Life as a Whirlpool

Understanding Your Place in the World

Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought of your body as a solid, permanent object—like a brick or a piece of furniture? Most of us do.

But if we look closer at the science and philosophy of life, we find a much more exciting reality. You aren’t just a “thing”; you are a wonderful, moving event.

1. Introduction: Is Life an ‘Object’ or a ‘Process’?

To understand this, we first need to recognise the difference between two ways of existing in the world: being an object or being a process.

• Static Objects: Think of a rock or a plastic toy. If you leave a rock on a shelf for ten years, it stays the same. The atoms inside it aren’t going anywhere; they are locked in place. It is a solid, finished “thing”.
• Processes: Think of a dance or the flame on a candle. A dance isn’t a solid object you can pick up; it only exists as long as there is movement. A flame might look like a steady shape, but it is actually a high-energy interaction where fuel and oxygen rush together to create heat and light. It is a constant “happening”.

The goal of this guide is to help you see that you are much more like the flame than the rock. By using the metaphor of a whirlpool, we can understand how we are beautiful, ever-changing patterns of energy and matter.

2. The Whirlpool Metaphor: A Pattern in Motion

Imagine you are standing by a fast-flowing river. Near a large rock, the water begins to swirl, creating a spinning whirlpool. You can see the white bubbles dancing on the surface and the spray jumping into the air. You can point at it and say, “Look at that whirlpool!” It has a clear shape and stays in the same spot even as the river rushes past.

However, if you look closer, you realize the whirlpool isn’t a solid object at all. It is made of water that is constantly entering from one side and rushing out the other. The specific water molecules that made up the whirlpool a second ago are already gone, replaced by new ones.

The whirlpool is a pattern. The “stuff” (the water) is always changing, but the shape remains the same because the flow is steady.

Did You Know? A whirlpool is entirely dependent on the river’s flow. If the water stops moving, the whirlpool doesn’t just “sit there”—it disappears completely. This proves it isn’t a solid object; it is a process that requires constant movement to exist.

3. You are the Whirlpool: The Flow of Life

Just like the whirlpool in the river, your body is a pattern that stays roughly the same while the “stuff” you are made of is constantly flowing through you.

You might think your bones and muscles are permanent, but science tells a different story: approximately 98% of the atoms in your body are replaced every single year. You are a biological process in a state of total renewal.

The Air We Breathe

Every time you inhale, you bring oxygen from the atmosphere into your lungs. That oxygen is absorbed into your blood and becomes a physical part of your “pattern”. When you exhale, you release carbon dioxide—bits of your own carbon that were once part of your cells—back into the sky. You are constantly trading pieces of yourself with the atmosphere.

The Blood in Our Veins

Your heart acts like a pump that keeps the “river” inside you moving. Your blood is a transport system, delivering nutrients from the food you eat to your cells so your “pattern” stays stable and strong. If the flow of blood or nutrients stops, the pattern of “you” would fade away, just like a whirlpool in a dried-up stream.

The Flow Comparison

Feature	Water in a Whirlpool	Air/Nutrients in a Human
The Material	River water molecules.	Oxygen, water, and food.
The Action	Water flows in and out of the spiral.	Oxygen and nutrients are woven into your cells, then released as waste as new materials take their place.
The Result	A stable shape in the river.	A stable, living human body.

4. Connection: Where Do You End and the World Begin?

Because we are like whirlpools, the line between “us” and the “outside world” is actually quite blurry. We are not separate from nature; we are a part of its constant flow.

Think about a tree. The tree “breathes out” oxygen that you “breathe in.” That oxygen becomes part of your blood and your brain. Then, you “breathe out” carbon dioxide, which the tree “breathes in” to grow its leaves.

This connection goes back even further: the carbon atoms currently in your DNA may have once been part of a prehistoric forest, or even forged inside a distant star billions of years ago.

You are not a visitor on Earth; you are a part of the world that is currently swirling in a “you-shaped” pattern. You are connected to everything because you are made of the same moving stream.

5. Conclusion: Embracing the Pattern

Seeing yourself as a process rather than an object changes how you look at the world. Here are the three most important things to remember:

1. You Are a Process: You are not a static object like a rock; you are a continuous, living event like a dance or a whirlpool.
2. Stability Comes from Flow: Your body stays “you” because of the constant movement of air, water, and nutrients. You are being rebuilt every second.
3. You Are Connected: Because you are constantly exchanging atoms with the world around you, you are never truly separate from the rest of nature.

Embracing the idea of life as a process helps us feel more at home in the world. You are a beautiful, unique pattern formed by the Earth itself, spinning in the great river of life.