"What Makes You...You?"

I'm writing this on the 27th, because as you read this I am probably reading Mockingjay. This post is scheduled to come out on Saturday. I hope it works.


The following is taken from my English journal. I will insert a break where the journal stops and I finish up my thoughts.
"What makes you...you?" I don't know. These questions are...difficult. What is it even asking? What/who influenced me to make me who I am today? What is unique about me? It's so vague. I am the outcome of my collective experiences, but that goes for everyone.
So what is unique about my collective experiences? Nothing. Everything I have done or has happened to me has definitely been done by someone, somewhere, before. What are unique are the combinations of events and aspects- the interactions and the reactions.
It's like a book, in that sense. Except for names and invented languages/dialects, all of the words in a book have been used before.
Only when they are combined in that order and organization do they mean something more. Only then do they become a story, or a poem.
 The Eskimos have loads of words for "snow" to describe all of the different kinds of snow. In the Inheritance Cycle, one's "true name" isn't necessarily one word. It is often a phrase, or a sentence, or even rarely an entire paragraph.
Singular things, isolated from the greater whole, usually don't matter. It's only when they're combined with others of their kind, or experiences, or, well, something that it gains meaning and importance.
I can honestly say that I alone do not matter at all. What makes me matter is my relationships with my family and friends and acquaintances. So do I not matter to myself? Oh no, I do. What makes me matter to myself is the rest of life. If I did not live, there would be no reason to do so. We don't understand why it's important/desirable to exist until we exist- until we are combined with the rest of existence.
Not only do PEOPLE tether us to the ground, as I said when talking about my evening at the beach, but EVERYTHING ties EVERYTHING ELSE together. None of it matters except when combined with something(s) else.