The gestalt of curiosity, chemicals, and subconscious pragmatic development forges the personality. Some, including moi, would even dare to say it forges the identity.

When you grow up and decide to start reading on your own, trying new things, become influenced by new, real things and reacting to them, that is exactly it - you are building on yourself. Moreover, I believe that no matter how conventional or conventional you are to society's norms, you will always be different from another person because of that core of experience, chemicals, past/present curiosities, and the result(s) thereof. Throw Freud and Jung in all you want; familiarity does have a lot to do with shaping you in those adolescent/young adult years. Even your 20s-30s. But don't for a minute think it's one single thing that determines who you are, your persona, or perception of yourself (unless your Don Quixote; schizophrenia? But in a rather dynamic way! He didn't need WoW to roleplay!)

I started thinking of this after visiting an old high school English teacher who attended a group workshop that concerned the teaching of learning disabled (if you want another term to better understand it - cognitive-malfunctioning) children. My teacher said that with all kids, they create an adaptive kind of learning process for themselves, and then maximize it. How she put it was so spot on but it does make sense, doesn't it? We can learn all kinds of ways but our thought process can't be changed, without rigorous discipline (which is why skills trainers may have the ability to change the cognitive "flow" of learning disabled kids, with their one-on-one approach) and practice. From there, I thought of my own experiences - a horrible thing to do; one must be careful not to make inferences of others after doing so! When I was little, I chose to read some books on my own - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Tolkein, autobiographies on Adolph Hitler, Yasser Arafat, World War 2 books, even comics, etc. Those books had nothing to do with me but curiosity propelled me. Reading is only one way to help with the self-identifying process but anyway, the point (is there one?) - the mind is a wonderful thing that adapts, grows, contracts, obsesses, loves, hates, draws, repels, and disagrees with physical body. Ever look in the mirror and say, "not quite it?" It's not a vanity thing. It's an identity curiosity. And don't even think of commenting, "that's what she said", if anyone reads this