You are everyone you have ever met

I have been thinking about this one theory for a while. It’s an abstraction born out of questions like who am I? How do I define myself? What’s my identity? How do my relationships in life affect my identity?

This theory comes from the idea of how we can never introduce ourselves irrespective of the rest of the universe. For example, If I were to introduce myself to an alien (who has no sense of any concept man has created to identify things), it would be something like this: I am Aditi. What is an Aditi? It’s a name. what is a name? Something you call a person by. What is a person? A Homo Sapien. What is a homo sapien? A species on earth. What’s the earth? A planet in the solar system. What’s a solar system? A system of planets orbiting around the sun. What’s the sun? A star in the milky way galaxy. What’s a galaxy? A cluster of galactical systems in the universe. And this could go on and on infinitely.

How we define ourselves and the labels we give to our relationships with other humans are made up by us as a society. For this reason, I chose to use an example of introducing myself to an alien. Because my theory is about our identity notwithstanding the concept of identity society usually uses on a surface level.

I attempted to illustrate my theory as to articulate it better –

So here it goes: The drawing above is you, your being, your mind, your personality, or basically whatever identifies you as you. And every single part of you is a person you have met since the second you were born. Your mother, father, brother, teacher, friend, or anyone you shared a meaningful connection with. Everyone has taught you something and shaped the totality of your being. This goes hand in hand with the saying that your experiences make you who you are because people are experiences! Notice how these small parts differ in shape and size. That’s the dynamic of how much these people have made you who you are. People with a larger part are the ones you love the most, and generally the hardest to let go of. And that’s why you have to heal when a person, a bigger part of you, is gone. Therefore, certain people matter to you more than others: why do you miss a friend you haven’t seen for 2 days but you can easily go without seeing a family member for a week.

This might just make you appreciate the relationships in your life better or it might make you question them all to no end.