Who are we?

Who are we, why are we here, what is the meaning of life? Those questions that circle around usually in our early years, but can carry on through our lives, especially if we insist on finding a meaning to it. I was somewhat terrified some years ago when one of my cousins said he was still looking for answers to such questions. My cousin, like many other people believes there is a grand design, intention, expectation, probably overseen by a God or organizing authority. That sort of perception/expectation fell out of favour with me a very long time ago, so now let me explain my reasons for that reaction I had to my cousin.

It’s hardly unusual for each of us to ask ourselves who we are especially as we go through our early years, and certainly the difficult teenage ones. I wondered, as I assume you all did of yourselves, who was I, and as I get older I still ponder on it occasionally. I do not know why I am here, other than my parents wanting a child, and for what purpose, if such a concept is meaningful. But do I really know myself, or just pretend I do? Now that is a question that does sit ever present with me. I feel I should know who I am by now but, and it is an absorbing but for me, that perception is severely challenged by what I want to see, and by that I do not just mean what I consciously want to see, but what the subconscious me is willing reveal to the conscious me. Then of course there is the selection process of me deciding what I would like to be, and that again is moderated by what I am capable of. Think of that as being me wanting to be an astronaut now but in reality being totally incapable of getting anywhere near that objective, or even passing the first question let alone the physical. Then there is of course the difference between what I think I am to what other see me as. Which is even more of an imponderable, especially to me.

So who are we when we look from the inside at ourselves? I suspect that we are all very similar although our beliefs and behaviour may seem to make us very different. Most people I meet and chat to give me the impression that they feel they have a solid core of beliefs and behaviours that is THEM. But that is just my perception of others and does not accord with how I view myself. In the past people have said to me such things as "If only I could get the chance to get back to the real me, be my true self." This description of a core self seems to lay at 'the heart' of the perception that there is an essential you, me, him, or her. But I suspect that we are all very different from that description. I suggest that we are all hollow with no basic solid core, no matter what we believe or purport to believe, and no matter how strong those beliefs are. How else for example do you explain the way that people fervently shout about the political, religious, societal, beliefs despite those beliefs being completely different or contradictory of each other.

Going back many decades now I remember hearing a few people, somewhat overwhelmed by the complexities of their lives, saying "if only I could strip away all the layers I have acquired over time, I could get back to the real me." When I heard that I looked at myself with that expectation and realised that the only me I knew was the compound of all those layers, good, bad and indifferent. If I stripped those off there would be nothing of me left. I was and am a compound of all that has happened to me, all that I have thought and done, even of all that I have now forgotten. Any stripping of any layer is a loss of a part of me, who I am.

So I hope you see why I was startled by my cousins remark as I felt sure that he was asking a question to which there is no answer, and I feared he could cause himself serious problems in such a quest.