How do YOU answer the question: 'who am I?'?

Question

Please don't give me answers like 'i am john'...
i mean this question in a philosophical sense...
how do you approach this question?
what other questions do you ask?
what answers do you come up with?

Answer 1

When you ask this question seriously and strenuously, you recognize that any answer you come up with is not accurate. Because "who you are" is the one giving the answer. Even by saying "I am that which answers the question: who am i?" You are still not revealing who you are.

Its like this, the telescope cannot observe itself, it cannot turn its lens inside out and be its own object of observation. Similarly, our true "I-ness" cannot come up with an experience of its own "I-ness".

So instead, we fall into the nasty habit of identifying ourselves by everything that happens around us. But that is all false. We are not the names we have been given, we are not the identities that we have assumed. We are the faceless, identity-less witness to these identities that we have chose to assume.

We are, fundamentally, formless -- but that makes us very uneasy so we assume identities that give us some concrete rigidity. We have names, we have bodies with different parts, we are either boys or girls. But think about this, if I removed or changed any of those things -- would you really stop being you?

Answer 2

A person is defined by how they feel about things.

Many stupid people try to define themselves and others with nouns.

But a person might be:
A man
A Floridian
A software developer
A husband
A father
Etc..

You could find someone else who is all those things, and they might be nothing like the first guy.

But if you look at how the person feels about things.. For example:
I feel animals should be treated with compassion.
I feel that art is an important aspect of life.
I love my wife and feel happy when we take trips together, etc..

If you found someone else who felt the same way, guess what.. they would be very similar to the first person in their essence.

And thus, if you still feel the same way about everything that you did a year ago, you are still the same person. If you do not, you are not the same person. You have changed.

So who am I? I am my feelings and opinions about things.

Answer 3

This is a Western preoccupation. I am who I am and this is true only in the moment. Further, it is only a partial judgment and often an inaccurate judgment. Eastern philosophies focus on the imperanence of any description that we have for the self.

Some days, I'm generous. Some days, I'm selfish. Trying to define me as always selfish or always generous is foolish and impossible to be true. Whoever you are, that is only this moment, next moment....

Answer 4

I am what this world has made of me... I am someone who has lived in the lower-middle class neighborhoods of Los Angeles, who somehow managed to overcome several obstacles to become the person I am now. But, really, who am I to say who I am, when chances are I don't even know myself. What makes us feel like we can honestly define who we are. When we are what everyone has molded us into.
Would we really be who we are, had it not been for all these rules and codes of honor we have to follow. Or would we be something else?

Answer 5

I am the consciousness that looks out of my eyes and experiences the world through my sensory organs.
I often wish I could slip into other people's bodies and experience what it would be like to be "someone else". That is a common theme in my fantasy life.

Answer 6

I am the person who is assigned this sole. I am the entity that occupies this space in time and moment. I am defined by others by my appearance, actions, history, and interaction with the enviorment surrounding me. I am the product of my dna ancestory and the personication of their existance. I am the life force spec in this profound and absolute infinity we call the universe than I feel as me.

Answer 7

who am I.
question yourself like so.
1)Question mentally who am I?
2) Who do I believe I am
3) Who do I feel I am
4) What are the feelings of myself
5) How do I see my actions physically.
Write and think about each question and ask yourself why?
Sum them all up into one conclusion,and that is whom you are to-day from all of life's experiences.because we are all a sum total of life's experience

Answer 8

I am a riddle, wrapped in an enigma. LOL. I am the sum of many parts.......some contadictory. I am me, a person not like any other. Silly, yet serious, prudish, yet sensual, down, yet hopeful. I am the product of genetics and my environment. Like me or hate me, I am what I am.

Answer 9

It's too hard to figure out so I try to ignore the question.

Answer 10

I am who I am, that's all that I am.