Layers of Humanity

"No one is born fully-formed; it is through self-experience in the world that we become what we are."

-Paulo Freire

            When a baby is born, he or she is innocent. That baby is the inner most layer of a person that will ever exist and only lasts for a short time. As the infant ages into a toddler he or she experiences small events, like getting yelled at for being too loud or being praised for listening. These experiences shape them into the person they are and will become. A child's first day at daycare or at pre-school are even bigger happenings that construct who they are and will be. There, through interactions with others he or she is silently taught what is " cool" and what is "weird". These individual events cause that person to learn to hide who they are so they can fit in. By hiding oneself inside themselves their inner most self becomes obscured. In a sense they are creating a layer to protect their self from others, these layers become a normality and eventually it is an instinct to hide a person's true opinion. Throughout a person's whole life he or she experiences the pressure of society's fabrication of what is right and what is wrong, through these imposed ideas people form their own beliefs. Once an opinion is formed he or she is a step closer to being "fully-formed" as Freire would say, but the conflict with that is our opinions are constantly changing and layers are constantly forming.