WHO AM I? An Existential Reflection

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I was born a girl. That was the first classification given to me. Before I could form a thought of my own, society had already formed one for me. Biology slowly became biography.


As I grew, I was never introduced as a soul, only as a relation. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s sister. Someone’s granddaughter. My existence seemed to function as an extension of others. I was not seen as an origin, but as a connection.


School did not ask who I was either. It described me instead. The brown girl. The overweight one. The quiet one with long hair. My body became a definition. My appearance became a language people used to understand me. No one asked what dreams lived inside me.


In college, my identity shifted again. I was known by where I came from, what I wore, and who I spent time with. I was judged by my background and my clothes. Society rarely sees the individual first. It sees context.


Work replaced my name with a designation. My value became measurable and productive. I was evaluated not for my humanity, but for my efficiency. The system did not ask what I felt. It asked what I delivered.


Marriage brought another transformation. I became someone’s wife. My identity merged into another surname, another household, another lineage. Love may have been present, but my individuality quietly stepped aside.


Motherhood was powerful and sacred, yet even here, I was seen through my children. Their achievements, their behavior, their talents, their mistakes. I was proud. I was busy. I was tired. I existed in the mirror of their lives.


Old age did not restore individuality. It simply changed the lens again. Grandmother. Elder. Ancestor. Even wisdom was attached to relation.


And when death eventually arrives, my life will likely be summarized in a sentence about its cause. She died of something. As if the depth of my existence could be reduced to a medical explanation.


Throughout every stage, I was identified by something external. My gender. My family. My appearance. My profession. My relationships. Even my death. But none of these answer one simple question. Who am I?


If I remove the labels such as daughter, wife, and mother. If I remove the titles such as student and employee. If I remove the descriptions of skin color and body shape. If I remove the roles that keep changing with time. What remains?


I am not my gender, because it was assigned. I am not my relationships, because they are situational. I am not my profession, because it can change. I am not my body, because it will age and fade. There must be something that witnessed every stage of my life. The same awareness that looked through the eyes of the child, the student, the employee, the wife, the mother. Something that remained unchanged while everything else transformed.


Perhaps that silent witness is the real self.


Human beings spend their lives building identities, yet rarely pause to ask whether those identities are truly theirs. We become what is expected. We perform what is required. We respond to the names given to us. But beneath every role and every expectation, there is a quiet presence. It observes. It feels. It questions.


Maybe I am that presence. Not the roles. Not the labels. Not the expectations. Just the consciousness that endured them all.


And maybe the most human question we can ever ask is not “What do I do?” or “Whose am I?” but simply,


Who am I when no one is looking?


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