seeking a level

there's this tension, a sense that something around here is about to explode. bad things happening lately. people unhappy with each other and themselves. i would like to stay safe in my bed for a few weeks.

i used to be in love with taking online iq and personality tests. i was more alone than i like to remember, more alone than anyone should be. it was only a little bit my fault. a friend observed recently that we form our self-image largely around the messages that we get from people close to us. they tell us 'you are smart' or 'you are warm and loving' and with enough of these messages we come to see ourselves as this collection of adjectives. absent those kinds of messages i suppose the tests told me similar things. they allowed me to see myself as complex and emotional, even in the vacuum.

i'm trying to get at something but i don't know what it is.

i guess the thing is that seeing yourself as complex and emotional is not the same as being complex and emotional. a person is not a collection of adjectives.

but now i have boxed myself into an existential crisis.

if i am not (as i have said) what i do.
and i am not a set of descriptors (my qualities).
then what am i?

hahaha

maybe that's not really an important question because maybe you can't ever really figure out a proper definition of what you ARE.

maybe you just have to be it.

sometimes it's hard to feel steady.