Are We Ourselves?

Do you think you are what you are because you managed to be This? Or is it not so that you are what you are because this managed to be You? How are we either good or bad? intelligent or dumb? optimist or pessimist? friendly or aggressive? saint or sinner? Is it what we always wanted to be and worked hard to be this? Or some other forces turned us into what we are?

Imagine yourself first as a foetus, then as a child. Then think of terms like heredity and parental training.... the way they brought you up, how much do you think is their hand... in what you are. Or how much was their hand... in what you were then. It was amazingly almost all their's. Now, how about the other siblings, members of the family, home environment, neighborhood, friends, street persons, school teachers, school environment and the impact of relatives on your early life. Were you really deciding from whom to get inspired and from whom not to, whom to listen and whom to avoid? 

Even if you were deciding, it wasn't really you, it was the other forces that made you took any decision at all. If you loved your mother, you were bound to do so and if you hated her, then again, you were taught that. You were nowhere. And you were a nobody. But you adopted everything from the environment, your surroundings nurtured your brain with what they wanted to fill it with, and the circumstances and obvious other environmental and social factors fed your brain with whatever they liked. 

Imagine that you have lost all your memory, every single piece of data and piece of information is removed from your memory. Now you don't know how to spell, write or speak. You don't know any language and anything you ever thought of, no longer exists. Aren't you back to being a one-year-old? Strictly speaking, even a one-year-old has built up some memory and learned a few things, so in fact, you are actually back to being a foetus! Now look around, you might be 25 years old, but after complete memory failure from the conscious and unconscious brain, you may have the body of a 25 year old, but you stand as an alien on the earth now. You may even fall down...as you know, you have forgotten how to stand and walk, so you can no longer stand firmly as the information in your brain motor area regarding all your previous attempts of standing and walking has been erased. All this just because of losing memory? 

So what is memory? They say it right that the mind of a child is like an empty notebook, whatever you write upon it is inscribed upon it for a lifetime to come. The problem is: We never fill up this book for ourselves, others do. They write in our notebook. They write the dedication, preface, index, and first few chapters... So have you ever come across a book that contradicted its preface, index and early chapters in the later chapters? Even our thoughts are not our own, they are what we are bound to think. 

If we were given good parenting, good schooling and fairly good education, we will think on an intellectual level. If not, or if our parents taught us narrow-minded stupid things, we will most certainly think accordingly unless we are given the education to reform our thinking. One might argue that then it is in our hands to decide whether to follow our parents or rely on education. But, we actually make that decision depending on how much they manage to inspire us. Again, inspiration is also conditional. 

If we are moderately narrow-minded, we will get inspired by moderate broad-mindedness... But if we are highly narrow-minded then we may not be inspired by a highly broad-minded thought. There is not one factor that makes us who we are. There are not five factors that make us who we are... Not ten, not fifteen, not even twenty, but they are numerous. 

A time comes when all matters concerning our own lives are in our own hands, we decide everything for ourselves, but by that time we have already been made into a someone who would ultimately take the decisions as predictable by what he/she HAS BEEN earlier.