Who are you? How the heck do you answer that?

[Treks]

Just as often, people are afraid to admit their strengths and successes.

Not knowing 'who you are' does not mean you lie to other people. It does not mean you refuse to know yourself because you won't face your own inadequacies. Those are the top layers of self-awareness.

For myself, and I daresay our friend Wu Wei (who can correct me if I'm wrong), we are looking for the deeper meaning of ourselves, what our passions are, and how to really identify with ourselves and life with a deep-seated purpose rooted in self-knowledge.

 

[Poisonshady313]

Evey Hammond: Who are you?

V: Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.

Evey Hammond: Well I can see that.

V: Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

Trying to answer the question "Who are you?" and I am finding out it is rather hard to answer. So far all of my answers seem to be answering the question "What are you?"

Anyone been here before? Anyone have any suggestions? any one actually care?

The question to ask is, who are you as being the owner of your decisions?

With a decision you have 1 the available options, 2 the actual decision of making one of the options the present, 3 the result and consequences of the decisions, and 4 the agency. "Agency" is what makes a decision turn out the way it does. So if you can go left or right, choose right, then agency is what took care of it that the decision turned out right in stead of left.

What the agency of a decision is, is a matter of opinion, the rest are all matters of fact.

With facts evidence forces to a conclusion, resulting in a model of what is evidenced. For example the moon, and a book about the moon, containing facts in the form of words, pictures and mathematics. The book about the moon is basically a 1 to 1 copy of the moon to another form.

To form opinions you need to choose about what it is that chooses. For example the opinion, "the painting is beautiful". The conclusion is arrived at by choosing between options like ugly, beautiful, all of which options would be logically valid if chosen. The word "beautiful" is in reference to a love for the way the painting looks, so that is how the opinion is about what it is that chooses. Love is agency of a decision.

So to answer the question about who you are as being the owner of your decisions, you need to look at the facts of what decisions you make in life, and then make opinion on what the agency of the decision is.

 

[Aiviu]

Trying to answer the question "Who are you?" and I am finding out it is rather hard to answer. So far all of my answers seem to be answering the question "What are you?"

Anyone been here before? Anyone have any suggestions? any one actually care?

Hi there,
Be a friend and you'll find out. ... Oh, and bring a game with you we will be bored by talking all about me... *grin*... No, serious i dont get your question right. For you, i am just an unknown surface. And i'll have to notice you that your water is deep enough for you to get to know. And if you figured it out you know who i am and yet i am just the mirror your finger tips onto. And then i repeat myself .... be a friend to get to know who i am... See! i dont get you question right i guess. ...

ayvyu

 

[McBell]

Trying to answer the question "Who are you?" and I am finding out it is rather hard to answer. So far all of my answers seem to be answering the question "What are you?"

Anyone been here before? Anyone have any suggestions? any one actually care?

I am me.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

This is what you ask yourself in Advaita Vedanta meditation: Who am I?

So have you come up with an answer?

 

[Wirey]

I am me.

I, also, am I. If you don't know me, no explanation is possible. If you do, no explanation is necessary.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I'm Kilgore Trout.

The rest is details.

 

[Jainarayan]

Who am I? It's not that complicated.

1. A fat guy who lifts weights.
2. Someone with a twisted and off-beat sense of humor
3. Someone who would put himself in harm's way for someone (or something) else.
4. Someone whose dream job is to help others, e.g. being a cop.
5. Someone who tries not to take himself too seriously.
6. Someone who spent a few years in therapy to discover items 1 - 5.

That's pretty much it.

 

[Wu Wei]

I have been reading this thread and I have been thinking about this a lot and I came across this..

Number 1 regret of the dying; "I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

aka "Be like Frank Sinatra, and do it your way….. "

But how does one have the courage to live a life true to themselves, and not the life others expected of them? For that matter what exactly does “A life true to oneself” mean?

I do believe that knowing who you are and living a life true to yourself has a lot to do with self-confidence, or belief in yourself.

I also think, as has already been posted, that knowing what you are will help you understand who you are. However I do not feel who and what are the same; ex. Who did it? What did he/she do? those just do not seem the same to me.

I have also discovered that I tend to identify myself by my failures, and by self-confidence is rather low at the moment too....which is not a good thing

I also had a thought that would I be better off looking for why I lack confidence in myself or why I am currently defining myself by my failure. Would it be better to think deeply about that? Or would the answer to the question “Who am I” give me that. Or should I figure out what the Buddhists mean by “just be”.

 

[Whiterain]

I'm not socially inept.

I am a psychopath. That works and is a wholesome laugh you can both share.

 

[Nakosis]

Trying to answer the question "Who are you?" and I am finding out it is rather hard to answer. So far all of my answers seem to be answering the question "What are you?"

Anyone been here before? Anyone have any suggestions? any one actually care?

I show my drivers license. I don't know it really answers anything, but it usually stops people from any further inquiry.

I think self is an illusion anyway. Who I am is just circumstantial. If you take all of the circumstantial stuff away, what's left?

So you play whatever part you are capable of, like an actor in a play. Thinking like that I become less attached to any particular aspect of being some who. Gives me a little more options in choosing who I want to play at being.

 

[Nakosis]

I have also discovered that I tend to identify myself by my failures, and by self-confidence is rather low at the moment too....which is not a good thing

I like failure. Gives me an opportunity to learn something. Everybody fails at some point. I think it is more important what you can take away(learn) from that failure. You can do it better next time.

I also had a thought that would I be better off looking for why I lack confidence in myself or why I am currently defining myself by my failure. Would it be better to think deeply about that? Or would the answer to the question “Who am I” give me that. Or should I figure out what the Buddhists mean by “just be”.

As I see it, there's nothing wrong with who you are. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change it either. Basically there's nothing wrong. Being you is just an experience. There's no right or wrong to the experience. Do what you want, see what happens. Then do something else.

You are you, you can't fail at that. You can't be someone who you are not. So what are you failing at, being someone you are not?

 

[Wu Wei]

I like failure. Gives me an opportunity to learn something. Everybody fails at some point. I think it is more important what you can take away(learn) from that failure. You can do it better next time.



As I see it, there's nothing wrong with who you are. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change it either. Basically there's nothing wrong. Being you is just an experience. There's no right or wrong to the experience. Do what you want, see what happens. Then do something else.

You are you, you can't fail at that. You can't be someone who you are not. So what are you failing at, being someone you are not?

Failure is fine and it is how we learn, I have nothing against it, but defining one self by their failures is not, IMHO, a good thing.

And I do see how one can deny self, I do not believe it is possible. But I do see it as a problem to see our self as separate from who or what we are

 

[Nakosis]

And I do see how one can deny self, I do not believe it is possible. But I do see it as a problem to see our self as separate from who or what we are

Back to the question that is hard to answer.
I see myself as separate from my name, my desires, my thoughts. Maybe this seems strange to you but when I when I think about something I ask who is it that is doing the thinking.

I don't really have an answer. I can't define it with any certainty. So I usually turn to non-dualist religious ideology.