We are told that, as humans, each one of us will spend most of his/her life getting to know who he/she is. If I have to spend most of my life getting to know who I am, then is “who I am” and “myself” one and the same?
We often forget that we are living on a rock hanging in space, that spins around itself and that has a ball of molten lava inside of it. The rock on which we live has another relatively nearby rock rotating around it. The rock on which we live along with the rock that rotates around it are themselves also rotating around a ball of explosive gases without which life on our rock would not be possible. There are other rocks that also rotate around the ball of explosive gases. The ball of explosive gases along with all of the rocks that rotate around it are traveling at a speed estimated to be anywhere between 12.5 miles per second all the way to 621 miles per second. Their travel point of departure is undefined and so is their travel destination but they have been traveling for millions of years. How about that? Within this context, and given all this uncertainty, why do humans keep making their lives on this rock miserable with wars, conflicts, and hatred, and have been doing so for thousands of years?
As the years go by, the more I know, the more I realize how much more there is to know and how much what I know is a lot less than what I don’t know.
From the moment each of one us is born we are flooded with information about who we are, for example, our gender, our nationality, our ethnic group, our cultural heritage, our socio-economic group etc.. And we are flooded with information about how those who belong to our gender, our ethnic group, our cultural heritage and our socio-economic group are supposed to think, feel and behave. As we grow up, we define ourselves by what we were told we are and by contrast with what we are not. Have you ever asked yourself: Am I who I think I am?