Husserl spent a lifetime trying to understand this temporal character of selfhood and identity, and I’ve no doubt absorbed more from him than I realize. Indeed, this illustrates one of Husserl’s key insights: to be is to have been, and to have been is to have bumped up against others who rub off on us. They leave marks we might not always see. More than marks: they leave dents and deposits. Or they drill wells that become underground reservoirs from which we drink even if we don’t realize it.
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