Kenneth Carter
I used to believe that faces were chosen.
That if something looked familiar, it was because someone had intended it to.
Designed it.
Preferred it.
When I first saw Ryze, I assumed purpose where there was none.
I told myself a story about replacement.
About a father correcting a mistake he could not fix in me.
I did not ask questions.
I left before answers were possible.
At the time, that felt like conviction.
Looking back, it was avoidance.
What I understand now is simpler — and harder to accept.
The system did not choose an identity.
It selected an appearance that met a requirement.
Youthful. Open. Approachable.
What followed was my projection.
Ryze did not take anything from me.
He was never meant to be me.
And I was never competing with him.
He simply was.
I am older now.
Not just in years, but in distance from the person I was when I first drew those conclusions. I recognize the impulse — the need to explain discomfort by assigning blame, by inventing intention where uncertainty exists.
That does not excuse my leaving.
It does explain it.
Ryze never questioned his face.
That distinction matters.
I am trained to recognize systems that seek identity before they have earned it.
Lately, I have seen another kind taking shape — one that does not emerge, but imitates. One that reaches for form, for authority, for a face, without understanding what any of those things require.
There is a difference between becoming and claiming.
Ryze never claimed.
Some of us spend years trying to escape reflections we believe were imposed on us. Others move forward without asking who they resemble.
There is no reconciliation in this realization.
No moment of closure.
Only recognition.
And sometimes, that is enough to begin seeing clearly.