The Experiment

I have been shaped by those around me.

Immediately after birth I began learning who "I" was. I was a child/sibling/living being here to eat sleep and poop. Life was simple. My only goal was to become a perfected facsimile of my parents. The culmination of their collective experiences. All the "good" and none of the "bad."

How wonderful were those first five years!

Then came academia. My first five years all for naught. For the next 18 years I would learn who "I" really was. I was a perfect version of my parents who were far from perfection. I learned just how little they knew. They were intellectually lacking, morally flawed, far inferior to any of the highly educated teachers/masters/doctors being paid to create the "me" I should be for their obvious ability to function well in society.

To confuse all this education I was receiving by these highly respectable adults, I was surrounded by other wee-people like myself learning the same things.

I am not sure if it was arrogance on our part, or just the false education we had received from our parents, but we began to shape ourselves. We formed groups based on likes/dislikes and began conforming to the norms of these groups. Dressing, talking, acting like the other members and, on occasion, changing everything about us, who "we" were, about me, who "I" was, to be a part of a new group.

Then came the spouse and I met the new "me", the kids and a new "me", the church and an all new "me." To top that off, sprinkled throughout this lifetime of learning about "me" I had employers trying to make "me" into the "me" they wanted or needed.

For all this I have truly learned who "I" am. I am a changer/conformer/liar. I change the "me" I am based on those around.

I am what those around me need, but who am I really?

Thus, I have arrived here. In an effort to find the me within the me I have started this blog/diary/experiment to find myself. I am not writing this for anyone, in fact no one knows I have even started this. This is solely an outlet, a place to comment and analyze the events in my life. I am looking for my voice.

I have removed all names, all titles, anything that may point to my identity in an effort to avoid the me that is formed by my context.

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