Tijn Touber asks where ‘I’ ends and where ‘you’ begins.
Twenty years after I had left, I was back in the country where I had spent a substantial part of my youth: America. I saw my old school and strolled along streets where I once played My old friends said I had changed. I had become quieter and more introverted. ‘You should have seen him a little while back,’ said Paul, my travelling companion.
I haven’t known Paul very long. We thought it would be a good idea to travel together because Paul wanted to develop his spiritual side and I wanted to become more grounded. During the holiday, Paul would get up early to meditate; I would stay up late and drink wine.
It looks like the experiment was a success. When I got back from the US an old girlfriend said she saw more and more of the ‘old Tijn’ resurfacing. But I wonder whether that ‘old Tijn’ ever left. I think I’m made up of a whole lot of Tijns. And also a lot of Jakes, Rogers and Nicolettes. Maybe I’m actually everyone.
Some modern scholars seem to think so. In their continuing search for the building blocks of life, they came across an energy field that they think links everything and everyone. This field appears to flow through time and space. It is the only way that scientists can explain how particles that were once part of the same molecule can react to each other’s movements, even after they have been separated across great distances.
It goes without saying that the quantum processes that take place at an atomic level are also occurring at a macro level. We, too, are linked to everything and everyone through the quantum field. They say that all the experiences and information throughout time – even from the future – are stored in this field. What we call ‘a memory’ is in fact only our tuning into a specific wavelength in the field, which causes the corresponding experience to be released. Seen in this light, our memories and experiences are not unique or our own, but part of a gigantic database, a collective (sub)conscious to which everyone has continual access.
According to the avant-garde thinkers, the only fundamental truth is our relationship with this field. Einstein was unable to prove it, but he suspected as much: ‘The field is the only reality.’
If this is so, where do I end and you begin? Where does the ‘old Tijn’ end and the ‘new Tijn’ begin?
The most important question is not: who am I? The most important question is: who do I want to be?
