SED Artist

The philosophies and tangents of perpetuating perceptions and eternal return

There’s a particular combat you take part in when returning home, or to a place you which has known many versions of you. This ‘tug of war’ like combat is a challenge between you, and other people’s versions of you. Somehow, and perhaps unwillingly, there is always a ‘you’ that others hold you to. We are no strangers to this, and rather unsurprisingly all take part in it too, holding others accountable for who they used to be. I don’t believe any of this is is conscious nor purposefully malicious; one can rarely help holding a mirror to their own pasts, let alone those of others.

This concept bears a significant weight when you spend a lot of time moving around, having to face the reasons behind different people’s expectations of you and understanding the philosophies behind it.

Typically, it is joked that going travelling is a method for people to find themselves. Although it is unlikely that you return a completely new person, there is a slight truth in it. There are changes that naturally and authentically appear within you when you take time away from those who hold you to your past, to your challenges, to your defeats, and to your experimentations.

Growing up, most of your time and energy is spent on the learning of new things, whether that be a choice, or simply the natural ways in which a child experiences life. That is the greatest thing, in my mind, about childhood: the never ending possibilities for growth and expanding knowledge. As you get older, the excitement and curiosity for these things can quickly and quietly diminish, and you soon forget to actively seek out those things that fascinate you.

I believe that this is why travelling is so beneficial, amongst other reasons; in a way, it reconnects you with your inner child, the most authentic part of yourself, as you’re surrounded by the new, and discover a revived excitement for exploration and learning.

When you are growing up, you’re bound, if not obligated, to make mistakes. Part of the experience, and figuring out who you are, is to experiment. Pushing your boundaries is, famously, the best way to grow, and diminishes things like shame, guilt and the ego. Sometimes however, there will be people around you, like friends, family, or people in positions of power, who will focus on some of your experiments or phases, and define you as per.

With other people’s definitions, come other people’s expectations, and when returning to a situation where positions and hierarchies where significant, it is easy to slip back into your expected role, and the cycle perpetuates. Coming back to your roots, sometimes means exactly that, and can stop you from blossoming. The roots are crucial to the flower, but unhealthy roots don’t grow.

To end on two varying tangents:

1. Maybe, this all lies within our fears of other people noticing our insecurities. Maybe this isn’t anything to do with your family, nor your friends, nor those people in positions of power, holding you to versions of yourself. Rather, it is about comfort and ease. Far easier to let things slip back into their defined patterns, rather than shed your skin and face the potential judgement of others, who have only ever known you a certain way. Maybe there is nobody behind these perceptions, holding you to them, other than yourself. Maybe you are the only one that can keep things the same, or, make the change.

Change the pattern, water your roots, let the flowers blossom.

2. I wonder, in a world where those expectations and patterns of eternal return are real, could it also work the other way around? Where you become entrapped by the version of yourself that another has of you, not because you cannot escape it but because it is a version of yourself that you love, which only exists through their eyes. And if you are immersed amongst such clashing versions of yourself, then how do you know which one of them you actually are ? And do you ever truly escape the person whose skin you’ve shed many a time, or are the mirrors there to reflect those versions back onto you, forever?