Are you the same person you are today when you were ten years old? The answer to that question for me is no. Personally I feel that every year I grow mentally due to the events that happened that year and just from more experience. However in some aspects I feel like I am the same person I was. When I was two my parents got divorced. I don't have any memory of them being together the only thing I know is them being divorced. That situation alone made me grow up faster mentally. Once I was old enough to understand why my parents didn't live together and that I saw my dad on the weekend I had to get that routine down. It can be stressful for anyone, but especially for a kid. I sadly also had to deal with a lot of losses in my family at a very young age. When I was seven my great grandfather died, then a year later my great grandma died, then the next year my grandfather died. I was very close with all of them so it was hard. I had to learn how to cope with that when I was still little. When I was seven my mom had my sister and she was born with Down syndrome. Her being born with Downs made everyone in my family adapt to her, but also gave us all a new perspective about life. At ten years old I had knowledge about a lot of things that other kids my age might not quite understand yet. The events that happened to me both good and bad shaped my personality. I was responsible from a young age and always did my best to be a kind person. Personality wise I don't think I've changed. I've always did my best to stay true to myself. That being said as the years went on more events shaped my life and I've gained a better perspective of the world. There's a lot of things I would do differently if I had the chance to go back in time.
I do believe in past lives, I always have. The short story titled personality and identity made references to that. I always felt like I had an old soul and the reason is because of how I deal with things. It could be from experience, but I've always been mature about hard events in my life and I've understood things that many people my age might not have. I think I've been around for a long time and have experienced a lot which is part of the reason why I am the way I am. I just wish I could remember my past lives.
Hi Kacie, I was really able to connect with a lot of the points you made, and I think that made me think of this from a different perspective. Like you my parents got divorced when I was really young, I was one. I have no recollection of them ever being together which I guess in a way can be a good or bad thing. I definitely agree that we are not the same person we were back at the age of ten. Frankly we grow up, we learn from past experiences and evolve. I also liked your comment about you saying you have an old soul, and I too wish we could have some form of recollection of previous lives.
ReplyDeleteHi Kacie! I really was able to follow many of your points and completely agree that a person is not the same many years later as they were when they were ten. There are a list of factors: experience, education, memories, trauma, and much more that mold a persons characteristics and personality.
ReplyDeleteWhat you said about afterlives is very interesting within the context of Perry's "A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality." For someone to survive, they need to have stages in one part of life that are connected to stages in later life. Whether they survive and identify through one of the four theories is not necessarily important then, it is about how to remember and connect with our previous lives.
Hi Kacie! I am so sorry to hear about all of your hardships and loss, I wrote my blog post in a similar way, too. The pain that we endure shapes us into who we are and therefore gives us an identity. Your view on past lives is very interesting to me and I agree that we do have experiences from past lives. It would be so cool to just know and remember moments from them, but maybe that is what dejavu is for!!
ReplyDeleteHi Kacie,
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about why you believe in past lives. You wrote that you've "always been mature about hard events" in your life and understood things that other people your age may not have. But couldn't that be the case even without past lives? You describe how adjusting to the divorce and the death of close family members early caused you to confront difficult life issues early on and may have contributed to expedited emotional maturity. Could that explain the features that you attribute to past lives?