Dear universe,

Who am I? Who are you?

I asked myself that question more and more in recent times. But how would a regular person answer that question? I think they would answer with their name. But what if I say this is wrong? What if I say:"You're not that." Feels kinda weird. Because for the whole life we identify with our names. But I'm not my name. I'm not just the sequence of letters that add up to "J-A-M-E-S". But who am I then?

I'm not my name, I have a name. In french you say:"Je m'appelle..." which means something like:"I call myself...". But it doesn't mean:"I am..." that would be:"Je suis..."

So if I'm not my name , who am I then? Am I maybe my body? No, I'm not the flesh, the blood and the bones that make up my body. And I'm not the sum of all these parts.

You wouldn't look at a sheet of paper and say:"Ah! What a nice book." You are not the sum of your body parts.

Am I my thoughts? Or maybe my feelings? No. I'm also not the network of neurons in my brain. And also we said previously that we are not our bodies nor our body parts. And I'm also not the information that is contained by the thought. Just because I think about an apple, doesn't mean I am an apple.

Who or what I'm not is relatively easy to answer, I'm not my body, not my feelings, not my thoughts. But it is difficult to say who I'm actually.

I noticed something while philosophizing:"If I'm not anyone physical but maybe someone abstract. Isn't that an argument for the existence of souls?"

Maybe it is that, maybe I am a soul. But that doesn't really answer the question. Soul as an answer is all well and good but that would be like someone asking me who I am and I would just answer with "human". It's not enough as an answer. Do I have, as a spiritual being, a soulname? Do I have a soulgender or do souls even have a gender?

It goes deep into metaphysics but... You're inviolable. Neither physical nor emotional. Either your body or your feelings are hurt, but never you as a being. We have feelings, we feel pain but our true selves can never be hurt.

I know I'm jumping from topic to topic but I've encountered a spiritual way of thinking called pantheism. ("pan" gr.= "everything", "theos" gr.= "god") God is in this worldview the universe itself and everything that exists is the expression or part of the divine. This concept seems to be in direct opposition to that what I have said before.

Note: this part is a bit underexplained, but my original thesis was that I thought each of us is their completely seperate individual and not linked together in any way. And I interpreted the teachings of pantheism in such a way that itself would mean everyone is in their deepest core is the same expression. Thats why I said they stand in complete opposition. But it later turns out to me that pantheism was kinda right with its teachings :1.

But then I asked myself:"Where does the soul come from?" Shouldn't there be an origin of every soul? Or have we already existed for ever? But just as the universe came into being, we too must have come into being at some point and from somewhere. Now the question is: Where do I come from? Where do we come from? Just as our bodies came from one primordial cell, there too should be a primordial cell or an origin of the soul. Shouldn't there be a source?

And if we all came from one source then we too should be part or expression of the divine, the supernatural. So pantheism apparently isn't against the concept of souls. (If pantheism was ever against such a concept)

Sure thing, nothing would speak against the concept that souls existed for eternity. But then the question "Where do we come from?" wouldn't really be answered. There's just one question in the room:"What is the source , if it really exists?" God? Or maybe all of us combined? Aren't we all part of the divine? Aren't we all in our origin one? These are questions that one can just answer if one leaves their body.

My actual quastion was:"Who am I?" We should be some sort of soul or essence inhabiting our bodies. Maybe the provisional answer is:"A soul, a unique expression of the universe or the source". This source should have also an origin, if it didn't exist for ever.

There are no answers to these questions (yet). And the question "who am I?" is aswell a pandora's box.

It feels weird to know that I'm not James, but at the same time it is oddly liberating to know that I'm not just a word.

So if anyone asks you:"Who are you?", just say:"I don't know.". Because you have a name, but who you are really is not easy to answer.

Hi! I was thinking about maybe adding more of these letters I wrote. I currently have four more of these letters and I'm thinking about putting like two more on here so you guys can read them.

-JL

← back to letter overview