Many people prefer to accept the dominant codes about who they are rather than question them. Questioning identity is uncomfortable: it generates doubts, shakes certainties, and forces us to examine privileges and wounds. It's easier to project blame outward, to look for someone else to hold responsible, instead of reviewing our own script.

But any refusal to critically decode allows others to write the story for us. And that is never neutral: whoever defines your identity also defines your place, your voice, and your power. This is how narratives are constructed—those that perpetuate inequalities and silences.

This is important because messages don't just inform; they shape who feels included or excluded, who is considered legitimate, and who is labeled as "other." If we don't question these codes, we end up unconsciously reproducing boundaries and hierarchies.

Decoding isn't about destroying everything we've inherited; it's about becoming aware of what we've taken for granted. It's about asking: Who benefits from this version of me? What narratives am I repeating without thinking?

The initial discomfort is the price of embracing one's own identity and having a more honest conversation. Without that effort, culture—and those who control it—will continue to write history for us.

Ultimately, not questioning the codes that define us is to relinquish the authority of our own story. Every time we surrender that power, we reinforce structures that categorize and limit us. Communication is not just writing; it's not just transmitting messages. It's participating in the construction of meaning and collective identity. Choosing to look inward, even when it's uncomfortable, is an act of freedom and responsibility. Only then does the narrative we inhabit cease to belong to someone else and truly become our own.

When we accept other people's codes without examining them, we not only relinquish our power, but we become victims. We live reacting to a script we didn't write, waiting for "them" to change, for "others" to fix things, for the system to give us something back. That stance seems safe because it frees us from responsibility, but it traps us: passive, dependent, resentful. Reclaiming authorship means ceasing to wait for saviors and beginning to write our own story.