Memoirs of the Lost

Who am I? What am I? I know my name, who my parents are, where I was born and where I have been. But does that tell me about myself? A doctor will tell you about your body, even though it is your own and you should know it best. She can tell you about your health, what this is and that is and what it is supposed to do. She can tell you your blood type, if you’re at risk for diabetes and the like. But does that tell me who or what I am? An academic could give me a whole host of ideas. They can define me by my appearance, I am a brunette woman. They can define me by my political views, I am “on the fence”. They can define me by the books I have read, I am a philosopher. But are these not simply categories in which they toss me into? Do these words, on the fence, brunette woman philosopher really define me? Surely in this vast and ever growing world there is another that can equally if not better fit into those terms. Is individuality a fallacy in the mind? Can there really only be one “me”? It is impossible to answer that question until I have answered the others. Who am I? What am I? Some would say, I am as I was born to be. Genetics and fate have made me into the person I am and has already formulated the person I am to become.  We see this often and even tragically in the fact that the majority, if not all of us, turn into some simulation of our parents and endless generations before us. Others would say that I am collection of experiences and events and that who I am is the personification of my interpretation of these experiences. But of course that begs the question, what makes me interpret the way that I do? Who is the say these people, these philosophers and analysts have any idea as to the way in which I operate? What am I? Well, the first word that comes to my mind is “complicated”. But that word is similar to the word unique, in that if everyone is complicated or unique, the definition ceases to exist because unique and complicated become the standard as opposed to a deviation from the standard. Would it be accurate to consider one’s self so fluid? So unstable? Perhaps so. Perhaps our fluidity is the cause of our perplexity.

So what do I know? Shall I be like Socrates and claim that I know nothing as he had claimed. Shall I die accepting that fact that all I know is not known but I was as close as I could be? Will I only know myself at the moment of death? If so, then my life is nothing more than a story once told. I can only know who I am and what I am at the moment that I cease to exist. That kind of reality is tragic and I can’t believe that the world would be so cruel. Perhaps that is youthful thinking.

The mind, a personality, character and the soul are the most confounding things. We each have them. We interpret them, but what drives that which drives us? What is driving these thoughts in my mind? What drives me to write them? What drives me to type and wonder and crave the answers to questions that I can barely form. I scream out like a newborn infant, crying for some reason even when I cannot say what that reason is. It is maddening. To know that something is eschew, not be able to communicate what that something is and then not be able to remedy it all because it is unknown. What perplexes me even further is that it seems to remain undiscussed. It is never mentioned, never talked about in supermarket isles or on the streets. We define ourselves on the shallowest of levels and find it satisfactory in the social arena. Who are you? I am Bob. I am an accountant. I have 2 children and a dog and a wife and… Truly? Is that who we are? Our titles? Our roles? Our names? Names I can understand. If we are truly individuals, as I hope we are, then we must have names. We must have a way to categorize ourselves. We must be able to stand up and say “ I am me, there is only one and you may address me as such”. But what is a name without any understanding behind it? I cannot stand up and say “ I am Cate and there is only one of me and you may address me as such” because I barely know who Cate is. At the current moment, Cate is female, brunette, a student, a sister, daughter, hungry, almost 24 years of age. I cannot simply be defined by such terms.