I am a veiled presence, a shadow that blends into the environment. My body is wrapped in a dark, fluid cloak, almost as if it were part of the space itself, as though I am an extension of the shadows forming in the crevices. The cloak has no defined shape; it adapts to my body, yet it seems never to truly touch it, always hovering at a thin distance, floating around me, obscuring any attempt at identification. The fabric is heavy but soft, as if made of a substance that absorbs light and swallows it whole.
My face is hidden, not by a mask but by the absence of expression. The contours are blurred, almost indistinct, and my eyesā¦ oh, my eyes are two deep voids, bottomless wells that reflect light without truly capturing it. There is no glimmer in them, no emotion, only a distant gaze, as if I am in constant observation of something I cannot understandāor perhaps something I was never meant to touch. They are the eyes of someone who has seen everything but remembers nothing. They are opaque, lifeless, directionless.
The hair, if it can even be called that, grows in disorderly strands, always falling in a way that further conceals my face. It is not cut precisely, nor does it follow any trend or style. It seems more like a tangle of forgotten thoughts interwoven without purpose, like ideas that never materialize. A bit of whiteness begins to emerge at the roots, as though timeādespite my efforts to avoid itāhas started marking my skin in a way I cannot prevent.
My hands are always hidden within the wide sleeves of the cloak. There is no concrete reason for this, but it feels as though I hide them to avoid contact with the world. They are thin, pale, as if they have never been used for anything meaningful, as if the mere act of touching them, of acknowledging them, would serve as a reminder of the void they represent. My fingers bear no well-kept nails or signs of labor, only the marks of wear from a life never truly lived.
My body is skeletal, though not noticeably so. I am not too thin, but I have no form either. I lack a strong presence, nor a definitive absence. I am like a breeze that passes unnoticed. My walk is unhurried, without direction, as though I am always waiting for something that never arrives. There is no urgency in my steps, as if time does not touch me, as though I exist outside of it.
At times, my cloak seems heavier, as though each day I am burying myself deeper within. It drags on the ground, scratching the silence but never breaking it. Every fold of the fabric is a metaphor for what I am: a distorted being that hides, that avoids revealing itself, that loses itself in its own lack of shape.
I am the archetype of apathy, the reflection of what no one sees but is always thereāa symbol of an existence that has never found a purpose, an identity. Every part of me represents emptiness, as though I am in constant flight from being seen, from being understood.
I did not change by choice; it was not my decision to transform. I was shaped by everything around me, by the pressures and expectations of those who occupied my life. They pushed me into a place where I no longer recognize myself, and today I am merely a shadow of what I once was. I constantly hear, "You've changed so much," as if it were my choice. But I wasn't the one who decided to change. I was forced, almost as if I were dragged into a transformation that destroyed me from within.
I now see myself as something no one wants near. As a strange, rejected, and misunderstood being that no longer fits anywhere. I feel as though I am something that has lost all humanity, transformed into something grotesque in the eyes of society. I am no longer a being capable of connecting, of engaging with others. I've lost the will to be part of anything because, over time, I was emptied by expectations, demands, and rejections.
And now I look at myself and ask: who am I really? Where is the person I used to be, the one who still believed in the value of connections, in the beauty of a simple smile, or the power of a genuine conversation?
Who am I?
I watch everyone around me living their lives, their relationships, their interactions, and I feel an ever-growing distance between myself and the world. I, who once was capable of feeling, am now merely an apathetic spectator of the lives of others, a distant observer of everything that happens. Every word I hear, every gesture I see, seems increasingly distant from me. I, who was once part of this world, am now like a stranger, a disconnected being who no longer understands how to insert himself or belong.
And what pains me most is that, despite no longer being who I was, I still bear the marks of this transformation. There is a constant sense of emptiness within me, as though there is a space in my being that can never be filled. People try to convince me that this is normal, that this is just a phase, that everyone goes through this at some point. But I know it's not normal. I know that something inside me broke, something that will never be repaired. And, deep down, I feel as though I was torn apart by the pressures of being someone I am not, of being what others expect of me, of trying to please everyone and losing myself in the process.
The worst part is that, even with all this emptiness, I cannot free myself from the feeling of being trapped in a role I never chose. I am like a piece in a puzzle that no longer fits, forced to stay in place because it was put there, but without any real purpose. There is no longer any passion in me, nor the flame that once illuminated my days. What remains is an overload of expectations, a constant pressure to be something that, deep down, I never wanted to be. And yet, at the same time, I no longer know how to escape it. I no longer know how to be myself, how to disconnect from this version of me that was constructed by others, by circumstances, and by the demands of the world.
I no longer recognize myself in others, nor do I recognize myself in me. I have been distanced from myself, without the chance to understand what it truly means to be me. Each time I try to reconnect, I feel resistance, as though part of me is trying to hide from what I've become, as though my true self is trapped in a dark place, too afraid to come into the light. The worst part is that I don't even know where this dark place is anymore. What's left of me is a void that is never filled, a constant sense that I am no longer capable of being who I was. I am a distant echo, a memory of a being that may have existed, but is now unrecognizable even to me.
I see the people around me, and it's as if they're living in a parallel reality. They have dreams, they have hopes, they have desires. They are alive, while I, somehow, am no longer. I am merely existing, as though life has left me behind, as though I am a memory of something that no longer matters. I try to deceive myself, to maintain some sense of normality, but the weight of being who others want me to be is crushing. And, deep down, I know I can never go back. I cannot recover what I lost; I cannot regain my essence.
