Who am "I"?
My modest search for meaning.
November 2019 is a milestone month in my life. It’s one of those extreme makeover periods where there's a stark difference between my version that walked in and the one that stepped out.
Around April that year, I decided to abruptly upend my budding content marketing career in SaaS and pivot in a radically new direction. From level 5 in Content Marketing, I shifted to level 0 in Interaction Design.
Once I took that call, everything seemed to fall in place on its own. Within a few days of research, I discovered a college and course that felt like a dream-come-true—an industry-renowned institute, a hearteningly diverse and well-rounded faculty, an inter-disciplinary course structure, situated in one of the best design hubs in the world, Copenhagen. Dream-come-true, indeed.
I gave my all in the application process. A couple of months later, I got called for an interview. A few months after that, I received my admission email. My family got on board, without hesitation. The funds came through as well.
Like dominos, one event seamlessly led to the next, and in no time, I was back at my hometown, unemployed, uprooted from the support system I'd lovingly built over the years, and broken away from all potential romantic interests.
Level 0 - professionally, personally, and socially.
It felt surreal; I couldn’t wrap my head around how something that transpired in a span of seven months had yanked me out of my 5-year long comfort zone.
I was nervous about the change. But I was prepared for it.
What I wasn’t prepared for, was the final (unexpected) domino waiting to be knocked over.
November 20, 2019. A month away from my move to Denmark.
Around 10 am, I opened my sleep-stained eyes and clicked on the first notification on my phone, and just like that my anticipated future collapsed. All of it. In one swift, sharp, stabbing swipe.
In a grim, grey tone, the college had written to me that they had cancelled the course, for the entire batch, because of some unforeseen Visa issues with the Danish government. In 3 paragraphs and 300 words, they’d managed to turn my 7-month dream to dust.
My level 0 assumed a whole new dimension and meaning.
I felt like a Sims character, walking around with a big read question mark hovering over my head.
Who am I anymore?
What is my identity?
Where do I anchor myself?
I didn’t have a career. I didn’t have my people. I didn’t have a partner. I didn’t have a place to call my own. I didn’t have any of those tags that had defined me up until then.
I hurled myself into the best source of solace I knew - the wise and their words (apart from tarot readings, of course).
“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
Alright. What is me, then?
Upon further digging, I found two steps to get to the answer.
1 - Take back your locus of control
Your real identity is not derived from your external labels. The way your parents introduce you to the guest. The words scribbled on your fractured arm cast. The buzzwords and jargons on your resume. The comments on your Instagram photo. The claps on your LinkedIn post. No.
Your real identity is created, within, by yourself.
Whenever you look in the mirror.
Whenever you’re lying awake at night alone with your thoughts.
Whenever a stranger puts forth a version of “Who are you?”, and your mouth utters a perfectly rehearsed string of sentences, while your mind whispers a different answer within.
The conflict and confusion between these two versions of identity is the root cause of our crisis.
We often tie our identities to Résumé virtues and keep chasing after them, while we need to be focussing on our Eulogy virtues instead. In his book “The Road to Character,” David Brooks groups virtues into these two categories. Résumé virtues are professional attributes that you bring to the marketplace and build a successful career on - a degree from an XX university followed by an XY position in a YZ company where you achieved ZZ results - you get the drift. These virtues, by default, require comparison with others.
Eulogy virtues are the words uttered at your funeral. About how kind, courageous, brave, or honest you were. How your eyes sparkled with your inner light. How your hugs warmed the coldest hearts. How deeply you loved and how gently you lived. These virtues need no comparison. And unlike their counterparts, they are the true indicators of a meaningful and fulfilled life.
Define yourself with résumé virtues, you separate yourself from the deepest meanings of life and set yourself up for the external and eternal rat-ace. Define yourself with eulogy virtues, you sign up for a journey of building a mindful, authentic, and rich inner life that will flow into your outer world as well. (Further listening: Subroto Bagchi on how overachievers are their own best friends as well as worst enemies.)
I noticed that résumé virtues are individualistic and eulogy virtues are centred on the goodness you bring to the collective. And that aspect fascinated me and made me dive deeper - who am I, in the grand scheme of things? Which led me to the second step.
2 - Internalise the interconnectedness
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”
~ Carl Sagan
Alan Watts points out that the reason behind our widespread loneliness and existential dread stems from our illusion of having an independent ego - the notion that we are separate from the world around us.
He beautifully explains how we don't come into the world, but rather we come out of it, like leaves from a tree and waves from an ocean. There's no "I" and separateness. In the big picture, we don't just belong to the rest of the universe. There’s no “rest” here - we are the universe.
You can’t define light without darkness. There's no on without off or up without down. There's no foreground without a background. Going by that logic, "I" am but one half of a whole. And as soon as I absorb this truth, the anxious urge to label and set myself apart becomes absurd.
“Once you have seen this you can return to the world of practical affairs with a new spirit. You have seen that the universe is at root a magical illusion and a fabulous game, and that there is no separate ‘you’ to get something out of it, as if life were a bank to be robbed. The only real ‘you’ is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For ‘you’ is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new.
You do not ask what is the value, or what is the use, of this feeling. Of what use is the universe? What is the practical application of a million galaxies?”
~ Alan Watts
As of writing this post, this is my answer to the question in question (subject to evolution, as always):
I am a medium for all my thoughts, feelings, and ideas to materialise in the living world. I am life. I am light. I am love. I’m a brilliant bundle of stardust having a finite adventure here on this pale blue dot, before I go back to where I came from.
And so are you.
