If somebody asks you who you are, what would be your answer?
This has been asked of me several times in the past. And the normal tendency for me (and for everyone else, I suppose) is to state my name. Though my professor in College Philosophy back then, would not agree. When I answered his question “Who are you?” with the statement “I am Kremil.”, he pointed out the error. In the course of discussion, the professor – an ex-seminarian – stressed that I am not and cannot be Kremil. Kremil is just my name, a nomenclature and nothing more. Kremil may be my name, but I am not my name and my name is not me. If the term Kremil did not exist, will it be possible that I too would no longer exist?
The discussion seemed to me a very fascinating play of logic and semantics. Yet, my professor did not bother to answer the question for me. He ended his argument with a line which in effect conveys that if I myself do not know who I am, who else will take the trouble to know me. Certainly, it was not my professor’s business to find out.
And so life continues…
Two weeks ago, I encountered that very same question, in a similar classroom setup. The question was pondered by my Civil Law professor. He asked me who I am. Although this time, the professor had already known my name from the Student list, he still bothered to ask me the very same question. Seated at the front row and the first on deck for the usual introduction on first day class, the way the question was asked reverberated on me a different hush. I hesitantly answered that I am a law student.
“Is that all? Who cares if you are a law student? Your seatmate is a law student too.” He replied.
Without trying to be funny, I utterly replied, “I am that which I am, sir.”
“Para ka namang si Bathala.” He retorted.
At the back of my mind, I know the professor wanted to elicit from me something significant or personal about my life. But I refused to state any thing more. I don’t know. Perhaps I was afraid to divulge myself or I was inhibited by the very thought of answering it.
“Alright, thank you Mr. David. Maybe you are still in search of who you are. But please tell me who you are once you found yourself.” He said.
All I could reply was an obliging “yes, sir.”
Nonetheless, I would have answered the question this way:
I am a lawyer in the making. In the meantime, I enjoy being a son of my parents, brother to my siblings, friends to others, enemy to some and a citizen of this republic. I am a government employee during the weekdays, student of law on Saturdays and Sundays, and a bum during holidays and whenever I feel falling absent for work.
I am a dreamer, a poet, a lover…
And the list goes on. But right now, I am a blogger; later today a passenger on a jeepney. Further on, I will be a television watcher, a studious reviewee, an eater, a drinker, a sleeper. Though I may not be good at being those personality in transition, I try to be aware every moment of my existence. Even if this one is difficult to do.
The question asked by my professor is not new. In fact, it is the basis of the old school hardcore philosophy of Socrates – know thyself.
It is one of the imponderable questions of a lifetime; the kind we all will be required to answer at some point in our existence.
…………….
The next encounter with my professor is a more relaxed atmosphere. He intimated a former student of his who recently took the bar examination but suddenly died just before the results were out.
And the treatise of the class for the day was his words in this wise. “Who cares if you are a lawyer. It’s irrelevant when you die. So now, let us study this irrelevant matter we call the law.”
It is all irrelevant, everything is irrelevant. Yet the book of Eccleciastes 1:1 has a more profound way of saying it is “Vanity of all vanities.” In some modern translation, it says “Utter futility. All is futility.”
The consequences of the two hindsight when combined calls for a more metaphysical deliberation. Who are you versus Everything is irrelevant.
What is the use of knowing thyself if after all everything will turn out to be irrelevant. The amateur philosopher in me would like to argue that these two precepts are reconciliable, albeit pardoxical in a sense.
If I were to spend my whole life searching for the answer to the question posed, “who I am?” perhaps the whole world is not enough to seek a satisfying solution. The understatement of the question is in a way a form of asking the meaning of myself, of my life as a whole. And if I would focus all what I’ve got seeking for myself, there will be a strong temptation to miss all other things in life. Whether these “other things” are beautiful or not is a matter of perspective. I can only speak for myself about them. The old cliche, that there is more to life than this or that rings true.
And yes, if this will happen; if I will continue seeking for the insatiable answer to the question who I am, I might as well miss those simple fulfillment that life has to offer. And then, every thing, including my ambition of becoming a lawyer will all become irrelevant.
I need to rest at this point. And I confess, I still do not know what I want to be when I grow up or when I grow old. For now I am a man in search of a meaning of life. But just like what Robert Fulghum wisely advised in one of his books: Do not go find the meaning of life; but try to put meaning into your life.
I made a commitment to my professor that I will tell him who I am once I find myself. But in the meantime, I am here in my room, reading my law books and trying to grasp this irrelevant matter we call the law.
