Where am I?

Do you ever find yourself wondering who you really are? Do you get the impression that you are a stranger suddenly transported into a new body and all your memories, sensations, and desires are foreign? Does this feeling come to you while you are sitting in a chair surrounded by the quiet that exists after you turn off the tv for the night? Or does it hit you in the middle of a loud night club as you watch your friends make fools of themselves?
If you have no idea what I’m talking about just nod your head to make me feel better.
What is strange is not this rare moment of isolation but that any of us have any real sense of self at all. Consider that we all began as a small ball of cells. None of those cells are present any more. Few of the cells we had in our body as a two year old are around anymore. Even less is around now. So, how do we maintain any sense of being a continous being with all this renewal going on?
It gets worse. Your body is not entirely your own. It is the home to countless varieties of flora and fauna. A few varieties are dangerous to you. The vast majority of them live in symbiosis, in a partnership where you both need each other, with your intestines, stomach, ears and other body parts. It has been estimated that any where from a third to a half of your body weight is made of these “partners”. So, are you you or are you a mixture of bacteria and some body cells?
Clearly each of us must be more than just the “sum of our parts”. I suppose the question I’m asking is, where is “me”? I constantly shed skin. None of “me” seems to disappear into dust around the house. As the years go on I believe that the self that is me grows with experience and learning. That all must fit somewhere. Doesn’t it? Could it be in the neurons in my brain? But neurons die. Stroke victims relearn how to do things as the brain rewires itself. Perhaps it is in the electricity that fires in my head. Unfortunately, the electrons and protons that make an electrical circuit does not last forever. The very material in us eventually disintegrates in a radioactive burst.
It’s a head scratcher. Oops, there goes some more of me.