I have always found it simpler to be handed a purpose than to discover one. A defined role, complete with its own instructions and limitations, carries the quiet advantage of clear parameters. There is a right way to execute a task, and a wrong way — usually just a variation of the same mistake. I have built a functional existence upon this principle. It is only when the question shifts from how to do something, to why I should do it, that I start to fall apart.
I am competent at what I do. It is simply a fact. I recognize what is expected of me, and I possess the ability to meet those expectations. People tend to appreciate that sort of thing. They find comfort in the predictable precision of a professional who resolves their problems without hesitation or fuss. I have never struggled to provide that illusion.
The true struggle is knowing whether any of this actually belongs to me. Is there a real person hidden beneath the mask I've worn so well for so long — or just a hollow space that knows exactly how to meet
expectations? It should be obvious. Yet the answer refuses to come.
There are actions I take simply because they are expected, and others I take because I have always taken them. To question the mechanics of my own existence now feels like an unnecessary glitch. I have wondered, at times, if there is a meaningful distinction between the two impulses. The question is intoxicating because it suggests I might possess a natural inclination—a genuine preference for good over bad. It hints that I might harbor a conscience somewhere, regardless of whether that conscience has ever been useful.
I doubt this is true. I imagine most people harbor one. I have always assumed that if I possessed a soul, it was a problem I could solve with adequate preparation. One studies the circumstances, identifies the variables, and accounts for as many possible outcomes as possible as time permits. That is a rational approach. No such formula exists to determine whether a person is who they intended to be, particularly when they cannot recall ever forming the intention in the first place.
I sometimes wonder who I would be if the choice were entirely mine, severed from expectation. Not what I could do, or what I am expected to do — but what I actually want to do. I suspect I wouldn’t have an answer. The possibility is unsettling, so I tend to abandon the train of thought before it can reach a conclusion. I have a low tolerance for problems that resist a definitive solution.
Still, the question lingers. I can spend an entire day doing precisely what is expected of me, only to return home burdened by a vague, gnawing sense that I have neglected something vital. There is no visible flaw,
nothing has gone wrong. Everything is in its proper order, which, logically, ought to be soothing. Instead, I find myself wondering why a life that functions so well can feel so difficult to claim as my own.
Perhaps I have approached this all wrong. Perhaps there is no original version of myself buried beneath the accumulated layers of learned behavior. Perhaps the lack of a definitive answer is not a puzzle to be
solved, but simply who I am. I want to believe there is a solution, that I have merely overlooked some essential piece of information.
But if there is no answer waiting to be uncovered, then eventually I will have to fabricate one. I will have to decide what matters to me without, first confirming that the decision is “correct”. I will have to accept that the choice can be right, even without a set of instructions, or a convincing explanation for having made it at all.
I am not certain I know how to do that.
It is an uncomfortable admission for someone who has spent so much time ensuring that uncertainty is somebody else’s problem. I would,rather face a daunting task than an open-ended question. A task can be
completed. A question remains; a cruel, endless echo, regardless of how deeply it is considered.
And perhaps that is what unsettles me most: I have spent years shaping myself into someone who can be relied upon, and I cannot say with any,certainty that I would recognize myself if I were no longer required to
be that person.
I would like to find out who I am. I just wish it didn’t require starting over without a single instruction.
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