Sum total
It's not always what happens to you. Sometimes, it is what happens to others. That's when you analyze how it impacted you or others associated with you. Sometimes you can see people truly for who they are at the most tragic turn of events. In that intense moment of agony and uncertainty, you actually gauge them. Funnily, they don't even try to hide it from you. They blatantly tell you. The cockiness of it all. The converse is also true. At that moment, you also realize who you internally are. No matter the masks you put on or try to suppress yourself in cold indifference, in that moment that matters, you become who you are. That one core self never leaves you. It rears its head, from that small gash that had never stopped bleeding and may never stop, as it is right across the place that throbs with life giving energy. When you care too much, you love too much.