Crucible's Mediation

There is a caveat. And I'll get to it in a moment.

First: Who are you? (This will make sense later)

The initial response is: I'm [insert name here].

I'll tell you right now, you are not your name. You never chose your name. Your name was given to you. If our identity was dictated by the name our parents chose for us at our birth you would see many many repeats of the same individuals walking around. I for one would not be an individual. I've already met another Ryan Matthew Nielson.

Names are a systematic way of keeping track of thoughts and emotions. This name corresponds to this person with whom I have shared these memories and experiences with. This name corresponds to this emotion and the sheer utterance of it is now derogatory (Hitler, anyone?). Names are used for tallying people. They are not used as an expression. You are tagged with a name so someone may say "Ryan Nielson" and immediately they know you are talking about their son/brother/neighbor/friend/home teacher/uncle/etc. Names allow people to converse about others and consolidate all of their memories into a word. Names can have multiple, multiple things attached to them, but they in no way by themselves describe you.

You are not your name.

Who are you?

Strangely, the simplest way to find out who we are, is by defining what we are not.

Are you your accomplishments? No. There are other people who have accomplished what you have done. People have won the same awards as you, people have been admitted into the same schools as you. Unless you set your own world record (dang you Phelps) odds are, whatever you have done, someone else has done at some point in time.

Besides, if you are defining yourself by what you have accomplished, how sad is that? That would mean that your worth is dictated on things you have done. That's just depression thinking that you have to earn love and respect.

I'll repeat, you are not your accomplishments. This also goes for deeds, activities, daily routines, and in general things you do. This means you are not your actions. Find another thing to define yourself as.

And, no. You are not your preferences. Don't go telling me what you like, what you don't like, your political affinities or anything like that. Again, those don't define you. If that were the case, Alex and I would essentially be the same person. I can tell you, we are two separate entities. What we are talking about here is things you are drawn to and repelled. You are describing your relationship with person/places/objects/ideologies/concepts/subjects/etc. While we are here...

You are not your relationships.

I know you that breaks a lot of hearts. But you are not your relationships. You may express yourself through your relationships. You may allow the way you present yourself to others to be altered (positively or negatively) by your relationships. But you are not your relationships. Think back to a time before you knew that person. Did you exist? I'm assuming you did. You didn't poof into existence because you became friends/married to/enemies/lost a friendship/ with someone. Believe it or not you did exist before this. That means your relationships are something that is added to your being, but it isn't your being itself.

"But my mom and dad have been my mom and dad since I was born!"

Yeah. You're right. But were they always your mom and dad? This leads into the next consideration.

Are you your body? Did you exist before you had your body? I'm saying yes. You existed before you had a body on this earth. That means you existed before you parents were your parents. In fact, if you existed before you owned a body, then that means you are in no way defined by anything in this mortal life. All the things you have encountered in this mortal life, you existed before you came in contact with them by the mere fact that you existed before this life.

There is not a single thing in the mortal realm that defines you. Your actions, your wishes, your preferences, your relationships, your desires, your wants, your dreams, none of these things define you. You existed before any of these.

I realize I could've gone straight to this and immediately eliminated everything mortal. I believe going through the arguments is relevant, though, and is helpful in the fact that it makes the realization more poignant.

So we've discarded a ton of things that you considered "yourself". You're not alone if you are pulling your hair and asking...

Who are you?