One often wonders whether people really change as they grow older, if they merely change the way they present themselves, or if they don’t really change that much at all. A related question is how we are supposed to define an individual. What makes up and separates one person from another?
I think we all have some idea of ourselves as being this entity, say ‘Jakob’, as an example. But what is this Jakob character anyway? For a big part of it I think that there exist some essence of our inner being that is continuous and that develops and growths as we learn new things. But we are also what others want us to be.
Think of your high school reunion. You are such a different person now, but nonetheless you, and anyone else from you class, will likely fall back into roles of old. In my personal experience it’s always like that when you meet people whom you haven’t seen for a long, long time. You can’t seem to grasp that they have had as many life changing experiences since then as you had yourself.
The reason, I think, is that individuals are made up dialectically in relation to their world and those other beings that they interrelate with in that world. If we were not to put things in boxes our world would be much more of a chaos than it already is to us. So while such a thing as a person is a complex category, we have to have somewhat constant perceptions of others in order to relate to them.
However, I am happy to find that I am actually growing, along with the people around me, and when I think about it, noticing the small but significant changes that they also go through. I think the way we change come down to the fact that we subliminally reevaluate what aspects of our identity which are most important as we move from milieu to milieu.
As I grow older I’ve also noticed that my urge to be what others expect of me has fallen. What I really learned was that others are too occupied with themselves and how others view them to expect anything of me. In other words, we try to present ourselves in ways that we think others will like instead of focusing on our own desires.
Last week I ordered my first pair of glasses. Now, I’ve probably had worsening vision for the last four or five years, but my inhibition to see myself as a glass-wearing person stopped me from making the vital decision to make my whole experience of the world so much better by being able to see it in a clear perspective.
Now I care less about what others might think and more about my new-found ability to see hot chicks from a distance – because others don’t care if I have glasses or not. Do I care if my best friend has glasses? No, so why would anyone else care about me having them? Again, it comes down to us all being too caught up in ourselves to actually care about others.
I know that it is not popular to say that people, in general, are self-centered, but that is how it is. How could we ever be anything than the center of our own lives?
I guess I didn’t really have a purpose with this post to set out with, but as it moved along I have come to the conclusion that the point of the day is that we should try to do those things that are really going to be best for us; not just those that make us popular among others. In all instances, others are going to have their particular understanding of you and the things that you do anyway, and you will not be able to affect it in an entirely positive way, so let’s care a little less. Let’s not try to present a perfected version of ourselves in foras like Facebook. Let’s be who we are a little more – with the good, as well as the bad sides.
That’s it for now, take care, bye, bye, see you all later!
Jake
