Defining the Self

My roommate asked me last week what the identity of a person who had undergone a brain transplant would be. Would the patient's identity be of Person A, whose body had received the new brain, or of Person B, whose brain had been placed into a new body? Or is a third, new identity created by the fusion of those 2? (For anyone who's studied Christology, this may debate may sound familiar, but I'm not taking it in that direction, despite my recent studies.)

So, what defines us as individuals? We are clearly bodies, and our experiences and treatment by others is, at least to some extent, determined by our physical being. I would be very different if I had been born male or black, very short or abnormally tall, or with a disability. Others identify us by these characteristics and, when describing us to others, usually list our height, race, hair color, and build first.

Still, if our parent's words to us as children are true, "it's what's inside that counts". What on the inside counts, though? Are we the sum of our experiences, defined by that which we have done? Surely I would be a different person if I had been born into the Danish royal family or been an AIDS orphan in Niger or a woman behind a burqa in Afghanistan. I know that my upbringing, my schooling, and my travels have shaped me, but is that what differentiates me from everyone else? If a different person, you for example, had been in my place and experienced all that I have, would we be alike? Surely not.

This brings in another dimension: choice. If someone else had started life as I did, they would surely have made different choices and, thus, experienced different things. So is it our choices that make us who we are? If so, our person is formed by the factors that caused us to make those choices, which places the spotlight on our natural traits and the people in our lives. Our natural traits make us who we are to some extent, but a person who had the same personality traits as I have in another setting might have been totally different. Likewise, someone with those traits surrounded by totally different people would likely have chosen another path and would still be different.

I guess I could conclude that the self is formed by an enormous combination of inherent and experiential factors. But that leaves me with another question: am I who I am inside, or who people think I am?

Someone called me an intellectual yesterday. I have never seen myself in that role. I always defined intellectuals as very smart, lofty people who contemplated abstract ideas and said profound things. That's not me, but that is how some people perceive me. Another person gave me a list of traits from which I only applied a few to myself. So, who's right? Are we really who we think we are when we're alone inside our heads, or do people who see us from the outside see what's really there? And if those two images are radically different, does that mean we're fake, or just misunderstood? Do we misrepresent ourselves for self-preservation? Or do people see what they want to see?

I wish that I, like Yahweh, could simply say "I AM who I AM" or, perhaps more accurately, "I WILL BE who I WILL BE." The answer is probably in the middle somewhere, somehow combining everything. To give some sort of resolution to this wondering, I could say that I'm a combination of my natural traits, my physical being, my experiences, and the people who have influenced me, a mingling of who I think I am and how everyone else views me. Any more definition than that is probably impossible, but it would be nice to understand it. After all, this is the time of my life when I should be out trying to "find myself", right? But I'm not lost, I'm just undefined. And really, aren't we all?

You Said It!

So... I've been having trouble coming up with interesting tidbits of life information to share lately, since I've been mostly writing papers and studying for midterms. However, since I have no clever words of my own to share, I decided to give you some idea of the clever, or just plain funny, words I've heard lately.

Wisdom of the Ages (or, Things My Professors Said in Class)
"A sheep is clean because it's not a lobster."
"If you get a goofy building, it's usually a temple."
A sentence beginning with "Go to neverneverland..."
"I'm not an expert on temple prostitution."
Student: "I felt like a little piece of my childhood died." Professor: "Welcome to seminary."
"We don't really think of Godness as something in degrees."
"Homoousious, a word as big as Turkey..."
"There are many places where the Bible says 'like'."
"I haven't had any sleep, so don't give me any crap this morning."
"They just had one kind of peanut butter called 'State Peanut Butter'."
"But I'm not like that. I don't believe that cheap is good. I believe that expensive is good."
"If you want to buy a refrigerator for the Lord..."
"Everything in the English language eventually becomes a metaphor."
"The process, well, it's just very awkward."
Bishop: "You're laughing, what is it?" Student: "Nothing, it's not important." Bishop: "You're making me want to check my fly."
"Once you become a member, it's difficult to get thrown out of the club."

Not Quite So Dignified (things my friends said):
"We didn't have Nintendo, we went to sailing camp."
"How about this goal: have a date by the time I get married."
"Usually only Dave gets to see me eat like that."
"Shut up, you have a bubble."
"I'd totally marry him if he weren't 40...and gay...and married."

Jumbled...

I've been working through a lot of jumbled thoughts lately, but most of them are too heavy and too messy to put out here. Instead, I'll leave you with the peripheral thoughts that have been dancing at the edge of my consciousness, shoved out of place by the big stuff.

-I've never voted in a voting booth. This isn't because I don't vote, instead it's because I've never been in my hometown on an Election Day. I'm really good at filling out absentee ballots, though. I'm just nervous that someday I'll go to vote in an actual booth and won't have any idea what to do.

-I've loved the River of Dreams album by Billy Joel for a decade now, and it never becomes less amazing to me. The songs that are sticking out in particular at the moment are: Shades of Grey, All About Soul, and Two Thousand Years.

-I've never gotten comfortable with the whole bar/club scene... I always feel totally awkward trying to mingle with people and I'm way to inhibited to dance well. I can't decide whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

-Next time I choose an apartment, I need to consider its proximity to emergency services. I'm getting a little tired of being awakened at 3 a.m. by fire truck sirens.

-I really like southern weather, but I could do without the "palmetto bugs", which, for the record, are really huge cock roaches, but are called "palmetto bugs" in order to sound more genteel.

-Someday I need to move to a place where I can actually get regular coverage of the athletic teams I'm interested in. I'm getting tired of having lame football game options.

-Other music in the playlist this week: "You Are Forgiven" and "Let's Go to Canada" by Reel Big Fish, "The Shoop-Shoop Song", and the entire soundtrack to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (I just had a test over Genesis).

-I need to stop staying up late before the days when I have an 8 a.m. class OR I need to find some form of palatable caffeine to consume on early mornings.