Living With

© Yaoyao Ma Van As

Human nature is rooted in relationships and social interaction. Everyone is born to a parent, and that comes with a likelihood of family and relatives. Growing up as a child, and living as an adult place one in social situations, whether by choice or not. A professional life requires the ability to communicate with or to others to some degree. It can be presumed that the more social skills one has the better a life one is likely to live.

Living in a family is often a circumstance one finds oneself in. A person can choose their friends either based on affinity or convenience. Being in a relationship or living with a  spouse or partner is one of the more advanced social interactions. It may not be an essential relationship but it is an extremely important one when it is entered into. The decision to enter into a relationship should signify both an individual’s development of personal depth and serious feelings for a partner. It is an expression of both commitment and sacrifice. A point from which a person makes a choice to consider the needs and wellbeing of another person as equal to their own. In doing so the person makes a promise to include that other person in their life and proactively be a part of that person’s life.

Growing up and becoming independent sometimes means striking out on your own. It might mean living by yourself or sharing paid for accommodation. What it amounts to ultimately is being primarily responsible for yourself alone. In due course, one might enter into a relationship and choose to live fully or partly with a partner. This represents an opportunity to share one’s life and space. It might also be a crutch for someone afraid to be alone. However, there are people who prefer to live on their own, even when in a relationship. This allows them the freedom and space to take time out for themselves. It might also be a symptom of an unwillingness to commit fully to another person. Whatever the rights or wrongs, these are choices we are all entitled to make.

Living on one’s own can be a necessary response to dealing with life and relationship challenges. One has to find a way to make life as manageable as possible. However, living by yourself because you can’t live with another person is not coping: it’s copping out. Learning how to live with another person is an essential part of human socialisation. It isn’t necessarily easy and may not come naturally. But the desire to do it must also be matched by the effort to follow through on it. Living with someone else does mean having to endure and tolerate some of the things that person does. It also means taking responsibility to intervene when there are signs of trouble. Trying to complement each other should mean aiming to bring the best out of each other.

Living with others can be both fulfilling and beneficial to oneself. However, it won’t always be without conflict. The conflict might either help resolve issues or clarify incompatibility. It just depends on how strong a connection people have. Living with another person might be the preferred choice but it isn’t the only option. A person might find themselves living alone and do just fine.

Am I ...?

Who is the real person we are?

Is it who we are born as?
Is it our body?
Is it our mind?
Is it our consciousness?
Is it our soul?
Is it the sum total of our experiences?

How much of who we are is who we want to be and not just how we are created, and conditioned to be? Is there a separation between our principles and values, and how they direct out lives? When we adopt certain characteristics and attitudes to try and improve ourselves do they really define us or just become a reflection of how we want the world to see us; or even possibly how we actually want to see ourselves?

Can we truly be aware of who we really are or is it others' perception of us that defines who we are? As human beings at times we do cultivate idealised versions of ourselves and the world around us. More often than not it is this idealised version of ourselves that we spend a lifetime trying to project. This ideal might consist of standards and values we have learnt, perceptions of what is popular or characteristics we have adopted through trial and error. These are what over time become recognised as our personality. However, very often these can turn out to be just the mask that we unconsciously adopt as the face we show the world.

There are people whose personalities develop along a unique trajectory and are determined by socialisation only to a limited extent. Very often these are high functioning or sociopathic individuals. The ability to form and maintain a unique self identity largely free from normative determination  requires great intelligence and will. It is also a fragile construct which can shatter and fracture a person's psyche at the slightest shift in the balance.

What we are is human; flesh and bone that live and eventually die. Who we are on the other hand, is an infinitely more complex notion. Too often we are just what the world wants us to be. Some of us are outsiders trying to plot our own paths in a world demanding consensus. And there are those of us who are in a cocoon just trying to be who we need to be and survive while the world rages around us.