I can prove my self-sufficiency to you. I've just traveled across the Atlantic, and am now meandering down the coast of Africa. No handholding, no directions, just a desire to wander. A day is all it takes me.

I'd say "I'm a leaf on the wind" but in truth I'm more of a cloud of algae in the sea. Metaphorically. I see myself as a nebula of lights. From the third person, no less, always peering over my own shoulder in every direction at once. It can't be objective reality, but it's all I've ever known of myself, so it's my reality, and it will have to do.

Maybe I fell in love with a woman as I drifted past her home, on solid ground and out of my reach. A real person, flesh and blood! With a twinge of sadness, I resign to love her from afar. We aren't made for each other. Someone like her could not love something like me, and I doubt she would survive the transformation from corporeal human into an amorphous cloud of light.

And pretending she made the transition, what would keep our distinct selves from mingling into each other after physical boundaries vanish? Could we ever tease ourselves apart? I don't even remember how I became my current self. Was I ever a different person? Am I multiple people? I don't comprehend how I exist, and I try not to think too hard about it.

But I suspect we'd blend together into a single swirling galaxy of light. We would be beautiful, and I would still love her, but wouldn't that be a weird sort of narcissism.