"Every configuration of people is an entirely new universe unto itself." Kristin Cashore, from her book Bitterblue
The
identity is a complicated thing. I am a
different person depending on my surroundings and my circumstances. With my family, who have known me the
longest, I am a goofy and young, rather naïve, and a bit clumsy. Perhaps more than a bit. With my friends, I laugh a lot, but I also am
a great deal quieter, smiling and listening more than I speak. At work I am professional, rather more
sarcastic than elsewhere, with long fuses of patience that cause large
explosions when they burn out. And at
home I am silent, thoughtful, and I often speak to myself.
It is truly impossible to fully
understand a person. The intricacies of
who we are and what has shaped us are so complex that we have trouble keeping
track of ourselves, much less others. With
each person we meet, we become a little different, responding to their
responses to our actions and words. We
build layer upon layer of awareness and behavior, then tear those layers down
when a new person comes into view.
This is the adaptability that has
placed us at the top of the evolutionary ladder. In the physical world, humans had all the
best tools to survive, and now in this world of hearts and minds we have done
the same. We have made ourselves
malleable, liquid personalities capable of surviving any challenge of hatred or
fear or inquiry that others may present to us.
And in so doing, we create our own struggles, because these constant
changes make it all that more difficult to understand ourselves, to know what
that odd little word “I” really means.
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