#weird rant

Wolf's personality isn’t merely enticing, but also profoundly admirable. And here, I'm not talking about his “nonchalant” personality, rather I'm more fascinated by how he lived his life in general.

We recognize the fact that he's more drawn to the given present moment, rather than fixated on the potential of the future as he can't bring himself to care about the consequences of his actions in the upcoming times. Doing what he wants is the main goal in his head. Though I’m aware that he probably doesn't have a clear distinction between wants and needs. The things he wants to do become something he needs to execute. This is perhaps why he's framed as a “mad dog” since he never hesitates on handing out a punch.

This type of trait strongly hooks my interest, because of the unattainable nature, almost impossible to embody in the real world.

Society has constructed a system in which our actions shape how we are perceived as individuals. However, identity is not merely passive, it’s also active, as we often unconsciously adjust our behavior to align with others’ perceptions of who we are supposed to be. In the end, it becomes a continuous loop of identity formation.

This sort of system forces us to be aware of our actions and sometimes we can’t help but feel a little performative since we are always weighing what other people would perceive us if we chose to do something. It makes us not only the one who is actively doing the things, but also an observer of our own doings.

I’ll bring myself as an example here. At my school, we have quite a strict rule regarding phone bringing, in which we have to print out a form and fill it before asking our parents to sign it, marking that the parents are aware we are bringing phones to school. You must have the significant urgency to have your form approved. If they deem your reasoning as not so important, then they wouldn't accept your form. Though, a lot of people bring phones to school even though they didn't fill the form.

But for me, since I am aware that I am perceived as a good kid by my teacher, I decided to just not bring my phone to school. Instead, I bring my book to read whenever I have to wait for my bus.

So? What's the issue?

I just feel performative. It feels like I'm performing the acting of a good kid that the teachers want to see. And I think this is because at that moment I'm not merely reading, but also observing the condition that I'm reading. It shows I'm not fully living in the present moment. I try to appear as “nonchalant” while reading my book, but inside I’m anxious whenever someone walks past me, because deep down, I care, perhaps too much, about how people see me whenever I read my book, considering most of the students in my school prefer to stick their eyes to their phones.

I feel performative by acting like I'm not trying to be different from others. Well, I'm not trying to be, but I hope you get what I mean. And please keep in mind that I actually like my book and enjoy myself a little reading, hence it also makes me confused why I feel this way. Might be because the perception of me being a good kid by others that unconsciously put me in a position to oblige the expectations.

Essentially, I often overthink people's judgement of me.

And seeing Wolf’s way of living his life sparked my genuine interest. I love his careless sentiment since it reveals that Wolf is really living for himself and doesn't care what people have to say about him.

He completely owns up his loss and isn't reluctant to acknowledge someone's victory. (When he was fighting with Gray, he said that he despised Gray’s dirty tricks, though at the end, we can assume Wolf granted that Gray has the ability to take him down, because there’s no desperate attempt to reclaim pride, no insistence on a rematch to reassert dominance).

Perhaps that’s what sets him apart. He doesn’t seem tethered to the usual systems that govern how people present themselves. Most people, consciously or not, adjust their behavior to fit into a narrative others can recognize. Reputation usually becomes something to maintain, but obviously he doesn’t operate like that. The idea of living up to others’ expectations of him as a “scary delinquent” doesn’t appear to concern him, not because he’s trying to reject it, but because he simply doesn’t care enough to engage with it at all.

There’s no visible effort to reinforce a persona for the sake of consistency. His actions aren’t guided by how they might be perceived or interpreted, they just are. In that sense, he feels strangely detached from the loop most people are caught in, where identity is constantly shaped and reshaped through external validation.

And that makes his actions feel real, like they’re genuinely rooted in something internal. What makes it even more compelling, though, is how unattainable that way of being feels. It almost seems incompatible with how most people function. We’re so used to moving within that loop, shaping ourselves in response to how we’re seen, even when we don’t realize it.

His detachment from that system isn’t something you can easily 'replicate', because it requires a kind of indifference most people can’t sustain. And maybe that’s where the admiration comes from.

After everything above, it’s worth clarifying that “acting in accordance with how you want to be perceived” isn’t necessarily wrong or bad. If anything, it’s a pretty fundamental part of being human. Our sense of self is constantly shaped, adjusted, and reinforced through interaction, expectation, and pressure. So that loop, where perception influences behavior, and behavior reinforces perception isn’t odd at all. Most of the time, it could actually somewhat be a great thing and beneficial.

And I’m not suggesting that Wolf exists completely outside of it either, that would make him less human. Like anyone else, his actions don’t appear from nothing, something precedes them and triggers a response. Social context still exists around him, whether he acknowledges it or not, but what stands out is the nature of his reaction to it.

Where most people instinctively adjust in subtle ways to align with how they’re seen, he doesn’t seem to engage in that negotiation. There’s a kind of immediacy in how he responds, as if the space between stimulus and action hasn’t been filtered through the usual considerations of expectation.

…

I really want to act without immediately reflecting on how it looks, how it’s perceived, or what it says about me. There’s something almost freeing about the idea of “just doing what you want”, instead of being split apart by self-awareness. Though, for me, if we're talking realistically, this world isn't designed for us to just do whatever we want. Thus, I suppose Wolf is in some way living my idealized life.

I admire, even feeling envy, how he lives his life.

Note : I sincerely apologize for not being so active, I just really have a lot of things to do. It genuinely surprised me when I found out that I still have school projects even after the final exams.. (⁠༎ຶ⁠ ⁠෴⁠ ⁠༎ຶ⁠)

A few snaps of it.. (ugh.. that butterfly really rips my soul out of my body..(⁠*⁠﹏⁠*⁠;⁠) )

And this post was meant to be just my thoughts. I know I'm not really great at getting my point across, I feel like the things are just circling around, probably because I'm mixing up a fictional world and the real world so that's why sometimes it doesn't feel connected.

Basically in a nutshell, I wanted to extract Wolf's character as a concept (if that makes sense) and see if it can be applied in our real life world. Turns out, it's not very applicable since it's really going in the opposite direction of what we are used to. Though, nonetheless, his character is still charming, and the fact it is unattainable in the real world, makes it more alluring, even making me feel envy on how Wolf can live that way. (⁠•⁠ ⁠▽⁠ ⁠•⁠;⁠) (I don't know if that could clear up the confusion but yeah..)

Have a nice day! ෆ⁠╹⁠ ⁠.̮⁠ ⁠╹⁠ෆ