I am the same, but I don't think it's a problem. I believe that personality is superficial, and transient in nature.
Everyone has personal preferences of course, trivial likes and dislikes, but these things are often prone to change, and none of them survive beyond death.
I think that the only part of a person's "self" which is really real, is the part that they inherit from their ancestors. The basic desires for warmth and shelter, the desire to eat and reproduce, basic things like that, all the stuff that is pre-programmed into the organism, I think that is the only real personality that a human has. And technically this organism, with its basic personality, is pretty old, you might even say immortal. We basically are our ancestors, in a sense, and underneath our individual tastes we still have the same basic primal personality that they did, kept alive through blood and genes over millions of years.
A few times I've considered the idea that this ancient human organism of ours intentionally sheds its individual human personalities upon death like a snake sheds its skin. If you were an organism which practically lives forever through reproduction, it would kind of make sense to start each new life with no memories of the previous one... Wiping the slate clean to keep yourself adaptable and prevent overspecialization, which could cause you to get stuck in your ways and make it impossible to overcome certain evolutionary challenges which require a clean mind and a fresh perspective.
I'm seriously overthinking this thread, rambling away, but yeah, I always felt the same, I don't know what anyone wants from me when they ask me to describe my personallity. I don't have one, certainly not one that is fixed and nailed down.
Edit: I suppose this ties into those other threads about generic questions. Being asked to define yourself in a few words is just another vague question which is extremely difficult to answer. I'd guess the source of the problems are related.
19 Feb 2012, 11:21 am
