Some people consider themselves a sum of their parts, in which these pieces decide to work as a collective for no other reason than God made them gather. Cells coming together to form tissues and so on. Even though I know that is true, it doesn't feel like it is. I feel like I am made of everyone else's pieces, that no part is genuinely me. Just a product of the people I'm around, the people I like.
That one person on the internet I follow? I see myself morphing into them, and start to see the world through the lens of their refined, public opinions that seem to be accepted by all. It is terrifying to think that I might contract their fears additionally. When I get compared to them I start to panic. I'm always scared when I do something that is like them. Honestly, I don't know who I am. I don't know which part of me is me. I know my age and gender, but you can't understand a person by their age and gender. I know my name and why it was given to me. Yet none of these seem to give me an explanation of myself. This fear, like most, worsens every time I go to my news feed. All these extremely click bait articles about how the internet is changing us for the worse. One I saw recently was about how fans of a content creator that has Tourette's syndrome started to develop their ticks. This while being extremely intriguing is even more terrifying.
This all goes through my mind as I walk with my lovely family, on the sidewalk in what would be considered a city, one of the places we feel safe walking at. We walk past a few people, all being very pretty. Beautiful people that have stories carved into their faces. One has a majestic dragon tattoo. He looks good in it. I will never have a tattoo. I struggle with permanent things. Among others, I feel I change too fast. I am not consistent. People change all the time, and I have first-hand experienced it, it is such an uncomfortable situation. From good to bad and bad to good.
I wonder by the time I am old, will there be any part of me that was there all along, untouched and the same. Authentic me. A part of me that still has the memories of my lucky, great childhood. The years of glorious innocence. With this uncomfortable question, I felt my need to have hope and fight with the seemingly unavoidable hopeless "truths" of reality. My stomach started to throb from the noise. Scary, confusing, annoying, and unexplainably exhausting thoughts ran through my mind. It felt like I was in no man's land, running around trying to not get shot or blown up. During this period of avoiding the bullets is an acknowledgment that I will get shot and have to suffer from the pain yet again no matter how fast I run. And no matter what, I can't do anything about it, I just have to sit there and suffer. It's such a hopeless and desperate situation. I feel like anything anxiety-related is very much like that.
In reality, we are made of the people we are around, online or off. The people that morph us into who we are. The people who we admire. Most of the time, though, we don't get to choose who we are surrounded by. I hope one day I can be my own person. Not the sum of other parts. The sum of my parts.
Despite their lack of clarity, we are built by them. I give our pieces three stars.
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