I have always lived a happy life; I grew up in suburban housing with two loving and un-divorced parents and, at most any given point in time, two dogs as pets. My parents aren’t rich, per se, but we are nowhere near poor. I had all the toys I wanted, from Dragonball Z, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings. And all the game systems, as well: Nintendo 64, then PlayStation, and then a PlayStation 2. I still live like this; I am seventeen and have an easy job that I still complain is “too hard for too little (pay)”, and even a car to drive around even though I really don’t need one. I never have had to experience a heart wrenching relation’s end, and my girlfriend reciprocates all love I have for her. My life is content, but it’s also rather boring. When presented with an essay asking me to describe a time in my life marked with deep and emotional consequence, I couldn’t. My life, simply, is too dull. I sat for a few minutes, perhaps up to an hour, I don’t remember, and concluded this: this essay and its dreadful prompt, clearly, is the most impacting incident of my young, white life. I now realize that although I am happy, I am just complacent, probably because the only things affecting my life are neutral and self-discovered.

When I mulled over any possible occurrence in my life that I could fabricate with lush and heartbreak, so dubiously placing myself as a tragic victim of uncontrollable circumstance, resulting only as a bright and moralistic hero of all pure at heart, I become conscious of that fact that I simply don’t have anything to even start with. Considering nothing horrible has ever happened to me (my house has never been burned down, a homeless man has never tried to shank me, and a deceitful politician has never tried to touch me in an area deemed inappropriate) most of my personality is constructed not from personal experience but personal tastes. I look to others for traits I desire to apply to my own pallet of thought. I look to the opinion of others rather than develop my own sense of judgment. This makes me fake? No. They all appeal to me, so perhaps I would be the same throughout my life. Of course, I could be more emotionally calloused or cynical, but to me, that wouldn’t even be enjoyable. I know, I pulled that entire thought process from others. Nothing has happened to me to change me, other than meeting other people I feel know what I should like.

Now, you may, after reading the last paragraph, have formulated that I am a walking, faceless façade of humanity that deserves only contempt and pity, but please, look at it this way! With no reason in life to create myself, no creative background to devise my own personality (based solely on my reaction to events both overwhelmingly unfortunate and joyous) I simply cannot fathom how I should start to create a me based off of me. I can only see what others are like, decided I like how they are, and portray what I think the best possible outcome. I might marginalize myself in tastes, or fit right into mainstream, but do remember than I am still able to judge if I should like something or not, just not able to create any personality from scratch. You are the same way, I guarantee it! All of us are susceptible to impressionalism, and all of us our products of our environment, one way or the other. Why do you wear jeans? Did you create the idea they are awesome or did society around you slip a few good words for Mr. Levi into your ear? Certainly the latter, I could say with confidence. Perhaps, however, you heard society’s comments and decided that jeans still look silly and khaki is the king of hemmed leg wear. Yet you still were presented with khaki and denim from those around you. Think of yourself, amplified, and you have me. I am you, just more than you are you. You see? Perhaps your sense of humor isn’t exactly mine, or any given aspect of your individuality and you tell me I am not you, and, in fact, you are you and me is me, but didn’t both of our senses of humor derive from the fact that others around us told us the jokes we find funny? If you claim to be you and claim I am no one but me, then you must understand that no one is no one and no one is everyone. We are the same person, we are American society.

And with this I’ve come to recognize and appreciate myself and my baseless personality: I am me, you, him, her, and them. You are me you him her them they us we etc….. No one is themselves. A simple essay telling me to tell you about my life has shown me this: I have no life, for life is a shared commonwealth.





Of course this depresses me, as I always did like putting on my MySpace’s About Me that I am an individual and am fun, so get to know me. But hey, everyone write that.