I feel like people spend a lot of time trying to figure out "who they are". It's almost an obsession with today's society. There are camps and self-realization clinics and a whole bunch of other things that help people to better understand themselves. Doesn't life do that for you? There's an existentialist belief that what you do and how you react to things makes up who you are, it's not something that has always been there for you to 'find'. I'm not quite sure if I'm that extreme, but I do think that the person you are isn't waiting to be found. It's there all along, you just might be a little confused at first, that's all. Especially in high school, and I don't know how long this lasts, but we have different sides. Everyone acts different ways around different people, and sometimes they're so separated that we feel as if only one of them must be our true self, especially since we feel all this pressure to know who we are or what we want or whatever. We feel the need to deem one of them real and the rest made up, but the truth is we're all of them, we just need to find a balance. See, sometimes I have this 'dark' side, if you will, and it can be quite...well, I'm not even sure how to describe it. But it's nothing like the happy, nice side I show to my group of girls. Whenever I'm acting each way, I'd like to believe that that's who I am, but it's not. Either way, I'm lying about a little of it. We also do that. Lie. A lot, actually. Just little lies all the time and sometimes we don't even know why we say them. Usually it's to impress someone that we don't consciously want to impress, or to fit in, or for any other reason that most of the time we're not even aware of unless we're being brutally honest about it. And when was the last time a teenager was really honest with themselves? You may be thinking right now that you're honest with yourself, but we all have a sense of being lost or insecure sometimes, and we can't show it all the time. Every time you bury a feeling, you're not being honest with yourself. And that's okay, I'm not saying it's bad. It's a part of life. Anyway, I'm a bit of both of those things, but most of the time I feel I can't show both sides without being judged for one of them. I know I shouldn't care, but again with the honesty, I do. I don't want to be judged for who I am. I am who I am, and I can't be anyone else, so it'd be really great if people didn't judge me for that. So I usually pick one of my sides to be (there are more than two), and it leaves me wondering who I am. Who am I, really? Honestly, I'm not sure. I'm a mix of all the different "me"s that I present to the world, but I don't know how much of each one is put into the mix. It's not something I have to find on a mission or some other spiritual journey or whatever. It's something that I'm going to grow into as I grow up. I'm going to find out who I am as I live, and it's going to always change. I guess it almost doesn't matter who I am, but who I'm aiming to be. I'll accept the parts of me that have to stay the same, but the things that I can change, I'll focus on how I want them to be. A cake doesn't get baked by staring at the batter. You have to turn the oven on.
"He looks like nobody but himself."-The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
I feel lost because I don't know who I entirely am and other people think they do. I am assumed shallow and small, almost one dimensional. I know these people are no more insecure than me and are likely covering what little of themselves they know or they aren't even aware enough to know that they don't know themselves entirely or anyone else. I feel insignificant and ignored because people hardly take the time to re-evaluate their perception of me, but who can blame them? I lie, like you, about who I am and things I feel. Why do we bury emotions? What are we afraid of? Is social norm so horribly frightening that one can not self express anything beyond what others have already perceived? Is that really what life is supposed to be, or are we all living within a massive lie in which we inexplicably feel we must hide our true self to save ourselves and others from truly realizing who we are? Are we all cowards? How can this be okay? How can anyone sleep at night if everyone feels this way?
ReplyDeleteSome of these things seem to be rhetorical, but I'm going to answer you anyway. You say you are perceived as shallow, but it's possible that you aren't. Most people believe that others have a more negative view of them than they actually do. Then again, this could be true, and the only thing I can say to that is act like who you want to be. If you want to be someone people can trust, start trusting other people. Surprise people with deep things until they realize they misjudged you. You can blame them, as long as you realize you're to blame, too. We're all guilty, and as soon as we forgive ourselves, we can move on. As for burying our emotions, we do that for a multitude of reasons, different for each person and set of curcumstances. I don't think we're afraid of anything, in that respect at least. We feel confined, as if we have to be that way because thats what people have come to expect but that's not the case. We can do whatever we want, and people will learn to deal with it. Maybe we are all living in a lie, but if we are, we might as well have fun with it. No one should ever be afraid of who they are or what people might think, but then again, I don't believe that people should ever be afraid of anything. Fear can only hurt us. We should live however we want to live, and accept other people. When you do that, you'll find the people that you can be truthful with. Or at least as truthful as you're going to get.
DeleteCool story bro. Needs more dragons
ReplyDelete