The Book We Read Together
A reflection on Tom Oliver's The Self Delusion (Korean edition, Bronstein, 2022) prompted by a ThinQon book discussion. The piece considers how the constant turnover of cells and gut bacteria unsettles the idea of a fixed personal identity, and how President Zelensky's wartime broadcasts illustrate the book's concept of "resonance" — the way emotion, not just words, travels between people regardless of physical distance.
The book
selected this time by ThinQon examines the web of relationships that surround
an individual — the relationship between a person and society, and even the
relationship between the human brain and the bacteria living in our digestive
system. Reading it exposed me to a number of facts I had never encountered
before. What follows draws on the book's content while recording my own
reflections along the way.
The Self
Delusion
Author: Tom Oliver
The author observes that although our bodies
feel central to who we are, the roughly 37 trillion cells that make them up
mostly live for only days or weeks, so the physical matter of the body is in
near-constant turnover — meaning the body is largely rebuilt every few weeks,
which is not, by itself, enough to account for the continuity of our identity.
(p. 21)
Reading this
passage led me to look back on my own past selves. Can the seven-year-old me,
the ten-year-old me, the fourteen-year-old me, the twenty-one-year-old me, the
twenty-nine-year-old me, and the person I am today truly be called the same
individual? I still carry fragments of memory from those years (though much of
it has already faded), which offers some basis for saying I am the same person.
Yet looking back, even where personality or appearance resembles who I am now,
it is hard to call past and present selves entirely identical. In other words,
I have been continuously changing from who I once was as the years have passed.
The bacteria
in our bodies likely undergo a similar process — old strains dying off, new
ones emerging — shifting in type and proportion in ways that may, in turn, have
influenced the brain. This raises a genuine question when I look back: when
exactly did the shy, introverted person I once was turn into someone so
outgoing and assertive?
The fact that our gut bacteria turn over on a scale of weeks carries an important implication: we should live with the awareness that we are beings capable of continuous change, and that we can likewise change the circumstances we find ourselves in. I hope to keep steering my own life in a more constructive direction and to keep becoming a better person, and I believe that kind of change is genuinely possible.
Resonance Across Distance
Beyond words and writing, neuroscientists and cognitive scientists have learned more in recent years about how one person's "connectome" interacts with another's. Among the various processes involved is a primitive but important one known as resonance, in which a neural pattern triggers not thought but feeling — so that watching a video of a crying child can put us into a state of empathy, feeling something of the child's distress as our own.
This is
something I suspect many readers, and certainly I myself, can relate to. When
Russia's invasion put Ukraine's capital under direct threat, the news struck me
hard, and it stirred real concern that a similar situation could one day unfold
on the Korean peninsula. In the midst of that crisis, President Zelensky
appeared on video declaring that he would not flee but would remain in the
capital to fight alongside his forces. Watching that broadcast, I could feel
his resolve and the leadership it projected. It moved me enough that, despite
some hesitation, I posted messages in several group chats encouraging others to
donate in support of Ukraine.
President
Zelensky is, physically, extraordinarily far from me. Yet his words and
expression, carried online, crossed that physical distance and left a deep
impression — which I take to be precisely the kind of "resonance" the
book describes. I later learned that Ukrainians who saw his broadcasts returned
home to fight for their country, and I believe that, in similar circumstances,
I might act the same way. There was something in his address that went beyond
what one would expect from a politician with a relatively short career —
something that moved people to act, beyond their own self-interest.
The war
between Russia and Ukraine continues, and its outcome remains impossible to
predict, but President Zelensky's broadcast clearly stands as an example of the
"resonance" the book describes, and it reaffirmed for me just how
powerful that force can be. In the wake of his address, numerous countries
moved to offer support, and private citizens have continued raising relief
funds for Ukraine. Had he fled abroad out of fear when the war broke out — as
happened in Afghanistan — other European nations might well have concluded that
Russia's domination of Ukraine was simply inevitable. Instead, his resolve has
become a force sustaining the country through a precarious moment.
A Closing Thought
This has
wandered somewhat from the book itself, but I do worry that Russia will
ultimately achieve its aims through military force. Still, if there is a God, I
earnestly hope for the kind of miracle in which Ukraine prevails over Russia.
*Note: this piece was written in around March 2022.
