Who Are You?

I ask a simple question: Who are you? How do you answer? When a friend of mine asked me this question I answered: "I am Travis. I'm a psychology major. I go to UCF. I play guitar."

While all of these things are true at the moment, none of them really define who I am at the core; they are all external labels given to me by my environment. If I stopped referring to myself as Travis, would I cease to be who I am? If I switched my major, or went to a different school, or stopped playing guitar, would I cease to exist?

The most basic and fundamental description of who you are is "I am". This is unchanging.

What exactly does this mean? It's such a simple description, yet also slightly vague. One way of looking at it is that everything that you attach to being "you" is just an externally defined illusion. Some people cling to their "individuality" fanatically. For what?

Another way I like to look at is this: we're all actors in the movie of the world who have gotten so absorbed into our roles, that we've forgotten that we're just actors. We've forgotten we can play any role in the movie that we want, but instead are stuck in the character of who we have chosen to play.

People think children stop "pretend play" when they grow up. I do not. I think our pretend play just gets restricted into narrower and narrower roles. Most of the time, I pretend to be Travis Rios, psychology major at UCF who plays guitar. It is a fun pretend play, but still pretend, nonetheless. However, I choose to break free from this specific pretend world from time to time. The other pretend people I like to be are Travis the philosopher, Travis the artist, Travis the crazy guy, Travis the friend, Travis the mentor, Travis the explorer. Each one is a different character with a different set of actions, mental states, temperaments, and ideas.

After you're done reading this, notice the artificiality and pretend in the world around you and within you. Every social interaction follows a script. Notice how absorbed people are into their role, who they think they "are". Everyone wants free will to exist, but in any case, it cannot happen until you stop being an actor.