who are you?

I was thinking recently along the lines of identity and perspective and how our perspective on who we are is often completely different to how other people see us. People say that you know yourself better than anyone else, but really - how true is that? And on what occasion do you become who you REALLY are?

I've been watching Big Brother these last couple weeks (I know, it's a load of rubbish really) and it got me thinking. After you've been evicted and then in front of Julie Chen, she asks, "So how do you feel right now?". Almost everyone seems to say something along the lines of:

"You know it's crazy in there, you're shut off from the world and you have no idea what's happening on the outside. Spending so much time cut off from reality, you become this really weird person. I'm sure I'll spend the next few months thinking - did I really say that? Woah, I'm so not that person at all."

I think it's pretty interesting, since the entire premise of Big Brother is putting complete strangers into a closed environment with the sole objective that at the end of 3 months, only one person will emerge from the house to win the $500,000 prize money. Which means that every move you make, every word, every conversation, every interaction with someone in the "house" is in essence a projected identity following a strategy to influence, coerce, persuade people to keep you in the house... Is that how the real world is - do we do what we do, or act the way we act so we can succeed? Is Big Brother merely a microcosm for reality? Is Steemit a fitting analogy for this hustle and tussle?

What I love about the show is when someone finds out they're "on the block" - no pun intended, which means that for that particular week they've been nominated for eviction. I think it's in those times (and even more so in real life) when your life is on the line that you become who you really are. Humans seems to possess this animalistic talent for survival. But we've perfected it to an artform. Gone are the days where a blunt stone to the head in a dark corner of the cave was the easiest solution to a conflict. Now we have a plethora of psychological strategies to convince people we aren't really what we seem. It's amazing what people will do to survive - or even how the stress of knowing you could be evicted affects you. But what's common among everyone is that survival instinct, it's using what you have available to you to ensure that you can go on, no matter what the cost.

When it comes down to the wire - who will we become? what would you do to survive?

I tend to see a lot of this in Asia - as "civilised" as things are here, there's an almost feral feeling to walking out and about. The jostling, the innate inability to respect other's personal space, the undignified sprint to the open MTR doors. There seems to be this "survival mentality" pervasive through Hong Kong life. What is that?

Is it the population? Is it super-competitive here? Is it a cultural thing?