The Shapes You Take

Good day for a piece?

Often, we think about this possibility - this scenario, where a person might be put in a utopian setting where they are free to develop into their 'true selves' without outside influence either positive or negative. Once upon a time, I used to think of this as Mowgli-in-the-jungle but later realized that unlike in his case, the jungle would not be the best place to develop human traits. So it might be best to think of this as a utopia, the workings of which I cannot profess to have an idea about. In this scenario, one wouldn't be shaped by the negative experiences they have experienced or are put through. Or the positive ones for that matter, but I think we can agree that negative experiences have more of a long-lasting as well as a larger impact on us. This might have been a requirement for early people so as to avoid death in general but this has unfortunately persisted and we are doomed to a lifetime of embarrassment thinking about that one time we said something painfully stupid. I hardly think that someone making an unnecessary remark deserves to be given the level of priority that death deserves either, but well. Slow death by a thousand pointless incidents?

But even if something isn't necessarily terrible, we all shape our actions and thoughts and personalities from the minutest pointers and gestures and events that we are exposed to. And we begin doing this when we are really young. So what parts of our natural instincts and character might we have changed or repressed and what parts might we have censored? Probably a lot. Most of what we are. We change according to the situations we are placed in and the people we interact with. Not as in being insincere, more of an adapting? By this logic, I figure that growing up is when you try to rediscover and grow into your interests or quirks that might have been suppressed.

When a lot of your personality and character has been a result of negative feedback and cues, you MIGHT become a better person because of it, softer because you know what being the opposite can do. Or at least that's what we think happens. People become softer. Negative cues can also toughen you but I suppose it does make you more sensitive about what you are capable of causing. The aftereffects of negative feedback manifest in trauma responses - that MIGHT generally make you a better person to interact with precisely because you are so sensitive to everything. And it is a rule at this point that we try and find silver linings to everything, so if everything resulted in creating a better person to interact with, it should be fine, wouldn't it? Since everything resulted in creating a stronger person then that's good too, isn't it? Well, I thought this too. But no, there isn't really a silver lining to trauma response resulting in creating a better person. The absence of that particular factor could create a good person too. Just that then it wouldn't be something that stems out of a place of hurt or vulnerability or fear. Nothing can justify trauma, honestly. You can't just explain it away or silver-lining-it away. It's unnecessary and you really don't deserve it. That's all.