Ship of Theseus

Last night i was getting the itch to get out and do something to change the pace of things. As it was 10:30 and I was about 8 beers deep, getting up into the mountains wasn't a viable option. So i did the next best thing: backyard camping.

Sitting around the fire( mostly cardboard and a broken chair-hobo style-) finishing off the beers and starting at the wine, we got into the discussion of Eliot and Beckett and the eternal return. My memory was drawn to a class I took with Dr. Prashanta, who is by the way one of the funniest professors I've had year, whether that is his intention I know not. Anyway, he discussed with us among many other themes, (including the Bahgvad Gita-very knowledgeable...guest speaker?) the philosophy, or the question of the Ship of Theseus.

Paraphrasing, the ship of Theseus was a great massive wooden ship...as time went on it began to deteriorate, repairs were needed, at first one plank of wood was replaced with a new... then a second and a third and so on. At what point, does this Ship of Theseus cease to be itself, and become a new being all together?

Reading Beckett, as I have been doing obsessively, though slowly (I find it is impossible to read quickly, as each sentence can often weigh a Irving, or a Brown, maybe even a Raynd) and I have found a great deal of mention of this slow metamorphosis.

"No, I never escaped, and even the limits of my region were unknown to me. But I felt they were far away. But this feeling was based on nothing serious, it was a simple feeling. For if my region had ended no furhter than my feet could carry me, surely I would have felt it change slowly. For regions do not suddenly end, as far as I know, but gradually merge into one another. And I never noticed anything of the kind, but however far I went, and no matter in what direction, it was always the same sky, always the same earth." (60)

"and the cycle continues, joltingly, of flight and bivouac, in an Egypt without bounds, without infant, without mother." (61)

"Or perhaps it was I who was changing, why not?" (70)

with this quoting, I must go on, I can't go on* this book is peppered with the profound, the hilarious, the depressing and the uplifting.

So all this really has had me thinking, and it had us talking last night about what it means to metaphor, to reincarnate...and what metamorphosis Molly is making to Moran? maybe. And how this pertains to Eliot ( I unfortunately do not have a copy yet, but I will soon-this has been a great thorn in me.) To many passages in T.S. Eliot I could conjure, but several come to mind, namely the one Sarah spoke about, "Old fire to ashes, and ashes to the earth/ Which is already flesh, fur and faeces/ Bones of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf."..."Dung and death"
As Molloy is deteriorating in body and mind, he is making this gradual transformation, his metamorphosis, one rotten plank at a time he is become a new Ship. Like Eliot here, the time of flesh follows a linear pattern, but life itself and time out of our context is anything but linear. we shall all die, but we continue on: fire to ashes, ashes to earth, Always the same sky, always the same earth.

At what point in our transformation to we cease to be? Like the ship is there a point that we do cease? or could it be we forever undergo a series of merging? and with that shall never cease, rather forever continue?