; there is the Mind,
Soul, and the Body, and probably other parts or parts that belong to the other
parts, like emotions or memories, which may be connected to your mind. If you would take a part of the Mississippi
River away, it wouldn’t be the  Mississippi River anymore.

If you took a part of yourself away it wouldn’t be you any longer, and
therefore you in  “Who are you?” doesn’t
refer to only one part of you, but rather to you as a whole.