11/19/22- Lets start this off by speaking about the concept of “Being a new Person”. Whats does “being a new person” mean, or look like? Is it really a choice we can make? Is it “real” because WE say it is so, or only true when others make note? Does it take time? If so, how long? Or perhaps, do we actually have the opportunity to be a new person every day, every time we open our eyes from slumber, or even simply with every choice we make? Is it a physical thing? I have been considering shaving my head for quite some time now. Many people might not even recognize me without my hair, its been such a part of my identity for so long. Is it even really possible to “Be a New Person”. I dont know if its a good or bad thing, but I was able to watch the movie “A Clockwork Orange” at a fairly young age, and in retrospect, I feel it had a profound effect on me. I say “profound”, and yet I don’t really feel like I can adequately articulate that effect, or effects, but I will never forget my main take away at the stories end. I was probably 9 or 10 years old, but what came to me in Malcolm Mcdowells final words as Alex was- “There is no changing human nature”. Not just human nature, but an individuals TRUE nature. Sure you could condition aversion, or fear, of certain behaviors, but the underlying person, or soul, was immutable. So, again- Can we change? Can we become “A New Person”? Or do we just “become” what we always were, what we were always meant to be, before life heaped on whatever adversities formed, or directed, us into something, or someone else? “Why the rumination on such a concept?” you may ask. I have been working on(notice I did not say “trying”) changing. Changing how I think, how I operate, changing… who I am. However, in many ways, I don’t feel there is a need to change ME. Im not sure there was ever anything “wrong” with ME. Did/do I have “bad” thoughts, beliefs, or behaviors? Undoubtedly! Guilty as charged!! Yet, I can’t help but think of how alien I have always felt amongst others. I have played sports, but until recently, never felt like part of a team. Only once in my life have I truly felt like part of a community, or something larger than myself, and that was very short lived, and even now I question that sensations validity. Now though, I can’t help but wonder, was this intense separation from others really a separation from others I felt, or a separation from self. Have my negative thoughts, and beliefs, been separating me from myself, from my TRUE self? Have my feelings of alienation been strictly, or mostly, a self alienation? I have so many memories of beating myself down, of looking in the mirror and saying horrible things to myself with the thought that if i was just cruel enough, if I could direct enough hatred towards myself, towards my own heart, I could stop whatever pain I was perceiving at the time. I “did the math” of why I could never be any of the things I so wanted to be. I hated the world, because I hated myself so much, the cup naturally just overflowed. And yet- there was always a part of me that didn’t just hope, it believed. It believed that was all wrong. It believed I could, no matter how I tried to beat it down, no matter the words I threw at it, no matter the “logic”I used to “be realistic”, it tossed those aside. For the majority of my life I believed I would be dead by the age of 40, and thats how I lived, and thought, and planned, and acted. I turn 50 next year, the past 9 years have been… weird, to put it mildly. Im am choosing to live differently now. To think differently. To be “A New Person”, or is it just perhaps, to be the person i always was, or was meant to be? Whatever the case, it is time. If you’re reading this, perhaps its your time as well.