“All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself”.
Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal”
Yeah, I remembered that short story. It’s true that trying to create our identity through what others’ perception of us somehow doesn’t work, and in the end we find out that only we can really answer the questions “who am I?” “what am I doing” and “why am I here?”
Thanks for posting that passage. Made me remember those troubled teenage nights crying my eyes out because of an identity crisis.
coralbead,
It looks like that you got a great experience from your life, i am gonna spend more time reading your blog and learning from your wisdom.
so true, we spend most of our time thinking of the least important thing while we ignore the very core thing. life as it goes on, it changes many of our perception.
thank you again.
you are a nobody period.
this can be true!
if a person lose him self and lose the others then he is nobody period !