I remember hearing in a Philosophy class;
A person has as many personalities as there are people on earth.
I found this dangerously interesting because how many times have I been told "Treat everyone the same" in my up-bringing?
Though I understand that the treat-everyone-the-same mentality is probably meant in the sense that we should treat everyone with the same respect, I can recall thinking, even in elementary school about applying the concept and it not seeming feasible (obviously).
Quite simply, you would not treat your best friend the way you treat someone you just meet. You would not treat your grandmother the same way you treat the person who sells you fruits and vegetables.
But do we really change "who we are" according to every interaction?
I think so.
Sometimes when I get people from different fields of my life together (ie. school friends with work friends), I can tend to feel torn because I know that each group is interested in different things.
Though I can get along with both just wonderfully in separate realms, it is a curious dynamic when they collide. They know different sides of me, they make me feel like interacting in different ways. This dynamic applies even to a level as minute as one person from each group.
This idea comes from a person who considers herself confident and self-assured which makes me believe that changing how you act and how you interact from one person to the next doesn't have anything to do with feeling unsure of yourself.
Maybe this is all a very obvious concept, but I just think it is very interesting to ponder who a person really is, (if a "neutral state" actually exists) when they're all alone with no other person to "shape" what they are in that moment.
Or maybe having no other persons around creates a single personality in itself!
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I have had a similar thought many times. I wonder what we would be like if we all lived alone on mountain tops without TV or computers or plumbing. Just ourselves to contend with. But then wouldn't we all just be survivalists?
ReplyDeleteI don't think a neutral state exists, we are constantly being molded by our environment and the people in that environment. I mean, I don't even act the same around my boyfriend at home as we do out in public and I definitely don't act the same when we're with his friends.
So if we're constantly changing ourselves to conform in different settings how can we ever really know ourselves? When Trish talked about us finding our own Truth I was so confused because I don't think there is much to a person at their core.
What I mean is, I could never say that I am always loyal because I'm sure if betrayed someone's trust at least once. I could never say that I am always one thing because it always changes and there is always an exceptional instance when our core values might be put to the side out of necessity.
It's sort of scary to think that we can never really know ourselves completely -- we are always capable of more than we think we possible. At the same time, it's a bit of a relief to stop trying to figure myself out and just keep on being "me".
...If there even is a me.