The Story of Deviation and Returning
I always loved thinking about philosophical discussions and paradoxes. I am amazed that they are so simple at first glance yet so complex in their nature. Although I am intrigued by The Story of Achilles and The Tortoise, The Arrow Paradox, and many other paradoxes, The Ship of Theseus has a special place for me. It reminds me of my own nature; changing, evolving, deviating every single second of every single day. When I saw the title “Reentry”, my mind immediately revealed a connection with the story of the paradox of identity.
For those of you who have not read the paradox before, here is a short version of the story by Plutarch, the historian taken from Wikipedia:
The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.
— Plutarch, Theseus
Just as The Ship of Theseus, we humans are everchanging. We change with the world around us, with our experiences, with our relationships… These changes are unknown to us, and those around in the short sight, yet every slight deviation contributes to a much more significant difference alteration.
There is a phenomenon called Jamais Vu, also known as Vuja De, the reverse Deja Vu. It is the experience where one rationally knows that they have experienced the situation before. Yet, they irrationally feel that this is their first impression. I believe this is a core feature of the “Reentry” theme. After a long time, a load of experiences with different people in various places, we are not even the same person living those experiences. Talking with an old friend, revisiting an old place, reliving an old experience can and will feel different for us.
This experience can be trivial, as simple as seeing how life has changed you, or it might be hurting, demonstrating what you could have done or what you have lost in that time. Still, I believe the best version of this experience is to not live it. The most beautiful feeling I ever lived in the sense of familiarity with an old friend, old place, old experience… After years apart, despite having completely different lives in entirely different directions, it is fabulous to relive the joy of talking to an old friend, knowing them again, knowing yourself again, experiencing the nostalgia, looking at the past with a mix of happiness and sadness, looking at the future with a combination of excitement and anxiety, and living the moment without regrets and the feeling of the misfit.
In 22 days, I will be leaving a life that I love and have loved for the past 4 years. I will be leaving the place I see as my home. I will be leaving the people I see as my family. I will be leaving the experiences that I see as a composition of me. I will be going somewhere where I know nobody, where I know nowhere, and where I have no expectations, and where nobody has any expectations from me. I will be free, yet alone. I am excited and happy, yet I am frightened by all of these. I have left my comfort zone many times in the past, yet it was never this big, this crucial, and this much intimidating. Yet this is my life, I have chosen this path, and I am thrilled to know that I will experience the “Reentry” with my current life in the future. I will return to these places, walk on the same roads, get coffee from the same stand, and talk to the same people. And I hope that I don’t feel Jamais Vu. Instead, I feel the familiarity. I want to look at the past, embrace it, and know that who I am today is the product of all my history, and it has not left me, and I will not leave it.
References
- http://theurbanengine.com/blog//the-ship-of-theseus (Photograph is taken from the website)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_vu (Definitions of Vuja De and Jamais Vu are taken from the website; also the story of Plutarch is taken from the website)
