Twins and the Question of Individual Existence

A Story by Nyu

Me and My Twins: The Meaning of Existence

Imagining the situation of having a twin that I am separated from for years, meeting them again would be an interesting experience that would make me think about what it means to exist. It would be strange to meet a twin someone who looks just like myself for the first time in years. After spending years apart in different environments and being raised differently, it would basically be meeting a stranger who looks exactly like myself. As strange and unfamiliar the twin would be, there would be a connection of looks and of being brought into the world together.

Being a twin must be strange because people would confuse me for my twin. Because of this similarity, I might feel like the way I look is not as individual as it used to be before I knew about my twin. It might make me sad to be mistaken for and confused with someone else. Yet I would find it interesting to be similar physically to my twin. Upon meeting my twin, I would want to talk and get to know them and see if we connected on a psychological level as well. I wonder if I would instantly become close to this person and would hope that we would get along and be able to love one another as siblings even after being separated for years.

If the twin still had the same likes and dislikes and was overall pretty similar in personality, it would be interesting to find out how they were changed by living in a different place than me. I would find myself comparing myself to them and relating to them instantly. It would be nice to feel like I can be truly understood. It would be interesting to know someone almost as well as I know myself and for them to be able to understand me in the same way. It might feel as if my mind was reincarnated outside of my body and that I can now have a relationship with it outside of myself. This twin might also feel the same way about me and feel understood. However if we were exactly alike it might cause some problems. This is because we may not feel the same power of being an individual anymore: our individuality would be compromised.

The twin would act as a mirror, which is hard to face sometimes. I would be able to see the parts of myself that I liked and did not like. I think I would also have a weird relationship with myself, thinking that almost another version of me exists. I like the idea of being a unique person and would not let that be taken away from me. I would treat the twin as their own person and would love them as my sibling. Because of being raised differently however, I would imagine that although we have similar traits, we would also have differences. I would have much to learn from my twin and we would be shaped differently from having individual pasts.

Meeting someone who was like another me would give me a chance to discover who and

what I really am. Though I would not see this person as myself, I would observe our similarities. I would be given a different perspective by seeing what we had in common outside of myself. I would not be the same as my twin, but we would be very similar people. I would hope that people would respect us as separate people. The fact that we look similar might make me question my own identity, and I would want to keep this identity together.

Because me and my twin grew up separately, our relationship would be as separate people as well. I would not treat my twin as my other half or develop a reliant relationship with them. Having a twin would change my life, and I think it would challenge me while also teaching me things about myself. Existing is a special gift and being alive can be defined in many different ways. I myself have always seen life as an opportunity, while being alive in itself is an action of growing and moving. Our past does shape us, but who we truly are is different in each moment. We are always our present and conscious self. I think that because of living in this, meeting with a twin so similar, we might feel like we share an existence at certain moments. This duo-existence must feel extraordinary.

What is existence? It is a question that has no right answer. Existence is relative to what life means to each person who wonders about this question. I believe that existence is the energy that gives us possibilities to live and do things that are meaningful to us and benefit others. We are made of energy and have the potential to be truly alive and be happy about this existence because it is a miracle. Being alive is simply the ability to exist.

© 2016 Nyu

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Reviews

Author Gus

The formatting of this flew me back to my high school days where each paragraph kind of wrapped its own little subplot up in a neat little box. That's not a bad thing, but I think there are better ways of displaying it. Perhaps doing bullet points or creating a list rather than the traditional essay format.
I did enjoy it however and certainly encourage you to continue writing outside of your norm, this is a unique piece in your list, I didn't see anything really similar to it. That is fitting as a large portion of this is the desire to be one of a kind!