Kafka's "A Hunger Artist" presents a man who used to be popular who gets overshadowed by an animal because it is new/exotic. This is another one of the stories I encountered while in high school that has haunted me ever since. It makes me think of how it can be so easy to move onto something shiny because it catches our eye/ is different than what we have or are used to. This could be why someone cheats on their partner, or latches onto a new friend while forgetting old ones. It could even be within ourselves, how we obsess over a new song or a new fashion at the cost of losing what may be an important part of us.

I want you to think about these ideas and about a time you, or someone you know, did something like this. Why do you think you/ they chose the new over the old? Was it a positive or negative choice? What impact do you think such choices have on our identities or, on a bigger scale, what does this concept say about identity itself?