Diachronic or episodic?

 ^{https://pixabay.com/photos/person-man-boy-sunset-twilight-4733756/} The idea that your past _“self”_ is not the same person you are today is something that happens frequently. How many of us have memories of our childhood, but what we are today has nothing to do with what we were as children? This type of phenomenon is called episodic. It's not that there is no connection between the two points, but they are so far apart that it's as if we had several “selves.” There is no clear continuity between these “selves,” and any narrative that attempts to create one will be insufficient and artificial. Who you are now is a detailed, coherent, and individual personality. Of course, there are some small parts and some pieces of history that may overlap to some degree, as is often found in our musical tastes, but who we really are now is defined by a few essential elements. These elements range from our home, our children, changes in our professional career, and much, much more. All these external elements shape our identity and our own personality according to the conditions that are placed upon us, or that we end up choosing, or allowing into our lives. When these essential elements that define us change, we end up dying in a certain way. And we are reincarnated as a new person. Invariably. Anyone who has ever married or had children knows that the next day, everything is different. You are no longer just a child, but now the head of a couple. You are no longer just a descendant, but now a parent. And that changes you in a unique way. You end up agreeing that your life is defined by episodes, or on the other hand, there is a long narrative that ends up influencing everything that may have happened. Each of us constructs a narrative about our own life. In this narrative, the main character, who is also fictional (despite reflecting our own existence, it is still fictional). Our own identity is the subject of description and commentary. The narrative we have about ourselves, about our lives, is constantly being rewritten. At the end of this narrative, we end up becoming the stories themselves. We are all, in a way, virtuous novelists. But do we all think in the “same way”? The answer is more than obvious... Of course not. Our attempt is to make all our material fit into a single, good story. We do this almost automatically. It's not that we're afraid of not being the best character possible, but it's something our mind always tries to do, to bring out our best story. Even if it doesn't completely correspond to events. Each variation is unique. We are all unique. We have a common branch, but we differ even if only by a micron from those who are most similar to us. This variation in our temporal state, whether episodic or diachronic, narrative or not, is something that is identified in all cultures. Diachronic and episodic people tend to misunderstand each other. A sense that episodic memories are, by definition, more localized in the present than diachronic memories, in terms of personal experience, but this does not correspond to the truth or to their significance. Diachronic people are not by definition less present in the moment than episodic people, just as it does not mean, nor is it true, that the present is in any way less informed by the past or responsible for it than in diachronic life. I am more of an episodic type. The experiences I had as a teenager have nothing to do with who I am today. They have nothing to do with what defines me. Of course, there is a connection between the “me” of 1989 and the “me” of 2025. But they are two realities so far apart that trying to establish a diachrony between them is practically fictional. How do you see your autobiography? How do you write or narrate your own personal story? If you could change something you did, decided, or didn't do, would you change it? Many times in the past, I found myself thinking that there were certainly many things I would be tempted to change. But if I changed those things, would I be someone who was completely satisfied today? Most likely not. And a more appropriate action could lead to a series of events that could result in a more catastrophic outcome. An example of this is, for example, wishing that we would win a big prize in the national lottery. That big prize could ultimately lead to us having so much money that something tragic could happen to us or someone in our inner circle because of how we used that money.  ^{Free image from [Pixabay.com](https://pixabay.com/)}