"But look at me, I got away"

To be honest, I was also intrigued by the sentence that "The problem was that in order to be the person I thought I wanted to be, I believed I had to seal myself off from you, construct a wall between us", but for a different reason.  I have to admit that I understand from his point of view and I agreed with his choice of putting up the wall. 

I try to comprehend his choice by thinking about the completely different growth paths and growing gap between that author and his brother when their lives finally intersect again even if that’s not their intention. Many years ago, the author had made up his mind that he wanted to leave his community and be successful one day. At that point, to be able to get out meant that author had to go against everything around him which was viewed as poor and lower-classed by popular culture.

However, it’s really possible to complete segregate yourself from where you are from? I don’t think so. Therefore, some people decide to go to the extreme to get rid of the undesired part in them. I had ambivalent feeling about this choice though. I understand that people are frustrated about where they are coming from and I do to want to change something in background if possible too. On the other hand, I think since race, class, community and family are things we can’t decide. You have to teach yourself to talk through to admit and accept such unfairness and born disparities in various perspectives. There is no such a thing called fairness.( At least in my opinion) Poepl are born equal but differnt.

Throughout his growth, the author tried so hard to build the shell all the time to hide all the vulnerabilities and uncertainties he has in order to be the successful one. I believe that he knew that he the shell is not his real self to some extent. But if to put on the fake mask is the price to succeed, he was willing to do so with all his efforts. At the same time, he was too focused to accomplish his dream and ignored those moemnet of awakendings.However, he has been wear the mask for so long, even he got confused about which one is the real self to the one he wished to be.

He did succeed in distinguish himself from the rest of the community. Now he is going back to his community which he spends the whole life and all his effort to refuse. I think that he is not ready to put the guard down and not ready to be honest to the environment and himself. However, if the wall is the only way they can communicate or just in the same room. I think I will accept that of course as an outsider. After all, the problems cannot the settled shortly after all those years. The wall has been built and be there for many years and it will take time to take it down as well. Or at the end, people realized and decide that the wall is still  necessary for them to hold on to.

People made their deciesion whether to build the wall or destroy it at the end. I feel that as an outsider, I don't have authority to judge the motivationa or ratioanle behind them becasue we will never fully comprehend the situations that they are going through.

There are occasions in my life, I just feel I need the walls, shells or the masks to just get over them. And, I decide to keep some of those self-protection tools just in case.

(I think I get lost my original point and I am trying to defend it. All these sentences are just thoughts and I don’t think they can form an argument now. )