My Blog

do people really change?

this is one question i have a hard time answering. do our past
acquaintances, friends, and family really become different persons
after we have been apart from them for so long? this occurred to me
after a lot of my childhood friends who recently saw me,  commented
that i had undergone (or so they thought) a total transformation. put
simply, that would just be their reaction to 50 pounds added to my
weight. but i get very interesting reactions from people as though i
had indeed become an entirely different person, indistinguishable to
the 95-lb, lanky boy that i was 6 years ago. aw diay?

sure, the physical distinction is there. it’s a given. even a
nincompoop can spot the difference. i have gained weight, and
considerably, it has altered the way i look. no pun intended.  but
deep inside, and amid all the changes in my life, i believe i am the
same person that i was when i was say, the naive 8 year-old boy in
elementary class.

see, how i see it is, a person is like an onion. just as an onion is
constituted by its accumulated outer layers, we too, are a product of
our own transformations. people see the exterior, but if they persist
enough, they would soon discover that deep inside, we are just the
little, entrenched seed that is protected and sheltered by our own,
individual external layers. peel an onion entirely, and you will
discover that it has a core. in the same fashion know a person deeper,
and you will know that he is just an altered version of his little and
past self.

i still see myself as the shy, insecure boy that i was in
kindergarten. my issues have remained, only this time i am compelled to
conceal all the discomforts because as a grown-up, i am expected to be
in complete control of my affairs. deep inside, and you might disagree,
i remain to be the shy little boy who yearns for recognition and
affection.

people may be of the impression that i am a modified version of the Clyde that
once was, however, i cling on to the fact that deep inside me, and
sustaining me through hard times and weary moments, is the little boy
lurking beneath the facade of an adolescent young man. when everything
crumbles and i am left defenseless, i take refuge in the not-so-distant
past and assuredly recall that once, as a boy, problems posed no
trouble nor danger to me.

and then yet again, i am convinced, as all little boys are, that everything will soon be okay.