Who are we?

Despite being a title to a popular song, "who are we?" is a question that has been asked by many people before. Whether they've asked someone else or merely thought it to themselves, the question still remains.

In today's world of global corporations and marketing and consumerism, it's hard to get lost in the world. People consumed by the 'need' for the latest product, the latest shoes, the 'in' clothes, the latest videogames, and so on. I'm not denying that I'm not the same - I'm highly susceptible to Apple's marketing, as you should know if you read my earlier posts about the Mac Mini and the MacBook. It's difficult, then, to define what makes a person who they are.

What defines a person? Is it the music they listen to, or the clothes they wear? Or perhaps it is the movies they watch, and the books they read; or maybe whether they read at all. It's easy to judge someone by the things they buy, and the things they do. But this doesn't give you an insight as to who someone is.

In my rather cliché opinion, people shouldn't be judged by their exterior. And I'm not talking about skin colour or anything, I'm talking about the things they buy and the things they do. These are all outward things, and all add to an exterior; an image, if you will. Images, however, can be deceiving.

For this reason, I believe that to really understand someone, you need to sit down with them and talk to them. Get to know them; their likes and dislikes, their relationship with family and friends, their personality. Again, sounding cliché, but you shouldn't judge people by their image. This image that's given off has an incredible influence on the decisions one makes about certain people, as is exemplified in this video and the one that follows it.

This is also the reason why my MSN display picture is a question mark; since I talk to a lot of people online, it's better if they get to know me by talking to me rather than by looking at my display picture and making a (usually incorrect) snap decision about the type of person I might be. Does this make sense? I hope so.

I suppose what I'm saying is: don't judge someone until you actually know them. Once you've spoken to them and got an idea of what type of person they are, then you can make a better decision about who this person might be, and whether they're someone you want to continue talking with or not. I'm sure everyone has suffered some form of insult because of this image we give off, so think about it next time you jump to a decision about someone.

Again, I'm not targeting anyone, because I'm guilty of these things myself. Apologies for this post, by the way; I know it's not my usual type of thing, but I just wanted to get this down.

This post was inspired by PopCo, by Scarlett Thomas, which is highly recommended.