Once, I was many people

October 6th, 2024

I have a first name I go by daily, and a last name that is personal but not really mine. I had many last names over the generations and common local and tribal names before that, going to the earliest beginnings. I also have genes that are the result of a messy mixture of mass migrations and wars and famines and historical events and luck (or lack thereof). And of lust and desire and better or worse relationships as well. And I don't care about that heritage since, by pure chance, all that resulted in a specific and particular and unique me. By the same token, I don't care what I will leave behind, since the future is based on randomness and chance and there is not much for me to say and do about it.

And that last sentence is a lie.

I do care about it, if only for the sake of my sanity. And that might be a lie again. A lie to feed the superiority of my humbleness. I don't know…

What I know is that I remember things I am not supposed to remember. Or rather, I remember places I’ve never been in my current life that seem to bring an understanding of intimate knowledge of those said places in the past time. I reject those feelings since I don't believe in pseudo-scientific ideas about reincarnation and transmutation, but curiosity remains. I keep those thoughts compartmented in a deep recess of my mind. I reject the feeling but keep the knowledge. Knowledge of something that goes beyond rational and materialistic explanations. That bothers me occasionally, especially when an ordinary photo or a painting suddenly brings me goosebumps and a shiver of recognition of something that cannot be.