Burning Beneath

What is “us”? What is “me”? What makes me, me? And you, you?

Is it our personality? But what is that, really? A collection of traits, preferences, habits? A predictable pattern of reactions? A set of choices we tend to make? If so, then where do those come from?

Are we shaped by our memories? The experiences that etch themselves into our minds, changing us bit by bit? But if we lose those memories—if they fade, distort, or disappear—are we still the same person?

Or maybe we are the sum of our thoughts. But thoughts are fleeting. They come and go, shift and evolve. Sometimes they contradict each other. Sometimes they don’t even feel like ours.

Then, is it our emotions? The things that make our hearts race, the things that bring us to our knees? But emotions are unstable, unpredictable. The person I am in joy is not the same as the person I am in grief.

So what, then?

Is it our body? The physical form that carries us through the world? But bodies change—cells replace themselves, scars form, muscles grow or shrink. If I lost a part of my body, would I still be me?

How come some of us are funny, and some are not? Some of us are smart, and some are not? Even our facial expressions—why do they look different from person to person, even when showing the same emotion?

Is it our upbringing that shapes all of this? Are we just mirroring what we’ve seen, mimicking our surroundings without realizing it? If so, does that mean originality doesn’t exist in our personalities? Are we all just a patchwork of the people we’ve encountered, the things we’ve absorbed, the environments that raised us?

But if everything we are comes from somewhere else, then what is left that is truly ours? What part of us exists independent of influence, untouched by imitation?

And if nothing remains—if we are nothing more than echoes of the world around us—does that mean we are empty without it? Or does it mean that who we are is not something singular, not something that can be pinned down?

What if we are not just one thing, but layers upon layers, shifting, evolving, never quite fixed?

If that’s the case, then can we ever truly know ourselves? Or are we always in the process of becoming?