It’s not often that I find a work of fiction that I enjoy, but when I do, I find it hard to put it down. And that’s what happened now. Found “Maybe Meant to Be”, started reading it, and only put it down for eating or going to do groceries (no job as of now, employers please respond already!). Why am I telling you this? Reading trough it, I got to this line:
All the things I’d written in my little notebook until now were just a part of myself. And at the same time, that part included parts of other people. And all of that came together to become my story.
And it really got me thinking. When I think about myself, there’s so much about me that I can attribute to someone else and their experiences. From music tastes to clothing tastes to many of my mannerisms. In short, I’m a sum of parts borrowed from others. On the flip side, I influenced others. How much? I don’t know. I only know how others are while around me, and they only know me while around them. Such is the nature of the exchange: we give and take without either party knowing the full terms of the trade.
But what about when you don’t even know the person on the other side of the exchange? Back in high school, I was a dork. Or rather, I was very socially maladjusted. Couldn’t hold a conversation to save my life. And so, I often ended up just spending time alone during my most formative years. So what I had to shape me was fiction. Be it anime, manga, video games, or visual novels. Many things about me were shaped directly by the stuff I read, played, or watched back then. But I don’t even know the authors of many of those works. Some are merely a name in the credits, others aren’t even that. And in a way, I’m on the other side of the exchange now. I’m writing this, you’re reading it. Maybe you pick up something from this, but I’ll never know you, and there’s a good chance you don’t know me beyond whatever’s on this site. But just as parts of others became a part of me, a part of me now becomes a part of someone else. The cycle continues, and hopefully something good comes from it.
Why am I even writing all of this? I don’t really know. Maybe I’m just too tired to think rationally (actually, no, not “maybe”, definitely, it’s 6am after staying up to read), but I just felt like it. Felt like these thoughts needed to be said.
It’s not the first time I’ve had these thoughts. But it’s the first time I could really put it down. Not in a coherent way, I’m not delusional enough to think that. But maybe it doesn’t need to be coherent. Maybe this is just part of the human experience. Something we all think about, but usually just leave unsaid. Maybe that’s its magic. Or maybe it’s something most people don’t think about. Maybe some people go trough their lives always thinking as their own self-evolving person that doesn’t give or take in this way. And that’s fine. But for me, this has been something I’ve thought about a lot since high school. Sometimes I think that I don’t matter in this world, that my actions won’t really change anything and that it’s all for naught. But then I remembered of this silent exchange. Of how we all unknowingly shape each other. And then these new versions of ourselves play of each other again, changing again, and continuing the cycle. And in a way, that’s the beauty of it all. You always help shape someone else, and sometimes your personal touch to their life’s artwork is just the touch it needed to turn it into a masterpiece.