But what about the opposite, I ask you. The cliché is not beyond me.
I have been, and in many ways, still am, a people pleaser. I have spent most of my not-quite-that-long life catering to myself to be whatever I was asked to be. Though this didn't get me far in life whatsoever.
Enough social isolation led to a less wise and much younger me, wondering if I should change and what that change would mean for me.
It's always been easier to be who's needed or who's wanted in a moment. People have suffered through identity, but I thought growing pains hurt too much before they settled.
I let personas projected onto me eat who I could've been.
Now, the fruits of my lack of labor are embarrassment. I'm embarrassed to be alive.
To have my eyes dart around an empty room, seeking permission to exist. It's quite silly.
This issue is not helped by the community, but exemplified by artificial human culture pushed via a screen.
Who do you think you are
I toy with the idea of identity from time to time. It isn't exactly a topic I care for until the question of it is forced into my attention.
Some people define themselves by key markers in personality or traits, or appearance. Some people identify themselves by what they do or what others are capable of understanding. Shaping into something digestible. Stackable.
Though it's romanticized in my head to be defined by any such things. To be so infuriatingly self-assured. I can't put myself into many of those known categories without spilling out. It feels disgustingly disingenuous to who I am. But then, without it, am I even a person?
Logically, of course. I am a human being. Though I've never felt more alien than when I was searching for a community.
Regardless, when you strip away what you define as self on this epidermal level, who are you? Is that question able to be answered by you alone?
Does it matter?
Comments
Displaying 0 of 0 comments ( View all | Add Comment )