I’ve been wondering how one comes to know who one is. I’m thinking that by the time most of us become adults we pretty much know our biases, preferences, how we will react in certain conceivable situations; at a particular moment in time, anyway. But it seems unlikely that that knowledge will remain constant as one ages. What we may value as adolescents certainly evolves over time and I suspect that who we are now may bare very little resemblance to who we were then and is likely to be an entirely different person in the future.
So we become, right? As long as we’re cogent and interacting with others our experiences will change us. We will, likely, engage as much as possible in comfortable settings with people of like mind because we seek the safety of familiarity. Even so we’ll find ourselves outside our comfort zone at times which will require a ‘letting go’, an inevitable loss of self-recognition. And of course some of us are risk takers pursuing new experiences that will inevitably expand and distort our sense of self.
But, either way, we won’t stay the same, and knowing who one is at any point in time should, I guess, involve fairly constant re-evaluation. I suppose as one ages the pace of change slows down a bit, settling into routines and all, but I’m looking forward nevertheless to experiencing the future me, hoping the individual I become will demonstrate a stronger sense of compassion and wisdom.