It’s just you.

“It’s just you.” Of course, this point is open ended and arguable. 


1. There is no free will.
Alright, this one always starts out as a little hard to deal with, because people as a species base sort of a lot on the fact that there is free will. Tricky, but really, if there’s a cause for everything (which, to me, has been proven), then humans have no ability to choose in spite of their pasts. However, “past” includes every second, and people seem to conclude that the past implies something like “years ago,” but really, two minutes ago is still the past, and once you realize that, it’s not quite so…entrapping a fact. While there’s no free will, we are still agents of our own destiny. Because for certain events to happen, there have to be certain prerequisites for it, and human action is still a part of some of those prerequisites. It’s not that there’s will and it isn’t free, just that there isn’t will. Since everything that happens is a direct result of a combination of things that happened before it, there’s no choice to be made. You really just get to see if some parts of your past will sort of “overpower” others (just to anthropomorphize). Actually, since there is no real decision, then how can there really be a “self”? Since everything really is predetermined, “self” is like an illusion. And since there’s no self…


2. Beliefs, values, morals, and all other things personal.
There’s often a sort of trickiness in dealing with people’s perception of “who they are.” It’s silly, really, it’s like the notion that they can’t change, or they can’t do certain things, because that’s not who they are. Well, that’s silly, because if you would just do those things, you’d be that person. I’m often perplexed by people’s refusal to change. It makes life so difficult. Especially since “who you are” is something that you really have no control over. It’s still like the free will thing, “who you are” is just a big bunch of effects from causes that were completely out of control in the first place. So why would people adopt such a maladaptive behavior? Ah ha! It’s because this concept that they have choice, that they have a “self,” a “who they are,” it all promotes survival. They have a self, so they become attached to it, and they are led to take care of it, to make sure it survives. It’s sort of naïve, like that they’ll last forever if they just try hard enough. However, it keeps them from dying long enough to make babies or somehow or other institute this idea of “self” and “decision” into someone else, so “self” is actually self-perpetuating. Doesn’t really excuse it or anything, but it does explain it. Now, beliefs, values, morals, all of that. They’re all taught. No one ever gets to decide what they believe, really, because…well that free will again. So since beliefs and stuff are just things that were taught to you, why would you make decisions based on them? I mean, it’s not “you,” that’s someone else. Some other person made that up, why would you believe them? Normally, it’s just because someone’s told to. However, I must give credit where credit’s due, there are some people on this world who haven’t just believed everything they were told by other people. Some people have just let life go by, seen for themselves what’s going on, and then from that, formulated some things. A lot of people are really against changing what they believe, because it’s sort of accepted that whatever your morals or beliefs or anything are, that’s what you’re supposed to go with. Like you’re not supposed to question yourself. I mean, “Self.” (That’s a hard habit to break.) But not only beliefs, but also values, morals, and judgments. Even tastes, wants, desires, they’re all educated or genetic, and none of it has to be “you.” However, most people I’ve met are ignorant of that fact. 


Alright now, through these two points i'll take you to my Exchange experience at the age of 16 in USA. For quite a bit of time I resisted my SELF from changing but then it all happened more of willingly.
New kid on the block. I needed to adapt to the new social surrounding, to establish a sense of fitting in. So I simply (without my noticing), imitated those around me. Not like how most people do, how they simply grow to act a certain way, or begin to belong to a certain group. It was instantaneous, flawless imitation. I adopted with great rapidity their speech patterns, their posture, their attitudes, every little piece of their personality was, in a blink, absorbed and reflected.

It all seemed fine up until I stepped back in the place where me and my SELF belonged. I couldn't fit back in my old self, and people some people had a rough time looking at this new person. 

My favorite analogy for the this incident(yes I call it an incident) is that it was like sailing on a ship, on open water, for all the time you’d ever known. And then you see another ship. And you raft up to it, and for a while, these individual two ships are somewhat one. And then you wake up one morning, and the other ship is gone. Not sailing away, or packing up to leave, but gone. Out of sight, completely. But before they left, they took everything that was on your ship. You don’t wake up on a ship; you wake up afloat in open water

So I learned to swim. I was no longer bound by my need to stay on my metaphorical ship; I didn’t have to keep it maintained, for it was already gone.