Who I Am

So I'm sitting here reading from an online course by Steve Barnes about how to become a better writer. I can dream right? His background is screen-writing, but he's also written books. His position is that a screenplay is nearly equivalent to 120 pages of any book and the basic composition is the same. Interesting, I suppose.

But more interesting is this; his first homework assignment is to write the story of my life starting right now and moving forward until the day I die. Seems a bit morbid there at the end, and frankly I'm not sure If I'm capable of designing my own demise. However, I'm challenged by his assignment. Can I write as directed? More to the point, do I even know enough about who I am to begin writing?

I'm not actually taking his course, so I'll skip the assignment.  But still, I ponder the difficulty of even defining who I am well enough to write my story.  If I were to develop my character from this point forward, what material would I be working with at the outset?

Who I am now is the product of so many forces, people, institutions, choices, and varied experiences over my 38 years of life, that the story starting now, must necessarily have much reflection and glancing over the shoulder to make sense of the jumbled pile of circumstances, ambitions, relationships and emotions that are me.

What if I did write that story? Who am I? Christian, father, husband, contractor, cyclist, runner, driver, writer, friend, son, brother, cousin, uncle, nephew, boss, customer, vendor, neighbor. There must be very many more. But is that who I am or what I do? What comprises the Who? Is what I do - who I am, or is what I feel - who I am? Those two are not the same.  Is who I am some combination of what I do and how I feel about it?  Does why I do it matter?

Today I didn't want to run, lift weights, or workout in any way. So I didn't. Am I now not an athlete? But then I decided that I was being lazy and lifted some weights and did some pushups. Did I regain status as an athlete - even though any Joe can do what I did? I can run more than a marathon without stopping and enjoy doing so. Therefore, I am an athlete. But on days like today when I don't feel like an athlete and don't feel like acting like an athlete, am I any less of an athlete than on the days I blister the pavement?

Who I am must be more than what I do, must be more than what I feel, must be more than just my identity to those who watch from the other side of this skin. Who I am must have many facets, and must be the compilation of those facets into the finely crafted gem that God designed in his infinite wisdom and sovereign sense of humor

Who I am is both controlled by me and simultaneously not controlled by me. When my environment collides with me I can do nothing but react. Scars across my body along with misshapen fingers and toenails give testimony to constant collisions. The collisions are largely out of my control; only my reaction to the collision, the force, the timing, and the overall impact of the impact is entirely my own. And who I am is modified and developed more at each collision. Physical environmental collisions are no doubt the least impacting. The emotional collisions indubitably pack more punch.

So, Who I Am, is not static. Certainly I am not now the same young man who presented himself to my wife-to-be over a decade and a half ago. Nor am I the same as I really was behind the presentation's glossy veneer. So something about my essence has changed and can be supposed to continue in like manner. And, who I now present myself to be to an observer, has changed from the former facade. Who I am therefore, is a capricious vague reality that is in a constant flow of change. The very concept of "Am" becomes ridiculous. I "am" only long enough to say the word. Any collision with circumstance will invariably alter the being.

But obviously, some trends or patterns transcend the caprice and allow for an acquaintance to identify a person over a course of years. Like the visage or physiognomy in spite of a constant transformation tending either toward good or ill, the basic essence of a person - who they are - maintains a basic likeness throughout the course of a lifetime.

So what remains and what shifts?  A former acquaintance could today identify my dad by his walk, but not so with my mother, as Parkison's has altered her stride.  Yet, both are immediately distinguished by their voices, expressions, and tone of voice. My mother's sense of humor has not budged from its perch on the verge of droll; my dad - still a sage.  Yet time together has wisened my mother and dad's jokes now elicit more groans.  Some elements changed, some unchanged. Who are they? Still my parents, of course.

Who am I? Still their son. There it is. We have discovered something that truly defines who I am. This fact cannot be altered. Go ahead and grope around for other defining characteristics that cannot be altered. I'll always be the father to my children. According to scientists, many of my brain, heart and eyeball cells are for the most part not regenerating, so those parts of me are pretty much the real deal. My genetics are unalterable, I will always have an x and y chromosome set. My hair, alas, does not qualify here, as changes in that arena are irreversibly trending toward undesirable. My physical form?  That has indeed remained fairly constant for my last twenty or so years, but I have an elderly friend who's midlife photos are utterly unrecognizable to us who did not know him then.

And what about beliefs? Similarly, if we wander off down the garden path of what I believe, we will soon come across the abandoned cocoons of my former positions.  The chrysalises of other ideas and opinions scattered along the trail lend doubt to the likelihood of ultimately identifying me by my beliefs either.

So round and round we can go and possibly if we spin enough times we will tease out a subset of characteristics or particles that are the true boiled-down essence of who I am.  And if amassed, they would lay a dormant and uninteresting pile of indistinct matter.  I could then congratulate myself for having discovered myself, and promptly lose interest. And the mass - would be unrecognizable, because that is not who I am.

Who am I?  I am pain. I am sadness. I am joy. I am peace and frustration. I am angry and forgiving. I am ebb and flow, breath in, breath out. I am who I am because I am not the same as yesterday - not in spite of who I was yesterday - rather I change to become who I am.

I know some would want me to dash off in a spiritual direction at this point. Perhaps you would prefer I leave the spiritual alone and out of the calculus?  I'll say only this; I am confident and convinced that "who I am" is a product of and accepted by the Creator because of Jesus Christ.  I am sinner, and forgiven. I am a child of God. I am who I am because I change. I am accepted by the Creator, because He does not.

Eternity alone will define me. If I were to write my story it must include my faith, and as such, my demise would be less the end than the beginning.  Who I am here and now, who it is that I am slowly becoming, is but a shadow of what I will some glorious day be.  Who am I?  I'll tell you when I get a better idea - somewhere and sometime further into eternity.