“I have just lost everything. Everyone I knew no longer recognize me, the body that I had, the body that could make children, walk and run 40 km a day it’s all… gone.” The blank faces starred at me “Well, for example’s sake” I added, and a few people nodded. “I want you to join me on this journey: what happens if I changed body with someone else?

What am I then: what meaning in my life did I loose?”

“What I lost is not something universal. I can still follow a categorical imperative, I can still reason, be objective. And yet, I am hollow. I find no meaning in these doctrines.

What I lost is my connections, my relations. I lost my family. I lost all that I cared about.

What did I gain? Say, I went from a woman’s body to a man’s. A whole new world opened up to me. People greet me differently. They see me when I walk down the streets - they make way for me.”

I thought for a moment, then concluded: “but I would give it up any day to get back what I had build before. What I had made for myself, not what a system determined I could have.”

It is time to end the speech, I did what they asked me. I said:

“The meaning I can make in this life is… particular to this body. To the possibilities it gives me, that another body wouldn’t. White, black, man, woman… bodies in between… they all offer different ways of being in society. And therefore, different meanings of life, different connections. Different people to know, different ideas being presented.

What I am saying is… there is no universal meaning of life. You build your own meaning from the connections and relations you make.”

I thought for a moment, then asked

“and what does that mean for our thought experiment? Of me waking up in a different body? It means… it means, I would have to build myself up differently. But it also means, that I would have to take my history seriously - that my former body, my knowledge of what it means to be a woman in the working class - I would be dishonest, if I didn’t take that perspective with me. But… knowledge of other peoples perspectives are not limited to body swaps. Reading, listening, asking questions are always available to us. Knowing other peoples ways of finding meaning can be dangerous; it can challenge your own ways of seeing the world. It can change it. And that is why you should try to do it.”

They did not expect what I gave them in that speech, because I was not him. My speech pattern, the way of thinking was all wrong. But I did it, because they saw the body, I was in. His body. Now it’s time to find my own body and get my life back. Luckily this man has connections and can probably find it pretty quick.

We meet in a cafe, the one I used to go to with my college friends. Dirt cheap, we were all on student loans.

We sit down, and the waiter greets the philosopher in my body with recognition and kindness - she greets this body with kindness, like everybody else.

The philosopher ignores her, and said to me:

“What a sad little life you have. So little to think about, so little time to build anything”

“Have you not lived my life?” I asked him “have you not met my friends?”

“No. How do we go back?” He asked

“You’re the big brain- I thought you would know?” I said.

“You held my speech. I thought this was your idea? I have to do some damage control, by the way…”

“Yah, me too. I have a job you didn’t attend. Friends you have been ignoring.”

He looked at me with hostility, then said “fair enough. Well, where do we start? Any ideas?”