Know thyself.

THE SHIP OF THESEUS

What survives when the parts change?

To make sense of the question, I returned to the Ship of Theseus: the thought experiment that asks whether an object remains the same after all of its original parts have been replaced. In the story, Theseus's ship was preserved for annual pilgrimages, with old planks replaced over time. What, then, makes the remaining ship the ship of Theseus? For me, it is not only the material. It is the design, the form, and the story that travel with it. If the vessel no longer resembled the original, or if no one knew its history, it would become an unknown ship rather than Theseus's ship.

And if it became a canoe? The form might be gone, but the story could remain.

STORY AND CONTEXT

A life is held together by context.

Are we a face remembered by others, and the story that comes with it? Are we memories with a few bright moments preserved in the ember of memory? I know who I am because of the things that give context to my story: how I have looked over time, the memories that have been kept, and the witnesses of this event I call my existence. The things around me remind me that I am a father, a son, a brother, a teacher, a designer, a scientist. As parts of a life wear down and are replaced, something is carried forward. Today we might call that carried context data.

Information can be altered, compressed, or adapted as it passes between forms. But the context in which it sits gives it meaning and reveals its relationship to the wider world.

A RECORD OF SELF

An autobiography is more than a timeline.

If we are, in part, a data story, then we should preserve the memories that most faithfully capture us. An autobiography can be written by us and by the people who witnessed our lives. It holds what might otherwise disappear. But that record leaves out another important aspect of the self: our private thoughts. They often arrive in random fashion, in moments that no one else can fully witness.

PRIVATE THOUGHT

Some context belongs only to you.

We need to write down or record the ideas and thought processes that appear in quieter, meditative moments if we want to preserve more of who and what we are. We are not equally clear or equally creative every day. There are days when an idea arrives with force, or a difficult life question becomes easier to hold. Those are days to record the reasoning: in words, audio, or video.

THE CHANGING SELF

The self is always in motion.

Bodies change over time; cells renew at different rates, and our moods, energies, and capacities also shift. Imagine an institution in which every member eventually changes. What survives is the accumulated information, even as its character evolves with the people who carry it. New ideas arrive and old ones can be discarded, sometimes carelessly. That is why the good ideas generated by the current, living version of yourself deserve a record.

RECORD AND REVIEW

Let one version of you help another.

When you are on a creative low, return to what you recorded when you were clearer. See whether you can follow through on the decision made by that earlier version of yourself. You are never exactly the same person, even a minute or two later. Record keeping helps the self survive change by making good ideas available when they are most needed.

STORY, ACTION, TIME

The self is a story being acted out now.

For who I am is just but a story element, what I am is the thought action element in the story and when am I is the story at the time of creation of thought. As we live, we actively shape that story through the choices and decisions we make with the people, places, and things around us. In thought we may be in the present, past, or future, but in an objective sense the body is here in the present: acting out the story and making a memory that we once existed.

MEMORY IN TIME

Write your story into the memory of time.

My hope is that, as I continue pursuing the invention codenamed the XB Lifelog, I will be able to help many people write their story into the memory of time.