questions

How much is personal expression and how much is facade?

How much of what we are, and do, and see, and wear, and how we do our hair, and where we send our kids to school, and who we choose to be our friends is really us?

How much of it is planted in out heads by the media, and the 'world views' that are constantly being streamed in to our heads?

And, even ignoring that, how much of it is our innate desire to 'fit in', to 'blend' with the people around us?  To not stand out as 'different'?

When I choose what I am going to wear in the morning how much of what I like is really my subconscious analyzing the world around me and telling me what will make me look the most like everyone else?  Is this concept of individuality really real or is it just something that we have come up with to make ourselves feel better and unique?

How much of how I react to the people around me and how I act in my everyday life is really me and how much of it is how I have been shaped by my environment?

How is anyone really a person without their environment to shape them?

How often do we inadvertently hurt the people around us just because we don't understand their environment and way of thinking?

How often do we deliberately hurt people just because we don't understand their environment and way of thinking?

Why?

Why is it so important?

How much of that desire is just everything around us telling us to be the same, to not stand out?  Do we have that desire because we know that to stand out will cause us pain?  Or does standing out cause us pain because we have been told that it will?

Will this ever really change? Or will the only change be what we identify as different?