Who do people see you as? Do they put you into boxes when they wave hello to you?

Oh there’s the (student/foreigner/adult/young person) who’s really (smart/short/foreign/familiar). I hear he’s really (good/bad) at (teaching/dancing/partying/academics/creative thinking/socializing).

A side-goal of mine (kind of like the side-quests in Skyrim that don’t advance or change the main storyline but are fun anyways) is seeing how many unique boxes I can make people stumble into when they meet me or see me for the 100th time.

We’re all instinctual judgers of our surroundings, and that includes the people in it. If it’s malicious, it’s racism or classism. Ignorance, then perhaps it’s stereotyping or writing someone off too soon.

There’s a third category, though, that’s neither. When we base our judgments upon facts—she’s smart because she just recited string theory from memory or she’s dresses well because I just saw her dress—the judgment becomes truth.

There can be many truths within one image—one person—and that’s where the fun is.

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Back in second semester junior year of college, I could feel the disbelief when I told my over the phone mom that I was practicing for a dance performance.

You’re doing what?!

Where was the son with the 5th grade school uniform tucked into pants held up above the bellybutton (no, I was not a precursor to the high-waist that’s made a comeback). The kid that was for sure gonna go to Caltech and don thick professor glasses for decades? Image replaced image, the old box switched for a new one, and life returned to normal. Is it the same image that friends from high school or college or blurry summers have?

“I want to meet Korea Caleb.”

…said one friend a few years ago. That image is crazy and reckless and fun. Then there’s task manager me, studious me, senior spring me, filial me, sports me, art me, dance me, writer me. The newest version of Korea me has replaced crazy with calm, reckless with reflective, and is working on turning fun into fearless. 

All the me’s are still me. They’re just individual trees that make the “I” forest. I can’t help but smile when friends and strangers alike stick to one image: one tree. Often that’s the college degree. Back home, maybe it’s whatever hobby they can see me doing.

I like collecting new images of myself and incorporating them into the full me. But it’s a warning against pride too.

Can you see other people’s forest from their trees? Or do you find yourself staring up at someone’s towering tree of reputation in awe and looking down at a single sapling of insecurity?