Contemplations By [Brooke]

Who Am I?

 As of late, while in my bed on the computer at an ungodly hour, I stumbled upon an Tumblr post that piqued my attention. 

It went something like this. 

"Millenial culture is having two wildly different conversations with the two different people on two different apps on the same time

Conversation 1: Cheeseborger

Conversation 2: that's why I'm so afraid of making myself vulnerable, because my father taught me that I couldn't trust anyone" 

For that moment I laughed, but the next night, after an stressful day, the post resonated with me oddly. It then only became natural for my brain to wander off, delve deeper into the subject.

Who are we? Was the main question that pulled me in.

Well, we're human of course; said one part of my incredibly logical brain 

You know what I mean. Who are we? Who am I?  Resonated the other part of my thoughts. For the most part, I was getting irritated with myself. I had an full day planned ahead and what I needed was sleep, not an existential crisis. 

But, like always, that dreamy part of me overcame my thoughts and pulled me under. 

'We're sometimes asked that question, y'know. Who we are. We're asked to describe ourselves. And we can, usually. Funny. Charismatic. Smart. Kind. Short tempered. This is what our personality is ultimately made of. "don't hide yourselves" says the media. "Be yourself" Says the ones around you. However, if you notice, you act different around different people. Your personality suddenly melds into what would resonate with them correctly. Some even turn into an completely different person' 

'Oh, please, you're not making any sense. Just go to sleep, you have to haul ass to your classes at ass-o-clock tomorrow. Just sleep.' 

'No, no, no. Look at in this perspective. In one group of friends, I'm funny, rambunctious, and my humor and words would not be appreciated by saints or those of innocent nature. However, with the other, I'm more reserved. I'm still loud, but somehow, I'm a bit more muted. So let's say we took both of those groups. How would I act? Would I act like the loud, rambunctious, foul mouthed girl? Or would I act as the satirical reserved one?' 

'you would act as you. Now please, I'm tired, you're tired. Just-' 

'-We do this because we want to please people. We want to make other people like our personalities. We test the waters, see what they like and what seems to work. We take notes of their demeanor and then base it off of how we should act around them.' 

'So it's only inevitable that other people do this as well. So then what are we? Are we just walking shells, only a few handpicked traits to base ourselves off of, and then just ultimately facades for other people? We will we really see how one acts?' 

'Or then again, maybe this is just me.' 

'oh my god, just shut up and go to sleep'