Mostly Water

In an episode of Star Trek TNG that has haunted me since I was a child, a sentient crystal accidentally collected as a mineral sample referred to the crew of the Enterprise as “Ugly bags of mostly water.” It scanned the humanoid life forms, and that’s what it saw.

The longer I go on living and learning, the more I change my mind about things. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably wrong about pretty much everything. Whatever it is now that’s currently my “big revelation” will probably end up being something I’ll need to rethink in the future; I’ll discover I was only looking at one facet of something multifaceted, and all the conclusions I reached were based on something a little bit wrong.

Or I’ll turn around and realise that at least half of it (whatever it is) was my own invention – just me making stuff up and hoping for the best. We grasp at straws to try to find meaning in life, and most of the time the straws are just a figment of our desperate imaginations.

But! No matter what process I might be going through spiritually, mentally or emotionally – no matter what trouble I may have finishing the statement “I am…” at times – I can say with some certainty that I am an ugly bag of mostly water. It’s the closest thing to a constant I’ll ever have in this lifetime.