You Are Not The Person Who Started Reading This

The social media message was unexpected, which added to the delight it brought me. Danielle said she’d read the first book I ever wrote, a young adult science fiction story called Comet’s Curse, when she was 14.

Now, at 35, she’d just finished reading that tattered copy again—with her 12-year-old daughter.

Two thoughts crossed my mind as this sank in.

First, just pure gratitude that someone would not only keep one of my books for decades, but then share their love of it with their children. That totally touched my heart.

But the second thought was more philosophical: All these years later, am I even that same writer she enjoyed in middle school?

Clearly, I’m not, and it’s not a matter of better or worse—some might think I’ve improved, others might say I’ve gone down the toilet. But I’m not the same person, let alone the same writer.

I’m like the Ship of Theseus. So are you. If you’re not familiar with it, that’s the classic thought experiment based on the ship used by the Greek hero, Theseus.

In a nutshell, it explores the idea that if pieces of the ship are gradually replaced through the years, plank by plank, eventually the entire ship will be made up entirely of replacement parts.

At that point, is it still the same ship that launched all those years ago?

Researchers claim some cells in your body could last an entire lifetime, primarily in the heart, the eye, and your cerebral cortex. But the vast majority of you is replaced over time.

Skin cells renew every two to four weeks, red blood cells get recycled every four months or so, and your bone cells will turn over every ten years. As time passes, you’re basically a new model of yourself.

My writing today is nothing like it was when Danielle enjoyed Comet’s Curse as a teen. The book itself has even changed author names since—the entire Galahad series sails under a new flag now, a pen name, Tyber North—though the story itself did not change. Same ship, different colors on the mast.

But we experience more than just physical changes. My thoughts have evolved, my tastes have changed, and big chunks of my personality have morphed, too.

You Can’t Argue With the Ocean

I’m a walking, talking Ship of Theseus. I may look more or less the way I did when I first left port, but years and years on the high seas of life have swapped out one plank after another.

Some people are terrified of that, and I understand the urge to resist. But you can’t hold back the rebuilding any more than a captain can order the ocean to leave his hull alone. The sea gets its say. Every voyage remakes you a little, whether you signed off on it or not.

Here’s the part I find exciting, though: you don’t get a vote on whether you change, but you get an enormous one on what goes back in the empty spot—the quality of the timber, the shape of the vessel, the heading you choose. It’s happening, my friend.

So the question becomes: how much effort will you put into shaping that change in the best possible way?

Dom Testa writes fiction and nonfiction, and is thrilled that his planks keep getting replaced.
Find most of his books, including Comet’s Curse, at DomTestaBooks.com, and some of his other musings here.