Can a person be truly separate from social conditioning?

Meaning, are we only creatures of the social world we live in? Do we truly have independent thought, or do the social circumstances we live in (and can never separate ourselves from) inform every aspect of who we are?

It is taking the question of nature and nurture a bit further, to question whether or not every aspects of ourselves are but constructs made up of the things around us. We cannot live separate from society. Even when we attempt to do so, it is usually in reaction to society. I am thinking of the book Into the Wild that was turned into a movie. Eddie Vedder put together the soundtrack and in one of the tracts, he sings:

“There’s those thinking, more or less, less is more
But if less is more, how you keeping score?”

How are we keeping score? Indeed. Because our existence is only in relation to those existing around us.

Or is it?

It’s like a Zen Buddhist Koan.

There is no answer. Just thought.

This is my thought today.