radiolab - who am i? - book 3

chapter i haven’t been myself lately

MY NEURONS

THE LEAKYSELF

THE BLUE FLANNEL

3 still plunging deeper, and gaining pace toward the end of our time here.

we will examine a story where a man loses his ‘self’ and takes on the ‘self’ of his late father.

THIS WAY UP

where am i?where can i find myself?

LOOK CLOSE UP

x 1,000,000,000,000

LITTLESYNAPSESOF JELLY

OVER A TRILLIONNEURONS

flashing & pulsing energy.

this is what creates thoughts or ideas: the collective *snap* of these little neurons.

INSIDE YOUR BRAIN

THE GREATESTILLUSION

THAT YOUARE ONE ‘THING’

–ONE

‘SELF’

ARISES

HI

you are always plural

you are always plural

YOU

1x

YOU

500,000,000,000x

YOU

1,000,000,000,000x

the self the self

*the self is not a berlin wall

*the self is porus, and it has leaks

FATHER & SON

IMAGINED

FATHER

SON

the father as he got older, had a condition that resembled alzheimers.

and he began melt into the son. he would tell stories that were really the son’s stories.

SANFRANCISCO

SAN DIEGO

he imagined that he had come to america, and he says that he remembers seeing the golden gate bridge. which is strange considering that it wasn’t built at that period in time.

the son had been in san diego at a period in time, and the father, because of the time he spent there in the war, could create confabulated stories.

the edges of him spilling over into me, and it made me feel claustrophobic.

it was after he had died that i found myself doing the same in return.

SON

IMAGINED

FATHER

he would arrange his forks and knives like his father had done.

he would humm a yiddish tune like his father.

he would wear his father’s flue flannel.

and he had to carry around his fathers nitroglyceryn bottle, because of some odd compulsion.

HE COULD NOT LEAVE

THE BOTTLE, HE HAD TO

HAVE IT.

on some level, i was saying goodbye for him, to an auditorium of wash-in twenty year olds.

in time of extreme emotional challenge, the boundaries slip a little bit.

it is a lesson, amid our ever expanding array of scientific labels of over- pathologizing.

FATHER

SON