in 'neon genesis evangelion,' shinji (the protagonist) is at first an outsider who uses the simple word "yes" to get him through life.  yeah, i do that too.  i don't say "no" very easily, it seems.  i become too open to criticism or future rejection amongst people i know if i were to employ the "no" fragment into my sentences.  i tend to feel guilty if i say no, most of the time:  i think it's gotten to the point where i dislike being rejected so much that i hate rejecting anyone else or their ideas.  it's easier to say yes and just put up with something for a short while than it is to say no and live with that sense of guilt for the rest of time. recalling one point in my life, i didn't care about what anyone thought or felt about me.  it is still similar, i could care less about random people's opinions concerning me as i pass them on the sidewalks.  however, i find myself hating to make less than decent first impression on anyone nowadays. when i was younger, my mother would always take me with her to her friends' houses where i would sit for hours, distraught, bored, and upset.  when you're young and dragged to a complete strangers' house where you are forced to sit for hours listening to your mother gossip or (god forbid) engage in some activity with that friends' children.  now, in my adulthood, i hate leaving my general self-described "space" to go anywhere for an extended period of time.  i wonder where that stems from. there's a quote from "blade runner" where a rapidly expiring replicant tells Deckard (replicant hunter) that his memories and experiences will, "Be lost to time like tears in the rain."  it's wonderfully touching and true, and i fear that when i die, i will just end up a corpse with no known history, family, or purpose for living.  all that will remain of robert l. stanton is a large collection of records and a few more sparse material possessions.  at an earlier point in the movie, that same replicant states, "Fear causes us to be a slave."  i fear almost everything to some degree, particularly failure and death right now.  therefore, i am a slave to everything.