I like you just the way you are.

What makes someone a person?

If a boy is raised a girl, does that make him less of a boy, or does that make him less of a girl because of a few inconvenient physical differences?

Psychologically, do we all think of ourselves everyday as a girl or boy, a child or adult, a blond or brunette, a jock or a nerd, or do we all think of ourselves as just ourselves. Maybe that is why so many people talk about "finding themselves". Maybe it is so easy to think of yourself in a preset, prepackaged, previously lived way, and in doing that, lose yourself to that conventional image.

Do we all think differently, or are we all basically the same, with a few environmentally caused surface quirks?

Am I just a mass of cells, or am I
Rachel. Girl. 14. Brunette. Green eyed. Freckled. Homeschooled. Happy. Sad. Contradicted. Cliched. Environmentally produced, striving to be a previously deposited image of myself probably shown to me when I was born.

Are all of the people I know prepackaged and examples of examples, or are they simply my friends? Are they really themselves, or are they trying to be the people they want to be.

If I, or if anyone, was never shown that image (which I'm assuming comes in a sterilized plastic case) of who we are supposed to end up as, would I be a radically different person, or would the stars align to just make me who I am, and who I will be. If my mind and body and organs and cells and organelles were left to its own device, would I be the same?

I know this is just a stupid bunch of ramblings, but these questions have been bothering me lately. Does a mind love, or does the plastic envelope including our picture also tell us that we are supposed to love someone. Preferably from the opposite sex. Is love prepackaged and sterile, ready for installment in a heart, and ready for re- and re- and re-installment when said heart is broken and mended?

Or is love what makes someone a person? Is love something more than a constantly sung song filled with cliches and repetition? Something more than a marketable emotion, which shuns some and plagues others? Something more than an acceptance of the rules, and conformity to them, causing people to seek it, and possibly fall in it like a big puddle?

Is love real? Is love another one of the questions which may eventually reveal its answer? Is love just a biological need to find a mate and reproduce?

Maybe being a person is more than love, more than being the image you were presented with at birth. Maybe being a person is more than something caused by environment. Maybe what makes somebody a person is not a question to be asked.



Yet I still find myself asking.. will I find the answer?

-r