{day 15::30} uniquely me

All my life I had been looking for something, 

and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was.  

I accepted their answers too, 

though they were often in contradiction 

and even self-contradictory.  

I was naive   

I was looking for myself 

and asking everyone except myself questions 

which I, and only I, could answer.  

It took me a long time 

and much painful boomeranging of my expectations 

to achieve a realization

everyone else appears to have been born with...

that I am nobody but myself.  

~Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"