Image(s) Source - Nano Banana
It was my birthday yesterday. And as always, that means a brief detour into memory lane. I found myself thinking about childhood: about the teenage version of me.
In some ways, not much has changed (predominantly because mentally I am still 12!). But in other ways, I’m a very different person. Would the 16-year-old Utkarsh even recognize who I’ve become? Would he be proud? Disappointed? Or just thoroughly confused?
That thought took me into a rabbit hole: what really makes us… us?
- Our bodies? Every cell in our body renews on a rolling schedule. Skin cells live about 2–3 weeks. Red blood cells last ~4 months. Even our bones: seemingly the most permanent thing we carry, are mostly replaced every 10 years. By that logic, the “me” that existed in school is biologically long gone.
- Our thoughts? Ephemeral, slippery things.
- Our memories? Neuroscientists say they aren’t perfect snapshots but distorted reconstructions, more like rewatching life in 144p resolution with a shaky hand-cam. Every time we recall something, we slightly rewrite it. Which means the more we remember, the less accurate it becomes.
So what makes “me” continuous across time? The cells don’t survive. The thoughts don’t last. The memories aren’t reliable. And yet, we feel like the same self, as if there’s a thread that persists even as every stitch changes.
Maybe identity is not a fixed thing but a story. One we keep telling ourselves, plank by plank, memory by memory.
But then the question lingers: if your cells, your thoughts, your memories are all temporary…
what makes you, you?
What we’re watching this week
No brownie points for guessing this one. Ship of Theseus by Anand Gandhi
Until next week,