Persona

I first encountered this term a few years ago when I was playing Persona 4 Golden on my P4P. It deeply resonated with me then, and although the P5 is now out, the "thoughts" I had back then still leave a lasting impression. Over the years, this concept has continued to sprout and grow within me, changing me in many ways.

Everyone has their own persona, formed by a multitude of factors, including innate genetic inheritance, upbringing, significant events, and the influence of friends. The diversity of the world leads to a diversity of personas. While there are broad categories, there are countless subcategories.

In this world, everyone is pretending. Not everyone knows their own true self. Truly understanding oneself is a form of transcendence, and for some, this transcendence happens very early, while for others, it may never happen. Many people cannot hear the cries of their hearts, cannot let go of false glory, and are accustomed to their pretense, preferring to continue living this way rather than awakening their true selves.

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As I've grown older, I've become increasingly reluctant to interact with others. I'm easily perceptive of people's thoughts, and once I notice someone behaving differently, I'm averse to trouble and not good at explaining myself or adapting to things I don't like. To avoid this "trouble," I've chosen to minimize contact. After all, the world is so big; you live your life, I live mine, we're unrelated, and it has no impact on us.

The core of P4G is about encountering and embracing all kinds of people, or rather, all kinds of personalities. In this interaction, one embraces (or rather, ignores) the differences in others, seeks out the strengths in their personalities, and thereby learns from and improves one's own abilities. Many characters in the story have a superficial "badness," but at a deeper level, they all have a relatable past that led them to begin their disguise, until they finally realize how foolish they were.

This showed me another world.

Tolerance is a simple word to say, but difficult to practice. Unlike game protagonists, we don't have as much time and opportunity. In reality, it's hard to truly understand someone, let alone help them awaken their inner self. Therefore, most of us are more accustomed to interacting with "readily available" peers.

Avoiding contact with people won't solve the problem. The right approach is to get to know more people and make more friends. Indeed, we often encounter people who are frustrating. They aren't really "bad," but rather they don't know what they're doing. We should be tolerant of those we can tolerate, and it's okay to keep our distance from those we can't. However, by increasing the number of people we meet, we can more easily find "soulmates" or like-minded people.

This makes me more willing to engage with the world and move forward with a broader mind.