The average human is composed of roughly 30 trillion cells. About 87% of them are blood cells, whilst about 12% are gut cells. Gut cells have a lifespan of less than a week, whilst blood cells can last for up to 120 days. This means that 99% of our cells die and replenish themselves within every 4-month cycle of our lives. As far as our physical beings are concerned, we effectively transform to a new entity — a new us — within just 120 days.
Unfortunately, such rapid transformation and replenishment do not apply to our psyche. In the last 120 days, most of us may hardly notice any discernable change within our psychology. Because unlike the seamless automaticity of cellular transformation, psychological transformation takes a more arduous and unpredictable route. A route that is not only harder to predict, but may ultimately be unknowable until the transformation itself has begun.
Becoming a Vampire
In her 2014 book Transformative Experience, philosopher L.A Paul talks about the dilemma we face upon embarking on a new and potentially life changing experience — such as getting married or having children.
The book starts with a peculiar thought experiment: if you were given a choice to become a vampire — along with all the perks and liabilities that come with it — would you take that choice? Bear in mind that all your colleagues who have chosen to become vampires are thrilled with their choices, and that if you pass up on this one opportunity, it will never show up again. There is no second chance.
All of us — upon being presented with such an offer — will immediately weigh the pros and cons of vampirism. “Will I enjoy immortality and super strength?”, “Will I miss the sun rise and sun sets?”, “Will I get bored of consuming blood for the rest of my un-ending life?” These questions are what invariably comes to mind to a rational decision maker. We try to predict our future states of wellbeing by gauging them with our existing real estate of knowledge and past experiences.
According to Paul, the problem with this rational decision making process is precisely with the word “I”. The “I” that is gauging the pros and cons of such a transformative experience will no longer be the “I” that is living that experience. The future “self” post transformation is a different person from the present “self” making the decision. The question “Will I miss the sun rise and sun sets?” presupposes that your current state and preferences as a mortal human being will continue to be applicable to your future state and preferences as a vampire — which is not true. As a mortal human being, we cannot possibly fathom the true lived experience of becoming an immortal vampire.
Thus, the choice of whether or not you should transform yourself into a vampire is an impossible one to rationally choose, as you would have no basis for understanding what it is that you are actually choosing. In the philosophical sense, when you are faced with the choice of transforming yourself into a vampire, you are in fact being asked the question — would you want to experience the currently unknowable?
Parental Metamorphosis
Transforming oneself into a vampire is obviously a hypothetical. But it does get the point across effectively. Becoming an immortal blood sucking humanoid is indeed a difficult thing to fathom. Stepping away from the hypothetical and into the practical, we can substitute the choice of vampirism with a very real choice that every human being will face or have faced at some point in their lives — parenthood.
If you had the choice (which we all do or did), would you choose to become a parent? Again, this question comes with a frustrating paradox— there is no way to accurately answer this question unless one finds out the merits of parenthood through actual lived experience. As any parent would attest to, it may be impossible for a non-parent to truly empathize with the joys and heart breaks that comes with parenthood. No amount of cognitive forecasting and empathizing from the non-parent will provide a just sample — an accurate taste — of what it actually feels like to be a parent. Just as no amount of cognitive forecasting and empathizing from a mortal human will ever provide an accurate picture of what it feels like to be an immortal vampire. In the presence of such inherent unfamiliarity, such immense uncertainty, rational decision-making processes become less useful at best— and misguiding at worse. And yet, in the midst of such uncertainty, these life altering decisions must still be made. These life altering decisions, these transformative experiences, are the ones that will greatly color the canvass of our lives.
The only thing that is certain in these transformative experiences is never the outcome — but the transformation itself. Thus, in the decision-making process, the trick is not to try to predict our state of mind and wellbeing upon embarking on a life changing experience, but to simply ask ourselves whether or not we are open to being transformed from these experiences.
Paul suggests that we assign a value to discovering what these transformative experiences will feel like vs not discovering what these transformative experiences will feel like. In other words — do we actually value the discovery of how these life changing experiences will transform us, or would we rather stay where we currently are and not find out? When choosing whether or not to have children, or to take a particular job, or indeed — to become a vampire, it is a question of whether or not we are willing to take a leap of faith in becoming transformed by these experiences — for better or worse.
Born Again
In Ron Howard’s 2009 major motion picture Angels & Demons, Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (played by Ewan McGregor) asked Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks) a rather deep and personal question.
Camerlengo Patrick McKenna: “Do you believe in God, sir?”
Robert Langdon: “Father, I simply believe that religion…”
Camerlengo Patrick McKenna: “I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believe in God.”
Robert Langdon: “I’m an academic. My mind tells me I will never understand God.”
Camerlengo Patrick McKenna: “And your heart?”
Robert Langdon: “Tells me I’m not meant to.”
Just like Robert Langdon’s intellectual concept of God, some important experiences in life may simply be ungraspable to the human mind — they must be experienced to be understood. The life of an immortal vampire is unfathomable to the mortal human. The life of a parent is unfathomable to the non-parent. Transformative experiences — by definition — changes who we are. And just like the trillions of cells in our bodies that die and regenerate continuously, transformative experiences have the potential to psychologically kill pieces of ourselves — in order for newer pieces to be reborn.