Watching the recent Game of Thrones episodes has made me think a bit. Potential spoilers ahead if you haven't seen last week's episode.
How much of your life is not a result of your effort, but that of others? Let's take a look at three people you may be familiar with:
- King Joffrey Baratheon (from Game of Thrones):
This pretentious little bastard lived his entire life thinking he was the son of a great king who slayed monsters and laid the hottest women alive. In his eyes, acting like Satan was almost duty, not preference or even privilege. The truth: he's the incestuous lovechild of his mother and uncle, used mainly as a pawn by his grandfather to perpetuate his family's claim to the throne.
- Neo (aka Mr. Anderson, from The Matrix):
We're all familiar with this story. Guy is bored with life and swears something is just weird about his very existence. He was right - he lived in virtual reality as his real body was probably used to power a handful of 1TB hard drives for the machine empire. Even after "awakening," his mind was shaped by Morpheus and the "free" people of Zion into thinking he was "The One." He may never have truly been special, yet his belief made him so.
- Britney Spears (Yup):
Became one of the biggest celebrities in America at age 17, and subsequently turned into nothing but a profit driver for the music industry machine. Suffering a mental breakdown in her early 20's, she would recover and live life on her terms, while keeping the invaluable media career she was blessed with as a teenager.
So how much of our lives are we truly aware of?
- People who think their athletic physique is the result of their working out, when truly it has more to do with their parent's genes
- Young (20s, early 20s) working-class urban denizens attending Occupy Wall Street rallies instead of doing internships/learning to code/working on research to land a kick-ass job
- Paris Hilton
These are all examples of people unaware or in ignorance of who they truly are or who they could be. Have you ever wondered about who you truly are?
