The characteristics of a person’s body, the fairness of the face they wear, the sound of their voice; while some variance is possible through diet, surgery, and smoking, these physical attributes are largely outside the realm of modification, and they at least partially inform the personality of the person to whom they belong.

People run round, scrambling, trapped in a body that they wish was not theirs. They shout through a megaphone to all who will listen “Fully half of my stress stems from my outer appearance not jiving with how I feel on the inside!” It is ironic to take care of oneself (eating when hungry, sleeping when tired, etc.) if one’s greatest personal enemy is one’s own body. The logical, if twisted, resolve to this conundrum of competing interests is to declare war on the enemy, to engage in regular bouts of self-harming; a hopeless fight against DNA, launched with an arsenal of razors, eating disorders, and a myriad of potent pills.

Who we are is reflected in each interaction we have with another person. This is why someone who has had few social interactions in their life will have a personality that is comparatively less stable and more malleable than someone whose identity is regularly reaffirmed by the same group of friends. This sets the foundation for two potentially dangerous situations:

1. Isolated individuals who are ceaselessly drifting, unable to “find themselves”
2. People who, while intricately woven into a strong and frequently maintained social web, are perceived in a very different way than how they perceive themselves, so that the identity reflected back onto them is not the identity they wish to project onto others.