The unexamined life is not worth living.
—Socrates
Tell us something about yourself. This is the most commonly asked interview question and probably the most difficult to answer. It’s been years since I attended one, so I don’t usually think about this tricky and open-ended question. But one day, suddenly, a thought flashed through my ever-inquisitive mind. Who am I?
Do I really know myself?
Am I a human or an animal? Or, an animal called human? Am I the reflection that I see in the mirror? What defines me? Does my family background, caste, religion, nation, skin color tell something about who am I? Does my identity depend upon the others or the things I own? Or, is it defined by my profession, my work achievements, and my CV? Or, perhaps by the things I do or don’t do? Am I the sum total of my achievements, success, failures, and mistakes? Or, something beyond all of these?
Who Am I Am I the creation of God? Or, the creator who designed God? Am I an animal who goes by the name human? Or, a human with animal instincts? Am I the doer who has never lived? Or, an observer who sees the futility of life? Am I the wise who has become almost God-like? Or, a fool who is ignorant of his own ignorance? Am I the ‘economic man’ who is obsessed with GDP Growth? Or, a ‘spiritual man’ who sees the growth as the root of all ills? Am I the predator who is always looking for the next kill? Or, a prey who is afraid of a tiny virus? Am I a nobody who wants to be somebody? Or, somebody who don't want to be anybody? Am I the grown up who lost his innocence? Or, a child within waiting to be awakened? Am I the householder in pursuit of happiness? Or, a monk for whom cravings is behind all suffering? Am I the mortal body which is trying to become immortal? Or, the immortal soul which wants liberation from the mortal body?
If neither this nor that, then who am I? Is it really possible to fully know thyself? Yes, it is.
Knowing thyself and answering the question ‘who am I’ is not as simple as it seems. It actually requires a lot of self-introspection. So I thought, instead of trying to know God or others, why not do some self-reflection. But how?
How to Know Thyself?
In physics, rest and motion are two relative terms. An object can be in motion and rest simultaneously for different observers. Similarly, our identity is also relative depending upon the lens of the observer. So, let’s look at this question from different angles and point of views:
Biological perspective: I’m a 96-99 percent animal belonging to the family of great apes and chimps are my closest living relatives.
Nature’s perspective: I’m the worst parasite thriving on this planet earth.
Religious perspective: I’m a lamb to be taken to a promised but unknown land.
Business perspective: I’m a resource (human resource) to be exploited in the most efficient way and a consumer: a gullible idiot to be converted into a hardcore consumerist.
Leadership Perspective: I’m the sum total of six Q’s: IQ, EQ, SQ, A1Q, A2Q, CQ (Where A1 is Adaptability, A2 is Adversity and C is Curiosity).
Political perspective: I’m a voter to be wooed with false promises.
Judicial perspective: I’m either a law-abider to be protected or a wrong-doer to be punished.
Boss perspective: I’m the prey.
Spouse’s perspective: I’m a scum.
Parent’s perspective: I’m a kid, no matter how old I get.
Nation’s perspective: I’m a citizen (American/Indian/Italian/Chinese) to be imbued with jingoism.
Philosophical perspective: I’m neither this nor that.
Spiritual perspective: I’m the universe.
Self-perspective: I’m an animal with brains who is ignorant of his own ignorance and afraid of a tiny virus whilst having delusion of grandeur, constantly craving for more and never satisfied, going about daily routine in a zombie-like trance while journeying towards an unknown destination under the spell of the quartet of business, religion, politics, and media.
Cosmic perspective: If the earth is a tiny spec in the incomprehensible vast cosmos, then who am I? Of course nothing, absolutely of no significance. It does not matter whether I exist or not.
And, I choose the cosmic perspective. And whenever in doubt I just look at the Pale Blue Dot (Voyager’s 1 iconic photo of earth taken thirty years ago).
What about you? Do you know thyself?
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. -- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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