Project Insight, Question 4: What Makes Us Who We Are?
My grandfather, a man whose intelligence and intellect by far surpasses that of anyone I have had the pleasure to meet, successfully engraved himself into my memory through his various talks, of philosophy and politics, of life and death, love and misfortune, and this Universe. Of all those late night talks and early morning sessions, the most memorable was one about independence and the freedom of “oneself”.
From these conversations, a fact that I’ve taken to heart is the following:
“You belong to the Universe. Only your thoughts are yours.”
He went on to describe his thoughts and opinions on life, fate, destiny, and the sorts. These I soon realized were very much like my feelings toasted the wonder of our blue planet and why we’ve come to inhabit it.
Before answering this question with my ideas and opinions, I wanna know what you have to say and what you consider to make a person who they are.
Hope to hear from you soon,
AJG
Proof of Existence 
Q: Is “What doesn’t breaks us, makes us.” true?
I think that we are ‘made’ by the situations we are put into and how we choose to react to them…But I don’t believe that anyone’s behavior or actions (for example, being a druggy, being a brat) can be excused as ‘it’s how they were raised’.
I was barely raised. My mom and dad were heroin addicts, my dad backed out, my mom wasn’t allowed to see me for the first five years of my life. I taught myself to swim, to read, to be able to find a playmate in myself when my grandma was too busy working to play with me. I pieced together things about my family from things I caught in conversation – I’ve never had the blessing to have someone sit down and tell me about the family, because since my mom became the black sheep no one wants to talk about anything.
Despite this, I have become an A student, some of the top marks in school, I’ve never done drugs or gotten drunk, I respect myself and others. Despite never having spoken to my father, despite living with my bipolar recovering drug-addict mother, I am not a problem child. I have made myself what I am because I understand self-worth, because I’m not going to ruin myself the way my parents have ruined themselves.
And so I say I made myself, but if you look from the other side? I have anxiety attacks. I’m afraid of being abandoned by my friends, by my fiancé – people I know would never do me harm. I’m afraid of a lot of the boys and men I meet – and what do you think made me like that? I’m a proud person, so I don’t like to think that external things effect me. But how can I deny that my upbringing, or lack thereof, has affected me, when I’m shaking in the grips of a panic attack?
So a mix of self-awareness, an ability to question your surroundings, self-worth, and then of course the conditions in which you were raised I guess.