Who Am I?

You’re sitting in the park, waiting for your best-friend. A man carefully walks up to you, sits down beside you. With his eyes carefully resting on yours he asks, “Who are you?”

The first thing that comes to mind is your name. A Forename-Surname combination which was chosen, assigned and immortalised without your consent. “That’s who I am!” says the little voice in your head.

“Is it really?” comes the reply.

If my name really defined who I was, then how are people who share my name defined? I’m definitely not the same as Mohammed Latif of Falluja, Iraq for example. Besides, why should I be content with defining myself by a title I didn’t tailor myself? My parents gave me my name without knowing what kind of person I would be. It doesn’t matter though, if I did change my name it still doesn’t answer the question: Who am I?

So what is it that makes us unique? Each of us is unique in body. Our DNA should be a suitable definition. Everyone has a different DNA sequence that is responsible for either their big noses or their short stature. So “I am a product of my DNA” is a contender for the answer.

“Is it really?” comes the reply.

If DNA really defined who someone was, then how do identical twins answer the question? They can’t be defined as the same. DNA is also only responsible for the body, and not the soul. It’s like saying the cover of a book is more important than its contents. So I guess the answer lies somewhere with the soul.

We can’t really dwell on the soul as no-one has any ideas what it is. The answer to our question probably lies there. You can’t answer the man with just that though, so an alternative answer must be found.

Your best-friend arrives. The man turns around and asks them “Who is this person?” pointing at you. Your friend replies with ease, telling the man who you are. Apparently you are <insert name>, a friend who goes to the same university and studies the same course. You are soft-spoken but easily irritable and you like eating chocolate cake. You listen to heavy metal and when no one is looking, you play air guitar.

Upon hearing this, the man smiles at you and asks again, “Who are you?”

Why is it you have struggled to answer this question, yet your friend answered so easily? Why couldn’t you have just said the same thing and been rewarded with a smile? People talk about themselves and what they do all the time. The problem lies in objectivity. If someone asked you who you were, you wouldn’t tell them your sins or something you are ashamed of. Instead you would say you enjoy long walks on the beach and Mozart. This is something you see on internet dating websites and it rarely ends well. So that rules out you being able to describe yourself as a definition.

This can be fixed if we make the evaluation of who you are an objective and transparent operation. Just like your best-friend managed to define who you are, everyone else who knows you should be able to as well. You will receive both praise and criticism. Depending on whether you are a good or bad person, the balance will sway either way. If you know more people well you will then have a more accurate answer than if you were isolated and without community. Thus, it is actually the people around you who define who you are, not you!

What are the implications of this? Two things come out with this conclusion. The first is that your conduct in society is directly correlated to who you are. If you are a mass murderer then the general understanding of who you are will be pretty negative. The second is that without a society of some form around you, you will cease to exist. There will be no one available to define who you are. Without personal connections with fellow man, you will be a Nobody. It is like sitting on the bus, where no one knows you and considers you ‘Just another person’. On the bus, you are a nobody amongst nobodies.

Therefore it is critical that one is an active member of society, contributing positively in every possible way. After all, it is these contributions that will help shape who you are in society.

So how do you end up answering the man?

“I don’t know who I am but you may do”