The Things We Are.

When you think about yourself, or when you tell someone about yourself, you usually focus on the "big things" or the things that you feel define you. Your introduction sentence.

For example, if I were to tell you about myself, I'd probably say that I am a seventeen year old writer and artist who has a few 'nervous ticks' as it were, believes in Jesus, wears black all the time and is terrible at sorting out numbers.

But that isn't who I am. And people who do things that they don't like, (some of my friends smoke, and wish they didn't. In fact, all of the friends that I have that smoke wish they didn't) make a little sentence like I just did, about themselves, that is highly negative. Likewise, people that are egotistical may form a false image of themselves in that manner that can be harmful.

The truth is, we a complicated things. Far more complicated than can be summed up in a sentence or a resume.

I often say that we are a product of our genetics, and we are. But people take that to mean you are your parents. We are not only our father and mother. We are our father, mother, two grandmothers, two grandfathers, four great grandfathers, four great grandmothers, sixteen great great grandmothers, sixteen great grand fathers, and after that I start to get a mathematics headache. I know, poor show Joel, but I am terrible at sorting out numbers.

The point is that you are not the product of the union of two people. You are a vast pyramid of ancestors, stretching back millions of years, that all have a tiny contribution to you, the individual that is here.

You, human, are an incredibly complicated being. You are here because your ancestors had something that kept them alive in that hellhole that was the past, and got them breeding. You are the product of and incredibly lengthy, arduous, painful and incredible journey of all kinds people.

That alone makes you vastly more complicated then your introduction sentence, but there is more.

You have things. All sorts of things.

(unless your the kind of person that has no possessions, which David will end up doing no doubt.)

You probably carry objects, I'm guessing here, but a purse or wallet is likely, a phone maybe, possibly an Mp3 player or a watch, jewelry, anything. What ever it is that you have, take it out for a moment. Look at it. You may not consider it, but it is a tiny part of you. If you have had it for any length of time, you have made your make on it. A scratch perhaps, or a bend, or something. If it is an electronic device that you've had for a little while, it is full of numbers, or songs or something.

And just as you have made your mark on it, it has made its mark on you.You cannot go through the world without it having an effect on you. You have a thousand tiny little imperfections, caused by daily life. These tiny things add up after a while and become a significant part of you. Things you have, that people say to you, that you do, that you eat. Places where you sleep, where you live, a thousand little things. They are important things when put together.

No matter who you are, you are complex. A lot of effort, time, emotion and difficultly went in to making even the most simplistic of you. And you aren't restrained by what you think of yourself, or what others think of you, or the things you habitually do. You are restrained only by the limits of you physical world. So be what ever it is you want to be. Change your introduction sentence.