On the way home from work, I passed a bakery that had appeared repeatedly in my social media feeds. I had never tasted its famous pastries, yet I already knew how the cream would spill out when one was cut in half and which angles would make the best photograph.

I nearly joined the queue. Then a question stopped me: Did I actually want the pastry, or did I want to become someone who had tried it?

A first paycheck delivers more than purchasing power. It allows young workers to decide what to wear, where to go and what kind of life to build. Yet that freedom arrives at a moment when many remain unsure of how an employed adult is supposed to live. The search for guidance starts innocently — office clothes, appropriate bags, savings plans, after-work routines. Before long, information turns into a template for identity.

Sociologist Erving Goffman, in his 1959 book "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life," described everyday interaction as a performance in which people manage the impressions they make. Social media did not invent that performance. What it did was enlarge the stage, multiply the audience and turn self-presentation into a continuous activity. Psychologists had observed even earlier that people evaluate themselves by comparing with others — Leon Festinger's social comparison theory dates to 1954 — but feeds built on engagement give that comparison an endless, curated supply of material.

An old Korean folktale offers an unsettling metaphor for this dynamic. In the story, a rat eats a person's discarded fingernail and toenail clippings, assumes that person's appearance and takes the owner's place at home. Eventually, the family trusts the impostor more than the original.

The rat never consumes a whole person. It begins with fragments.

Social media serves up similar fragments: a colleague's lunch, a stranger's workout, a spotless desk, a weekend trip, a book placed beside a cup of coffee. These images need not be false. But neither are they complete lives. Spliced together, they produce an impossible model of adulthood — someone who works hard, exercises daily, invests wisely, travels often and consumes with impeccable taste.

Anthony Minghella's film "The Talented Mr. Ripley," adapted from Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel, pushes this logic to a criminal extreme. Tom Ripley studies the jazz, clothes and mannerisms of the wealthy Dickie Greenleaf. At first, Tom likes what Dickie likes. Then he wants Dickie's life. Finally, he wants Dickie's very identity.

Ordinary consumption is not murder or identity theft. Still, Ripley exposes a familiar movement of desire. We admire a pair of running shoes, then envy the person who runs every morning. We see a travel photograph, then want to become someone who travels. The object stays the same; what changes is the destination of desire.

Borrowed tastes are not necessarily fake. A friend's music can become a lifelong favorite. Exercise begun for the sake of appearances can grow into genuine pleasure. The more useful question is not where a preference originated, but what now controls the next choice.

At first, our tastes describe us. In time, the version of ourselves assembled through purchases and posts may begin selecting our tastes for us.

The pastry may well be delicious. Discovering it online would not make that pleasure false. But occasionally choosing something that does not fit our established image may be a necessary form of freedom.

We are not only the person our choices have already described. We are also the person who has not yet decided what to love.

The author, Park Myung-kwan, is a professional educator in Seoul who examines the intersection of humanities and modern education. This essay was published by The Korea Times.

Source: The Korea Times