Italian
Time runs inexorably and makes no concessions. It is enough to leaf through an old photo album or find a snapshot from a few years ago to feel a sense of estrangement: those with different features, darker hair, and smooth skin seem like us, yet at the same time they appear as distant people. And yet, inside, something doesn’t add up. We don’t feel old. Even when others notice it, even when the outside world discreetly or harshly points it out to us, our internal perception remains unchanged.
This is not a simple desire, nor a form of vanity. It is a constant that finds continuous confirmation both in our direct experience and in every scientific study dedicated to the functioning of the psyche.
The most dramatic and revealing proof of this mechanism can be observed in those suffering from forms of dementia. The person affected by these conditions often does not realize they have them; they do not perceive the decline. They still feel capable of doing everything they have always done in the years prior to the illness. When they get behind the wheel at night, when they suddenly leave home to look for a distant friend, or when they venture into an unknown place and end up getting lost, they do not do it recklessly: they do it because their mind perceives itself as intact, capable, in control of space and time. It is others — family members, passersby, rescuers — who raise the alarm and see the danger in a behavior that is perfectly natural for the individual.
This brings us to a fundamental consideration: the mind is not just a function of the brain. The mind is a standalone organ, with its own anatomical substance. And while biological matter ages, wears out, and loses its gears, the mind continues to tell us the same story: that we are always ourselves, unchanging, at the center of our world. Thus, the mind is a true organ of the system-organism: delocalized and extracorporeal, endowed with multiple functions, many of which are still unknown to us.
To say that the mind is delocalized means recognizing that it does not concentrate in a single point of our body, but participates in various entities and functions throughout the entire organism, permeating it almost in its entirety. At the same time, its quality is extracorporeal: the mind is capable of determining itself through behaviors and actions that can modify the very bodily structure. If I decide to seek aesthetic treatments, my mind will lead me to look for the most suitable surgeon; if I wish to change gender, it will not only guide my actions towards the gender I intend to determine, but will also lead me towards appropriate interventions and specialized care.
It is precisely this out-of-body dimension that allows for individual adaptation to the present. Even when the body ages — a fact that we and others acknowledge — the mind tunes us to the present time, enabling the best possible interaction with the world. One can be a hundred years old and still be driven by the mind to make plans for the future, interacting with reality and others with the same projection as fifty years ago.
Outsourcing and the extracorporeality of the mind are thus the distinctive qualities of the human being: what allows him to be what he is and what he feels he is.
In this context, the evolution of the human species continues its course, just as it does for every other form of life, indifferent to our fears. But humans possess a unique ability: to undertake, that is, to anticipate evolutionary steps.
The flow of existence and evolution is comparable to the current of a river; in the face of it, the human being does not passively surrender, but rows harder to overcome it. Undertaking always involves a risk, and not everyone is willing to take it, preferring to be carried along by the natural flow. But those who choose to take risks and succeed, thanks to their ability to anticipate the evolutionary trajectory, allow humanity to arrive sooner at the place where evolution would have ultimately taken us anyway.
