all shades of friendship

I went to see To The Ones I Love by Compagnie Thor (9 males of African origin dancing modern dance to Bach's music.As simple as that;]) and I was fascinated by how inspiring can art, concerts and shows like this one be... for me, obviously.

I'm not gonna write in details about their smooth movements and TOTAL body-control (I envy them that one). I'm not gonna mention their half-naked bodies (or maybe I already did... oh well;p). I'll just mention something that I realised during this dance performance.
Something seemingly unrelated.

During the evening, to me, all 9 dancers were influencing each other. Some of them dancing the same parts at the same time, some just repeating the same amazing sequences. Some solos, but there was a lot of group interaction. The main indicator of influences in the group were their changing, colourful T-shirts. One after another, the whole scene was full of red, green, yellow, purple T-shirts...
and then I thought:

How much do other people influence us? Friendships? Relationships?
As much as one can argue that it is always our choice, that we become who WE want ourselves to be, not the person that other people would want us to be (in case of human beings capable of critical thinking, obviously...), but still, we are under great influence of people around us.
Consequently, those choices in terms of friends that we make, in terms of all the relationships around us, will actually make us who we are. It is a widely known truth that you can tell something about the person knowing who he/she is friends with. But looking at it from the other side, it's not only that choice itself that matters, but also the fact that those friends will influence taste and interests of a person in question. Might be by contradiction, might be by inspiration. Anyhow, not only who we want ourselves to be will make us who we are, but we also have to ask ourselves a question: who are the people around us?

Conclusion seems easy... choose carefully - or you may end up not being able to recognize yourself, not knowing WHO YOU ACTUALLY ARE.

And at this point I should thank all my dearest friends, because it's thanks to you that I can be who I am :)

P.S. Christmas Market at Southbank - nice. Churros con chocolate - very nice. Mulled wine - great. Good company doing all of that - priceless;)