WHO AM I, YOU ASK?

When I ask myself who am I, the answer I get is transition. We are never in the same state. We will always change, evolve, grow. This much is clear: discovering who you are is a never-ending journey. I get totally different answer each time I analyse. I am in the flow of my life - in the flow of becoming. I am a W.I.P: work in process / progress... :)

The “answer” to “who am I” is our identity. Our identity is our all-encompassing system of memories, experiences, feelings, thoughts, relationships, and values that define who each of us is. It’s the "stuff" that makes up a “self”. Once we have understood the components of our identity, we can get a big-picture look at who we really are.

When the question "Who am I?" overwhelm me, I find myself inspired by these quotes: 

“We have, each of us, a life-story, an inner narrative — whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives. It might be said that each of us constructs and lives, a “narrative,” and that this narrative is us, our identities. If we wish to know about a man, we ask “what is his story — his real, inmost story?” — for each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us — through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives — we are each of us unique.” ― Oliver Sacks; 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat'.

"Who am I, you ask? I am made from all the people I’ve encountered and all the things I have experienced. Inside, I hold the laughter of my friends, the arguments with my parents, the chattering of young children, the warmth of kind strangers and the bright night time stars. Inside, there are stitching from cracked hearts, bitter words from heated arguments, music that gets me through and emotions I cannot convey. I am made from all these people, these moments and the universe. That is who I am". ― Ming D. Liu; 'Who Am I, You Ask?' from 'The Letters You Left Behind'.

“I am still so naïve; I know pretty much what I like and dislike; but please, don’t ask me who I am. A passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?” ― Sylvia Plath; 'The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath'.

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.”  ― Sylvia Plath; 'The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath'.

“I, myself, am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” ― Augusten Burroughs; 'Magical Thinking: True Stories'.

“I am I and my circumstance; and, if I do not save it, I do not save myself.” ― José Ortega y Gasset; 'Meditations on Quixote'.

To paraphrase Ortega y Gasset: I am I and my circumstances; and all my contradictions...

"In some way my travels around the world, my whole life have had that same character. With or without glasses I have never reached but glimpses, approaches, babbling in search of meaning in the thin area that stretches between light and darkness. I have dreamed of a traveler on that fantastic ship of fools painted by Memling, which I once contemplated in amazement in the naval museum in Gdansk. What is one and what is the universe? What is one in the universe? they leave one astonished, and to which one is used to answering with jokes in order not to make a fool of himself. (...) One, I venture, is the books he has read, the painting he has seen, the music heard and forgotten, the streets traveled. One is his childhood, his family, a few friends, some loves, quite a few annoyances. One is a sum diminished by infinite subtractions. One is made up of different times, hobbies and creeds. At the moment I write these pages I can divide my life into a long, tasty and g regaria, and another, the most recent, in which loneliness seems to me a gift from the gods. (...) On certain occasions, after seeing Beckmann's paintings, I have been tempted to incorporate into my stories situations and characters whose mere proximity could be considered a scandal; to establish in a rapture of bravery the necessary threads to set in motion all kinds of incompatible incidents until forming a plot with them. Dreaming of writing a novel full of contradictions, most of them only apparent; create from time to time areas of gloom, deep fissures, abysmal cavities. " ― Sergio Pitol; 'El Arte De La Fuga'.

“The question, ‘who am I?’ is not really meant to get an answer, the question ‘who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner.” ― Ramana Maharshi.

"I am what I am

And what I am needs no excuses

Life's not worth a damn till you can shout out

I am what I am. [...] Yes, I am".  ― Gloria Gaynor; 'I am what I am' ♪ ♫ ♪