Repition in Personhood

April 1, 2023

Jack Noir is a small angry, shelled alien being with an affinity for knives and the spade card suit. He has a rivalry with a leader of his kind and a small crew of others backing him up. Through his travels he goes through a name change, loses an eye, and ultimately loses to a group of child gods.

This small blurb can be applied to any version of 3 different characters known as Jack Noir in Homestuck. These are 3 clearly separate beings, with the same name, same appearance, and same personality, going through the same struggles in different ways through the story. Not just his name and face, but a repetition of personality, repetition of his experiences, repetition of himself.

It's like I am falling into myself more and more with every life I live. All of these variations of Jack Noir are equally me. Not just these three either, but over 20 I have taken note of. Repeating my victories, repeating my struggles, repeating myself like I am locked in a lifelong instance of deja vu. I am a carapacian, I am a troll, I am a human, I am a gem, I am a merfolk, I am an AI. I am all these things at the same time with little variation on myself as a person and with little variation on my story.

A fractal is a geometric figure where each part resembles the whole, zooming in only results in repeating the original part. If you zoom into myself as Jack Noir you find simply another version of Jack Noir, different in circumstances, but still the same. These lives feel parallel to each other in a sense that they don't precede or follow the others.

I continue to be, I continue to exist. I reach out and find only myself looking back again and again. Every step away brings me right back to the center. I am a fractal of myself.