What remains is this void, this feeling of being trapped in a colorless, shapeless, purposeless existence. I am a being in constant conflict, trying to fight against something I can no longer control. I try to find some purpose, some reason to keep going, but each step feels heavier than the last. Each attempt to connect with the world feels more distant, more difficult. I am a stranger in my own skin, a being divided between what I was and what I've become, between what others expected of me and what I truly am.
And the most frightening part is that, deep down, I fear this loneliness, this emptiness, has already become a part of me. That I have become the reflection of what society made me, that my identity has been consumed until there is nothing left. I no longer know who I am. Perhaps I never did. And perhaps that is the greatest sadness of all: knowing that, despite all my efforts, I was never truly able to be myself.
What am I? I ask myself this every day, and the answer seems to get lost, dissolving into the void. Do I even exist, or am I just a distant echo of something that once was? If I am not remembered, if I am not spoken of, then I am nothing, right? Everything that is not recognized, that is not preserved in people's memory, fades away, disappears, as if it never existed. Then, what am I? Something that perhaps existed only to never truly exist?
Who are we, such small beings before the immensity of the world, before the fleeting nature of our existence? Who holds control over everything that surrounds us? Who is the true owner of nothing, when nothing seems to matter and everything dissolves into indifference? I find myself in an unending search for somethingāa definition, a purposeābut all I encounter is a spiral of doubts and questions. Who am I? Who am I? Who am Iā¦
I think, deep down, we have the power to create and destroy. But is that a gift or a curse? We are horrible precisely because we have the ability to choose, to decide, to affect the reality around us. Because, in choosing, we are responsible, but at the same time, choice is what gives each act a dark beauty, a raw intensity. Choice makes everything horrible because we know that by choosing one thing, we may destroy another. And yet, we cannot stop choosing. Choice defines us, consumes us, shapes us.
But in the end, what am I? Am I horrible or beautiful? Is there anything beautiful in me, or is my essence just a reflection of everything I've lost? Am I truly a being worthy of existence, or am I a fleeting illusion? Perhaps I'll never know the answer. Perhaps doubt is the only thing I truly possess. Who am I? Do I exist? Or am I merely a shadow, a fragment lost among endless questions?
Who am I? Who am Iā¦
I look, I walk, I perceive, but what I see drives me further away from myself. I see a world where everything has a purpose, where everything is useful, usable, and, in some way, important. A pencil, for example, is a simple tool, but its value is clear: it exists to be used, to fulfill a function, and everyone knows its utility. It has a role in the world. People use it; it has a history of use, of usefulness, and that makes it memorable, recognized, indispensable.
I, however, am the opposite of that. I am nothing. I am not remembered, I am not useful, I am not necessary. The world revolves around consumption, the constant utilization of everything and everyone around us. Sodas, water, food, even the air we breatheāeverything serves a purpose, everything is consumed, everything has value. But me? I, who am not consumed, not remembered, not usedāwhere do I stand? Where do I fit in a world of so much utility?
It's strange to think that a simple pencil, with its singular purpose, is more important, more memorable than I am. It can be used, marked, remembered for its strokes, while I am just a forgotten echo. I wander about, but no one notices. I speak, but no one listens. I exist, but no one cares. The pencil is consumed, utilized until it wears out, and its existence has meaning, has value. And me? I'm just another empty presence in a world that only cares about what is useful, what is consumable. What am I if I'm not useful? What am I if I'm not remembered? What am I if no one uses me? Perhaps I am nothing, the void between what exists and what disappears. And perhaps, deep inside, I know that I am just one more thing the world forgets as it moves on.
How many people have lived and died before me? How many names have been lost in the pages of history simply because no one remembers them anymore? I, for exampleāwhen I'm gone, will anyone remember my name? Will my existence be remembered, or will it be just another drop in the ocean of forgetfulness? If it is not spoken, if it is not preserved somewhere, it disappears, like a shadow fading with the nightfall. A pencil, at least, remains, being useful. It is important because it has a purpose that persists, a function that does not fade with time. But me? I am just another one in the crowd. Billions of people occupying the same space, with the same idea that they are special, but in the end, we are no more significant than any ordinary object. In the end, we are just matter occupying space until someone forgets us. Even if I am unique in my essence, my individuality will not change the fact that, without memory, I do not truly exist. So, in the grand scheme of life, I am just a point of a pencilāor something less than that. Something that can be used and discarded, leaving nothing more than a mark on paper.
Does anyone care about who created the pencil? Who is more rememberedāthe creator, or the pencil itself? The creator may have been a genius, but he is just another lost name, a name that, over time, faded away like sand slipping through fingers. The pencil, on the other hand, is still here, being used every day, being essential to millions of people, to write ideas, to create worlds, to exist. The pencil is eternal, even if its creator has disappeared into oblivion. It is more important, more remembered. No one remembers who invented the pencil, but everyone knows what it is, knows what it does, and everyone uses it at some point in their lives. Perhaps we are like the pencil's creator: we create our own stories, but we are only shadows of them, always at the mercy of forgetting. In the end, we are the creators of our own existences, but who will remember us when we are no longer here? What will endureāour utility or our memory? And perhaps the answer is clear: the pencil. It, indeed, remains.
I don't understand.
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Who am I?
"If even nothing is remembered for what it ceased to be, what am I, if not a nameless absence, lost among the things the world chose to forget?"
"I am nothing, but at the same time, I am everything, for my essence does not fit into labels, names, or expectations. I am merely the librarian of my own existence, the one who observes but never defines, the one who is everything and nothing all at once, lost between what I see and what I am."