The first definition of "I", usually points at my body. I can feel when something touches my body, I can see my body.


Looking at it intellectually, my body is basically a collection of matter. A bunch of atoms, hanging together to form molecules, cells, organs. Interestingly, my body was a different bunch of atoms yesterday than today. How? Well, since yesterday I ate some food and drank some water. So new atoms where added to my body. Also, I went to the bathroom. So some of what used to be my body went down the drain.

What happens to my body when I die? All the material, that makes up my body at the time of death is going to get recycled. Smaller and larger organisms are using my body as source for food, integrating what used to be me, in what is them now.

When I think this through, I am not so sure anymore about what materially is really me. Am I really so separate from everything else?


Imagine, we're looking at my elbow under a strong microscope. We could see the atoms that make up my bone, the tendons, the skin. When we move the focus-point of the microscope little by little, we would at some point end up looking at the arm-rest of the chair. We wouldn't even notice where my body ends and the arm-rest begins. All we can see is just a bunch of atoms interlocked with each other in various ways.


Imagine now, you're flying in an airplane, and you look down on good old Tobago. You'd know that I am somewhere in Signal Hill. But you couldn't see me. You'd see the island. And from your vantage point, I am part of the island.


Imagine you were to go out in a space-ship, and look back at the Earth. Clearly, I would be part of Earth. I am not separate from it.


Although I feel separate, I am part of this world, and this world is part of me.