ARE MY OPINIONS MY OPINIONS?

I've been going deep into introspection lately, and it cracked something open. Are my opinions actually mine? Do they belong to me? Or did I just believe something because I saw a random human saying it, because my friends were saying it, because it's what everyone around me does? Are my opinions actually mine? Do they belong to me? Or did I just believe something because I saw a random TikTok saying it, because my friends were saying it, because it's what everyone around me does? Every single thing we believe right now, we have a backup for. A website said it. A TikTok said it. Someone on WhatsApp forwarded it. A website says pink is better than green, and suddenly people think pink is superior, and their entire backing is a random website. I could make up a fact right now, post it somewhere, and someone would build a whole belief on it. So where do opinions actually come from? Where do we get this information from? Where do I know things from? You think Christianity is the better religion because your mother is Christian and your father is Christian. Some of us don't even know God for ourselves. God doesn't even know you. And I'm not even trying to talk about religion specifically — I'm talking about everything. What is my opinion, actually, andwhat's just something I absorbed and never checked? Why do I think the things I think? Why do I think these things exist, or don't exist, or should exist? When I actually get into the bigger sphere of introspection — real interrogation of myself, would I still believe this? Do I actually, completely believe this? Would I stand for this if it cost me something? What do I actually believe? What do I actually care about? At the end of the day, we're just born. And I don't even know myself. Am I myself? Or am I a collage of every person I've talked to, every person I've watched, every outfit I've liked because I saw it on someone else's body and never asked if it would look that good on mine? Do I love my culture because it's mine, or because it's my father's, because of how well he practices it, because of how beautiful it looks on the internet — old documentaries of pre-colonial Igbo Land, recaps of traditions I've never lived inside of? Am I obsessed with it because of how I see it, or because of how it's been shown to me? Subscribe now I was on Pinterest making a board for outfit inspo, and I stopped and asked myself: do I actually like this outfit? Or do I like it on them? If someone with a completely different body wore the same thing, would I still like it? If someone I hated wore it, would I still think it looked good? Is it the outfit, or the person? Is it the opinion, or the person I got it from? Do I hold my opinions because an authority said them? Because someone I looked up to said them? Because I grew up hearing it, and it calcified into truth just from repetition? Do I believe things because they sound right? What are my actual opinions? Do I own them, or am I just renting space for other people's conclusions? Do I miss my ex, or do I miss being wanted the way he wanted me? Did I actually like him, or did I like the way he liked me? Do I want friends, or do I want the feeling of having friends? Do I want money, or do I want the things money gets me — and is that even a meaningful difference? WTF? What am I? Am I living, or am I just existing? What do I actually think about feminism? About the patriarchy? About religion, about morals, about masculinity? About love, and loss, and grief, and breakups, and depression, and mental health? About aliens, about earth, about astronauts? I know what I say about them. Is that the same as what I think? I was arguing with my sister earlier. She said something, I pushed back hard, we were properly arguing, I was standing on my opinion like it was bedrock. And mid-argument I realized — I saw this in a TikTok comment section. That's it. That's the whole depth of my conviction. And I know if that same conversation comes up again and I haven't caught it, I'll argue it again like it's mine. And it's not even about who's right. Fuck 'right' who decides that anyway. It's that even if my opinion is correct, did I ever actually think it through, or did I just inherit the conclusion and skip the work? Can I even coin something? Can I formulate a concept the way theories get named after people like Dalton's law, Newton's law of gravity? Can a thought just be mine, credited to no one else? Or is every single thing I'll ever think just a remix of something I already absorbed? I don't have the answer Today. But I think the answer isn't 'none of it is mine.' I think it's this: an opinion becomes mine the moment I actually interrogate it — not when it first entered my head. Newton didn't invent gravity. He noticed it, tested it, wrote it down, and it kept his name anyway. Maybe that's the whole trick. You don't get an original thought. You get an inherited one, and then you decide whether to actually own it or just keep hosting it like a guest who never leaves. So. What are my opinions, actually? You know what?, bye. Subscribe now Thanks for reading COVER GIRL🎀! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.