Mosaic, Gestalt, Chimera

13th Apr, 2025

this one is gonna suck a bit, just as a heads up. I say this so you have the chance to close the page and walk away till the next one, if you don’t wanna read about a string of angry and repulsive¹ thoughts tonight.

(Edit: oop there's a postscript now: ²)

I have been thinking a lot about individuality recently. This has causes - my current mental state and relationships, another friend’s recent blog post, and the perpetual background noise of my brain about it.

I am a patchwork person. I so often consciously feel that I am an amalgam reflection of the people around me.

No shit, Hana. Everyone is like that.

Allow me some self-centeredness. In this particular realm, I feel that I feel it worse than the average.

I cannot comprehend myself as removed from my closest social circles. So many elements of my routine, my motivations, my internal reasons for existing in each moment (as mutable as those are) would wink out of existence.

More subtly, I am mostly made from superficial traits I have borrowed from others. All my current hobbies, my interests, the things I strive to learn and the actions I feel are worthwhile. The values I hold. My at-present career path.

It’s all borrowed flesh.

None of this is unique to me. None of this is inherently unpleasant. On the contrary, most of the time I revel in this. It is itself an important aspect of who I am that I adapt and change so easily to my surroundings. I form relationships easily because I can shape my exterior to fit alongside others and do as they do.

“Everyone is a product of their environment.”

“You become who you pretend to be.”

“Becoming like your friends is inevitable and welcome.”

All phrases I’d usually agree with. Some that I’ve parroted.

Tonight, I’m repulsed by the concept. Recently, before the repulsion, I spent a long time desperately clinging to it in terror.

That latter thing is getting better now, I hope. I think I found the answer to that issue.

Repulsion is such a funny term. As half-mentioned in the footnotes, it’s frequently used in a quite negative way - to be repulsed or repulsive is synonymous with ugly, rotten, deviant emotions.

But realistically, it’s just a force. The state of being something that pushes away, just as ‘attractive’ is the state of being something that draws in.

And right now, I feel repulsed by how I emulate people, by how dependent I am on that for self-definition and purpose. In a way reminiscent of someone else’s words but unalike as well, I crave the ability to be independent, my own person, able to however briefly exist in a vacuum of self.

Even worse, I am angry that I’ll have likely abandoned this feeling by tomorrow, as I do with so many resolutions. An absence of centralised self presumes an inability to commit to your own needs and values, I think.

Nevertheless, don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me much for the next few days, if you’re someone I frequently talk to. It’s not that I want to be left alone - by all means, approach me as usual. This will make my day as it ever does.

But I am sick of craving a life defined by the presence of others. Sick of my own desperate need for the company and validation and motivation from the people closest to me. This is a test, to see if I can abstain. A dip in the social deprivation tank.

It’s not healthy. You don’t needa point that out to me.

But neither is my current state. I need to know that I can be ripped away from my safety net/cocoon/prison shell of other-esteem, of other-definition, and not bleed out on the sand.

I promised someone important that I would learn to stand alone. Not that I would forever isolate myself from others, but simply that I would learn to exist without their constant support and meaning.

18 months later, I am still learning. I mean to keep the promise.

Goodnight, everyone.