How can you truly be yourself if everything that made you “you” is stripped away? If everything that makes a person different and unique than everybody else is taken away from them, they would have no sense of self. If words are taken away from a writer, they wouldn’t be able to do anything. If a musician gets instruments ripped from their hands, what would they do after? The things that surround us, like our family, friends, work, school, hobbies, pets, etc., define who we are as individuals. If a person close to us dies, we grieve not only for that person’s life ending, but also for that section of yourself through that person. Through each hobby, each friend, each family member, a different side of ourselves comes through. All of these sides come together to make one whole being. If one side gets erased, we will eventually heal and compensate for that lost part. However, if everything, every person, every environment, every childhood memory ever created is taken away from you, who would you be? You’d still have thoughts, have a heart beating in your chest, but your personality, your likes, your dislikes, wouldn’t even be a thing. Each part of you that you created and built to develop yourself and your being is gone. Each branch on your life’s tree would burn to the ground. And if everything you know and love is gone, are you even you? If the things that designed your past are history, would you even have a past to remember? Sure, you’d still be human, but you wouldn’t be a person.