Just what am I seeing

...when I look out the window? What kinds of people are there? Do they look like me? Do they act like me? Or am I somehow completely different from everyone else in the world? Part of me wants to be. Part of me wants to be someone amazing- someone who ends up in the history book for... I dunno, doing something wonderful. The other part has this simple life planned out- marry some smart guy with a good sense of humor and have two kids. Live on a wonderful farm in Ireland or a comfortable house in France. Have a small house near mine for my parents to live in. And what about the other people of the universe? Will I meet other people in my lifetime? Will my children? Will my children's children?

But, I think, if I could, I'd escape. I have my little world, Nolias, tucked away in the depths of my imagination. I have my characters, little bits of my fantasy that are like saved files on a computer. In my mind, Nolias is a beautiful world that doesn't have the diseases ours does- technology, overpopulation, animal murder. It's just green. Trees, mountains, fields, streams, rivers, oceans. And it's all clean- no plastic bottles and bags everywhere. And the people, the people are all so understanding- there's not that many secrets in Nolias, unless you've murdered someone you weren't supposed to.

But that might sound crazy. Hell, I could be crazy. For all I know, this is all some dream that my head has conjured up while I'm in a three year long coma, which is where my mind has sent me to after being tortured nonstop for several hours... Things like that happen to people. For all I know, this is the Matrix and the image I see of myself is actually just a computer generated image. Life... could be from the imagination of some other blond haired girl living on the planet... Marxuc (Mar-zuke) who thought it would be interesting to have her own planet called Earth. And others would say, "What a crazy soul you are, Nodena, making up these strange stories about that thing you call rock and roll and that food you named sushi. What a strange girl you are." And I would be just another character- possibly just another face in the crowd to create a background for the true main character.

But who is the main character? Is it the president? Is it my next door neighbor? Do I know any of the main characters? Am I the main character? How will I ever know? That is, if it turns out that I am, indeed, a fragment of Nodena's imagination.

But if I'm not a main character, then why is my personality so complex? It's one thing to say, "Oh, she's emotional, but she's also quite silly." It's another thing entirely when I'm good at logic and solving puzzles, I love to write poetry, tiny things bring tears to my eyes- especially as I get older, for some strange reason- and I love to laugh loudly until my stomach hurts and I must take a nap or go to bed afterwards from exhaustion.

Not that any of those things are different from other people, but perhaps Person A doesn't have quite the same mix of personality as Person B. Person A could have all of the above mentioned personality traits except for a habit of trying not to laugh because of nervousness and insecurity. Person B could be, well, me.

But what makes me... me? My personality? Or do I need my physical appearance in order to be me? If I were to look into the mirror and see that my reflection is not my own, I would say to myself that my appearance is, indeed, not my own. I would say "That's not me." And then I would insist that someone stop playing nasty pranks. However, if I saw myself (while in a different body/appearance) but with a different personality, I would say "That's me! Give me back my body!" So, taking that into consideration, is it that the appearance is what defines how we are recognized? But the personality is what makes it so that there are people to recognize that you are who you are. Without a friend or family member to recognize who you are, your personality would be for nothing.

So your appearance is for those who don't know you to identify you and for those who do know you to find you in a crowd. Your personality is that for someone else to interact with and recognize you by long after they've already memorized your appearance. If someone were to be acting like someone else, their friend might say, "Joe, you're not acting like yourself. Snap out of it."

...are we actors, then? All part of one long neverending play? Or are we really our own, individual people? Will we ever know? I sincerely doubt it.