Everything about me is new again

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerourac
1958 paperback edition of the hardcopy original… a bit worse for wear :)

Not really. In fact, the opposite is true.

Everything about me has already happened, somewhere, to someone else.

That’s just how it is, when you are one of 7+ billion and that doesn’t count the dead.

And yet, as I experience life and interpret the complex events that unfold around me — in my relationships, the accidents that befall me, the consequences of my decisions — it certainly feels unique and new. It feels like this subjective model of reality that my brain-mind builds and that my awareness occupies is “mine” and mine alone.

And so there is this paradox. My experience is unique; my experience is universal. I may not have an exact doppelganger, but if you break “me” down into granular enough pieces, they will each have exact replicas out there, somewhere.

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