Reality Is Our Own to Deterine

Change is inevitable; it is a phenomenon both that we regularly experience and can observe in the environment around us. After all, our body’s cells continually die and regenerate. Our hair grows back after it falls out and our nails grow after we cut them. A snake periodically molts. Year after year the maple tree in my grandmother’s backyard drops its leaves each fall only to grow new leaves come spring. In each case, the old is replaced with the new, yet in spite of this, I have never questioned whether I am the same person, or snake is the same snake, or the tree in my yard is the same tree. Vern’s Volvo is the same way. Just because many, perhaps even most, of its parts have been replaced or changed, it is still the Volvo that Vern has come to know over the past 20 years.

Vern’s Volvo is the car that Vern is driving and not the heap of old part piled at Grace’s Garage because, in spite of change, Vern’s relationship with the car remains unchanged. The tree, I referenced earlier, that stands in my grandmother’s yard has had a tree house since I was five years old. Over the years, the tree house has been repainted, boards have been replaced, and a new ladder has been added, but, to me, it remains thee same. Though no longer exactly the same, I still feel as though it is my tree house; I still feel the excitement that I felt as a child, pretending that the tree house was my pirate ship on the roaring seas or an elevator whisking me up into the clouds. Much like the Volvo, which is not merely a wheel, a bumper, and a series of individual parts, my tree house is not just a set of wooden boards, nails, and a ladder. Instead, both are the sum of its parts. An object, such as a car and a tree house, has an identity that is not determined by a single part, rather its identity is shaped by how it is used a perceived as a whole.

In the same way, Lorelai Gilmore reiterates this idea when her Jeep—the first car she purchased with her own money and sans the overbearing influence of her parents—begins to stall. She begins to shop for a new car, making sure to sit down in every vehicle to get its feel. After dozens of cars, she stumbles on an exact replica—year, model, color, etc.— or her beloved Jeep, yet when she gets into the car, she doesn’t feel anything. This seemingly exact replica does not offer her the same memories or, as she describes it, friendship as her Jeep. It doesn’t hold the memories of driving her daughter, Rory, to her first day at Chilton or the long drives home after Friday night dinners with her parents. Lorelai does not perceive the car to offer all that her old car offered. That said, Lorelai decides to replace the damaged parts of her old car as opposed to simply buying a new car. Much like me with my tree house, Lorelai feels her car, even with its many replacements, to be the same one she has driven for the past several years.

To me, to Lorelai, and to Vern, our tree house, Jeep, and Volvo are the same as they have been for years. They are the same because to us they are the same. We believe these things to be the same, treat them as the same, and, in turn, make them the same. Our point of view defines the tree house and the cars as our own. If I saw a pile of wood and nails, I would not see my tree house; in the same way, if Vern or Lorelai saw parts in the auto mechanic’s garage, they would not see their cars. To us, the parts would just be parts; we perceive the whole as what we truly value. That said, we determine our own reality and cannot perceive things any other way. Vern’s car is the car he has been driving for 20 years and the car in which he leaves Grace's Garage because that is what he determines it to be.