Vern's Car

The first thing that came to mind when I read this scenario concerning Vern’s Volvo being slowly taken apart and replaced piece by piece is the story of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Physically, almost every part that was once Anakin has been discarded and replaced with the mechanical components of Darth Vader. But as we see at the end of Episode VI when “Darth Vader” saves his son Luke, the emotional entity of Anakin has always been there, simply buried under a physical monstrosity who was put under a lot of emotional stress in his younger years. Even though Vern’s current Volvo is in no way a physical monstrosity, I think the same rules apply.

The car may have been replaced bit by bit over the course of twenty years, but the intrinsic value of the car for Vern has always remained. The idea of the Volvo being Vern’s is what really matters. From Vern’s perspective, the car is something that he’s been through a lot with. If you have a car for twenty years, chances are good that you will grow attached to it. Vern’s attachment to the car is surely what drove him to repair it so many times in the first place. He made a conscious effort to keep his car in working order because it has that innate value to him. Telling Vern that his real Volvo is the hunk of parts sitting in Grace’s garage would probably offend him. In fact, the process of repair and replacement that the car has been through adds to the intrinsic value of the car.

If Grace were to take all of the parts that she collected during the years of repair she did for Vern’s Volvo and create a functioning vehicle from it, that car could not be considered Vern’s. It would only be a sum of parts collected over time. Vern did not experience any part of his life with that particular form of the car. The repaired form of the car that he currently owns is the only one that could actually be considered his. This is because in those twenty years of ownership, even though he made the conscious effort to repair and replace what is necessary, he always held on to the same idea of the car, which has innate value to him. This once again leads me to the comparison between the Volvo and Anakin Skywalker. Even though Darth Vader was replaced part by part thanks to his scars from various egregious deeds, the emotionally troubled but true Anakin Skywalker has always been under the surface. If someone found all the “spare parts” of Anakin Skywalker (which would be rather disturbing) and reanimated some sort of separate version of him, it would not be Anakin because no one could recreate the emotional journey, from cocky pod-racing kid to fratricidal emotional wreck, and make it a part of the reanimated Anakin.

Consider even the history of humanity applied to this logic. People born, live, and eventually die. The people that are around today are a completely separate group of individuals from the people that were around hundreds of years ago, but we are still considered the collective of humanity. Even though each individual has died and been “replaced” it is our history which makes us humanity, which is an idea that has stuck with us since the rise of civilization. No one would ever dare to rename “humanity” simply based on the logic that we are not the same group of individuals that we were a few centuries ago.

The last thing I have to get off my chest is that, from a scientific perspective (which I know that not everybody finds fascinating, but I am obliged as a “science person” to point out), our physical entities are not the same physical entities that we remember from years ago. Atoms and molecules move from place to place and are constantly replacing each other. For example, other water molecules have replaced the water molecules that composed the majority of our bodies as children. That same rule applies to the other atoms and molecules in our bodies. We may each be a constantly changing set of matter, but we still consider ourselves the same people that we were when we were younger. This is because we hold the idea of ourselves as near and dear. Vern’s car may have been reconstructed into a different physical entity over time, but Vern’s concept of his car over time has remained constant and near and dear to Vern.

Know Thyself

In a world where everybody experiences a heavy dose of social influence on a daily basis, it’s hard to even define what it means to know oneself. I would imagine that knowing me would have something to do with judging my persona in an unbiased manner and knowing exactly what I search for in life. But it’s difficult to do that because I, along with probably everybody else, have some sort of delusion about myself, even if it is only to a minor extent. In Layman’s terms, I have a better opinion about myself than what the truth reveals, but that’s natural. And because I have that loftier opinion about myself, I could have difficulty in my search for true happiness. In fact, I think that the most important benefit of truly knowing oneself would be being able to make decisions in life based on what really matters to that person. Whether it’s in school, on Facebook, or on the Iowa Caucuses flickering on CNN a few feet away from me, society has made it pretty obvious that a lot of people actually have no idea about what’s good for them. It’s a shame, because if people actually knew themselves and what their real goal in life was, their life and the life of those around them would be much easier.

I’ve gradually noticed that my greatest weakness is my tendency to over-dramatize a lot of aspects and events in my life, especially during these recent years in high school. I try to take it easy more often, but I find some kind of strange enjoyment in making a big deal out of a lot of situations that don’t deserve to be. I’m not really sure why. It’s nothing out of control or over the top (I don’t pretend my life is some sort of play or reality show) but I do like stressing the importance of certain parts of life more than is necessary. Then again, I surely can’t be the only one who does that. The most unfortunate result of dramatizing would be that everything became very important in some artificial way and what really does matter gets lost in that sea of dramatic confusion. That goes back to where knowing oneself is determined by what path you ultimately take in life. If everything is considered of the utmost importance, than the truly significant parts of life get degraded. Although, I am glad that recently, especially as a senior, I’ve come to accept that life doesn’t always go my way and the best thing to do is just accept it. I can’t sweat the small stuff. I hope this realization of mine carries into college and permanently replaces my previous tendencies of over-dramatization.

I can’t really say what my best quality is, but one facet of my personality that I’ve always liked having is my ability to make people, especially my closest friends, feel better. Because I recognize how seriously I sometimes take life I use that knowledge to comfort people who make the same mistake by telling them how things are almost always bound to get better. Just because life is difficult at that moment doesn’t mean that it’s going to suck forever. People that get caught up in what essentially are their delusions lose track of what is ultimately best for their well-being. I think I do a pretty good job at helping people realize those inconsistencies and through that help them off the ground when they slip on any unstable path they might’ve been attempting to get across. I don’t really like being arrogant about it, but the truth is that many of friends have come up to me and thanked me for helping them out and comforting them in their time of need. I always respond with “My pleasure”; even though I know it is a pretty cliché response, I mean it. Nothing makes me happier than to see those closest to me be happy.

I think the main reason it’s so difficult to judge myself like this is because I and people in general really do have some sort of notion where we hold ourselves well above the average. But I think it’s only natural. The human brain may be rigged through the process of natural selection to think in such a way that supplies us with sufficient confidence to survive in our environment. And in the modern environment we dwell in, social superiority is essential. I may find it difficult to express my weaknesses to other people because I don’t want to admit they’re true. On the other hand, I may be uncomfortable conveying my strengths to other people because I don’t want to come across as arrogant. I really think that deep down everybody has a pretty defined sense of self, it’s just the different aspects of it that they choose to share with other people distort that sense of self to a certain extent. Some people’s sense of self gets distorted beyond recognition or repair, and that’s thanks to the enormous amount of social influence that we get bombarded with in almost every waking minute of life.