Identity Crisis

"I don't care about the past, I believe in the power to reinvent yourself." - Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) in Season One of Smallville.

This is one of my favorite quotes. Such strong belief in the dominance over his own own identity is initially inspiring. I look back at pictures of me in high school, or even just last year and there's a part of me that feels very detached from the girl I see. Who was she? Who is she now? Time disregarded, how much metaphysical space can be created between a previous and current individual? To what depth is this change capable of achieving? I love knowing people can, and often do, adjust their actions and disposition to become better versions of themselves. However the longer I think about this purported reformation the less I find myself having any faith in it at all. One might question, if after a considerable magnitude of development, how they can be held to the same identity as before. Is it possible for a being to undergo enough characteristic modification to become another person entirely? Is the reformed sinner truly a new man? Or has he merely been brought back to an innate setting, balancing out a natural assemblage of good and evil? To me, the practicability to an absolute recreation of the core components of personality seems impossible. I believe there are key points forming an identity that belong to a set of some irremovable primordial cluster of traits. These inborn attributes are brought to the forefront of complexion by varying factors and experiences. Whether the evolution of self is progressing in a positive or negative direction I think the action manifests by a brightened spark that can neither be added nor removed from within the individual. Is it possible for someone to reinvent himself, such as my favored quotes sates? No, I don't think so. Sorry Smallville, not this time.