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Yesterday, Eric Burns of Websnark wrote an essay about Alzheimer's, dementia, and how scary they are, especially to someone smart like himself who values his mind. It's a really good essay, and it got me thinking about some similar topics.
If I was someone else. It's not an especially uncommon phrase, and we all know what it means, but it's a contradiction. I am me. Someone else is not me, by definition. I can't be someone else, because if I changed into someone else, or if something changed me into something else, I would no longer be me. I define myself by my mind, by who I think I am, and I would not be that person if I was someone else. I would be dead.
If I got Alzheimer's, it would change me into someone else.
Let's back up a moment. Why would changing into someone else be a form of death? People change, right? We learn things, we forget things, we develop new habits and hobbies, we break or abandon old ones ... every day, every second of every day, each of us turns into a slightly different person. Why, I went through a period where I didn't like tortilla chips at all, and now they're one of my favorite foods. Changing's a natural thing – in fact, we wouldn't be people if we didn't do it. So why is it scary when it's senility?
The thing is, normally, when we change we change in ways that we expect. Sometimes (rarely) we even get to choose how we change. Even if we get struck by something unexpected and traumatic, the changes we make are still our responses, and reflect the person we used to be. We change to fit the world we live in, and so it makes sense that it's still us. We're just adapting.
Only the slow unravelling of our minds, of our selves, in the face of neurological disease, is not adapting. It's not adapting at all, it's just changing, badly, it's weakening. It's dying. And it's dying slowly, without mercy or dignity, without glory or beauty. The only mercy even possible is if we lose our short-term memory early on, and thus are spared the agony of watching as our souls decay.
I don't know how to end this pithily. I shudder at the idea of losing my mind. And that, I find, is all I have to say.
If I was someone else. It's not an especially uncommon phrase, and we all know what it means, but it's a contradiction. I am me. Someone else is not me, by definition. I can't be someone else, because if I changed into someone else, or if something changed me into something else, I would no longer be me. I define myself by my mind, by who I think I am, and I would not be that person if I was someone else. I would be dead.
If I got Alzheimer's, it would change me into someone else.
Let's back up a moment. Why would changing into someone else be a form of death? People change, right? We learn things, we forget things, we develop new habits and hobbies, we break or abandon old ones ... every day, every second of every day, each of us turns into a slightly different person. Why, I went through a period where I didn't like tortilla chips at all, and now they're one of my favorite foods. Changing's a natural thing – in fact, we wouldn't be people if we didn't do it. So why is it scary when it's senility?
The thing is, normally, when we change we change in ways that we expect. Sometimes (rarely) we even get to choose how we change. Even if we get struck by something unexpected and traumatic, the changes we make are still our responses, and reflect the person we used to be. We change to fit the world we live in, and so it makes sense that it's still us. We're just adapting.
Only the slow unravelling of our minds, of our selves, in the face of neurological disease, is not adapting. It's not adapting at all, it's just changing, badly, it's weakening. It's dying. And it's dying slowly, without mercy or dignity, without glory or beauty. The only mercy even possible is if we lose our short-term memory early on, and thus are spared the agony of watching as our souls decay.
I don't know how to end this pithily. I shudder at the idea of losing my mind. And that, I find, is all I have to say.
