Everyone watches that insect
missing a leg, missing a wing.
But then looks away from amputees,
burn-skinned us's—too close of a
thing
(“Not me!” we want to say).
Really, it's a sad, safe life that
leaves a body whole.
We drop pieces behind us, wear parts
away,
like words repeated until no meaning
holds.
I only ever skinned my knees
because running became fun.
I might burn out my eyes one day
looking at the setting sun
(and that would be a well-spent day).
I say “Hello” to a neighbor. “Hi”
croaks back. A stiff morning voice.
I take his day's first words into my
ears.
My memory will go, but for now it
remembers this.
And what of my limbs? Not me.
Me, a pool of senses.
Clone them all?
Only like me.
Or carve out my throat?
Was me
(and then just a still thing,
senseless).
"Was meditating on where, exactly, 'I' exist yesterday.
ReplyDeleteI was staring in the mirror, and asked myself the obvious—
'If you cut off your arm, is it still yours?'
No, clearly not. Like fallen-off skin flakes: it's meat.
So I went on—'If I met myself as a child, would that be me?'
No, it was me before, but now is me now, and anyway you can't meet the past you.
So I realized I was actually asking a clone-question—'If I were cloned, would that replica be me?'
Of course not; it would be itself. I can't feel what it feels, or see what it sees.
I am not my DNA, not my limbs, not even my memories...for if they faded, I would still be me—“And yourself is?”
The place where sensations arrive; the 'witness' to lived experiences in this body.
I am a pool of senses, put simply.
Glad I got that one figured out."
– 2 November 2015
When I read this, I remembered how I felt too sensitive as a child. I did not think that many other people stopped to look at the struggling bug on the sidewalk or felt bad for stepping on a dandelion growing through the cracks in the cement. I grew to think that sensitivity was a weakness and that I should be in control of all parts of me, so when you say that “we drop pieces behind us, wear parts away,” I really thought about the missing parts of myself and contemplated if they truly were missing. Perhaps they had been filled or maybe leaving them behind was better for me than keeping everything. The next lines reminded me that life is only as fun as we make it and that our perception is the only thing that truly matters. At least, we would like to believe so. Living without the crutches of other people’s judgment may be the key to living life as you please and enjoying every moment of it. The last bits of the poem remind me that sensing is directly correlated with living; if we were to live in the constructs of society, we would all be clones, incapable of genuinely feeling. The collage exemplifies the beauty of nature and the little things that we might miss because we see them everyday. For example, sunsets happen every day, but it’s not like their beauty diminishes. Enjoy the small moments and you will be able to connect to your own soul.
ReplyDeleteThis poem, as an illustration of a thought being formed, accomplishes two different things. First, the speaker reflects on what significance their past bodily injuries have had on them, and comes to the conclusion that the body is only a vehicle for the self; it’s OK if the body is battered and bruised, as long as it has carried the self to new experiences. Next, the speaker tries to determine what the self is; they discard their physical characteristics and their memories, and come to the conclusion that the self is what receives sensory input.
ReplyDeleteAs I read this poem, I personally connected it to (bear with me here) the transporters from Star Trek, which provide instantaneous teleportation by converting the user into an energy pattern which is then reconstituted into matter at their destination. However, the implication here is that the original user is killed, and an exact copy is produced in order to continue living their life for them. Memories and personality can all be reproduced by recreating the exact neural pathways and connections in the brain, but something is lost along the way. The consciousness cannot be transferred from the brain to anywhere else without creating a discontinuity; it always creates a gap between the original “pool of senses” and the new, where any senses experienced by the new will not flow to the old, and vice versa. This poem was really interesting to me; I’ve always enjoyed thinking about the implications of science fiction concepts such as these Ship of Theseus-esque teleporters, or uploading brains to computers, but I was never quite able to put my finger on exactly what it was that was not transferred to the new copy that breaks the continuous consciousness.
Although, when you think about it, doesn’t this technically happen every instant one is alive? The sensory input one receives can never flow backwards - does that mean that a new consciousness is created, and the old one destroyed, for every infinitesimal step forward in time? Is the me from a few hours ago dead, and I’m just a copy of him continuing forward? Maybe I’m not a pool of senses, but a river.
DeleteMaybe you are, Ben. Maybe you are ... And you too, new Ben. And you too :)
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