Are you actually the original you?
I guess it should be first said that normalcy is relative. Even though I find the following idea to be normal to myself, I am curious what others might think.
I have lately wondered if I am genuinely me; the me that was birthed some 25 odd years ago. As an infant and toddler, we seem to act more on basic instinct and wants rather than consciously choosing. But when the moment of your first choice presents itself, does your original self cease to be? Instead, is the instinctual, wanting you gone only to be replaced with those choices (and I use choices in the sense of the beings that made each choice available).
To better illustrate the idea, we are always told that we live in a world of infinite choices. Perhaps the saying does not mean that we, as beings capable of consciously choosing, have an unlimited number of choices at our disposal in any given situation, but rather that we live amongst those choices (again, the latter choices is used in the sense of beings that made each individual choice). That is to say, You #1 has a choice of chicken or steak for a dinner. You decide you would like chicken and thus become You #2. Does this now mean that the possibility of the choice of steak is gone? Quite the contrary, You #3 is having the steak. One choice has steak while the other choice has chicken and the being that was originally presented with the selection has further divided to become another collection of choices inhabiting the world.
Of course, the question then is: if we are living in a world full of multiples of ourselves that further divide at every intersection of choice, why can't we see them? Perhaps evolution deemed it unnecessary for us to be able to wholly perceive these other choices of us. And perhaps at times, those choices are visible in places and/or times when whatever fabric that makes up the time-space continuum is weak as what we mistake as ghosts and demons. Because our perception is limited due to necessity by evolution (just as was our ability to sense low amounts of radiation emitted by such things as the sun), we mistake these other choices for entities they are not. But I digress, back to my question.
As soon as a choice is made you are no longer the being that was presented with the choice, but now both of those choices. The "original you" has ceased to be, in a sense.
Normal? I think so, but do you? Comments.