It goes in circles and circles and circles
I've been thinking a good deal about cycles recently. About our place in those cycles, and the power they hold over us, and how we might also impact said cycles.
Following the same paths over and over again. Neural pathways that strengthen with each repetition. Trauma that reverberates. Trauma that begets itself.
Patterns can be found everywhere. It's literally the weave of our DNA and the collection of Us on an atomic level.
Do you understand what makes you You? Is it who you were raised by, and learned from? Is it your memories? Is it the way you decide to interact with the world?
How does nature and nurture inform your life, and are you able to actually strip yourself of what influences you. Can you find a real, untouched core of yourself...?
Untethered from anything of the past?
The more I think about it, the more impossible the act of separating yourself from these things feels to me. We are inextricable from Others. Others are who we come from. Others percieve us, inform us, and give life its full-fledged meaning. And we are the Other too, aren't we? It's worth remembering that we are not alone and that what we say and do aren't locked away in an airtight vaccuum.
You're just another stranger too, and I a stranger to you.
Shocker, I know.
But it does mean you matter. That your life is infinitely complex - and subject to change.
It does mean that you're capable of creating new pathways for yourself (and others!) and that you do not have to repeat something that doesn't positively serve you or the people around you.
Start treating life like a roguelike, where you've been given countless moments to try something different. You might find it more fulfilling and healing than you may have expected.