I'll be 50 in a few months. The key thing about KB's comment is that, somewhere around 40 years old, the entire system we live in becomes transparent. All the intertwining links are visible, and you can see how all these seemingly different things are actually interconnected... and wired to take advantage of how the human mind works. To jack people into doing/believing/consuming things according to their own presets and mental chemistry. So "identity solidification" is a good way to define it. But in the end, tastes don't actually change. And you find, more and more, that your hard-wired beliefs and preferences are purely the result of being manipulated early in your life. In the end, nothing is real. Even the stuff you like.
Those are dark colors you're painting with. The way you say it, there's always an entity with an agency that involves making one into something they'd find useful, and nothing you think you are is you, per se. When I met my first girlfriend, I started wondering why I came to like certain features about her. She was much shorter than me (I'm a big fella), and it seems natural that I'd find that appealing: big man protecting petite woman, isn't that one of the basics of classic masculinity? She had big hips, too, and when she walked on her high heels, they'd swing wide like a metronome. Well, that part's no mystery either. Then I started wondering about her wealth of straw-color curly hair. I've never met anyone who had that kind of hair composition, and if I did, I don't remember. So I started wondering: did I like her hair because I was predestined to, or did I like her hair because of her? You start liking certain things when they're attached to someone you like, even if you didn't appreciate them before. I still have no answer for it. Then I met this gal, and I knew redheads were my thing. I'm not to compare experience with you. I'm well-aware what a difference even a few years can make once you're past 20. I would, however, like to notice that perhaps, your darker picture only relates to state- and business-oriented affairs. "[N]othing is real" seems like an exaggeration to me. We're all affected by things we encounter. Bad things leave scars, good things leave butterflies in one's stomach upon remembering. But then, there's the genetic component that's inescapable to our personality. In other words, you're very much real because your DNA tells you so. Just because you can be influenced don't mean you can be reduced to the sum of your influences. EDIT: I just realized how antagonistic this comment sounds. "UR RONG IM RITE FU". That was not the intent. What I wanted to say is: I disagree with you based on my experience, and I think that not everything is as programmed and manipulated in a human being as you suggest.