Who am I? A Question with an Answer

I am often asked a question. This is not a question posed by someone like you, by you I mean an external source. No, this question is from within, I ask myself. The question is "Who am I?" and my answer is this composition of personal theories and ideas, coincidentally the very one you are reading right now. For whatever reason, it is your fate to have stumbled upon this composition just as much as it is your fate to read it. But never mind that, I posed a question and I suppose I better get to the answer. So here we go, my answer. Just so you know, at the present moment which I am writing, I have no idea what I am going to write. This is my honest answer because I've yet to create it. With that last little detail said, this is my answer:

WHO I AM:

Jacob Student. Ok I'm done, god that was easy. Yeah right. This is who I THINK I am. I think I am the person who gets up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, has money, pays rent, mission accomplished. This is who I immediately associate my self (I spaced the words on purpose) with existence wise, Jacob Student. This is my comfort zone, this is where I have a solid connection with who I am and what is real. I believe I am Jacob Student, but I know I am not. Jacob Student is my label, my identity. Yes, this is who I think I am, but I know there is more than I think I know.

I feel (rather than think) that we all (humans) have an extremely deep connection with each other. The connection is that we fundamentally are all the same, or in my terms, we are all foundationally the same person. We all desire and fear and love in very similar manners. We all want to live, truly and know the difference between right and wrong(well, maybe some exceptions on that one). We all have similar goals as well, family, happiness, a feeling of importance or making a difference. We are all very, very diverse, but foundationally the same person, The Human Being. As I said, this is how I feel, I am not telling you THIS IS HOW IT IS, these are my beliefs and if you don't like them, don't believe them.

It may seem like I am rambling on about an irrelevant subject, but bare with me on this one, I actually have a cohesive argument forming, at least this time. My thoughts travel in this direction; since we all have a basic self, we end up so diverse because of an innumerable set of diverse occurrences. This would be our entire experience of life, from birth to present, every single experience greatly influences who you are and the person you choose to be.

It is through these greatly divine experiences that we eventually shape the person who we think we are, Insert your name here . These experiences are our memories, the very memories in which we use to establish our view on this world.

Now, relating this all back to me, this is what the question was originally about. I have spent 20 years wandering this earth to come to this moment right now, and that is the moment in which I write these very sentences. Everything that has happened in these years is my mold in which I create my Identity. Everything that I felt, heard, thought, was, did, everything I've ever experienced is me, it is who I am. That is my answer but not completely, well get to that later. Anyways, as I turn the pages in my personalized volume in the book of life, I understand everything that has happened and everything that will happen is the composition of my memories, and this is a significant part of who I am. Without these memories, would I exist? Damn it, I posed another question without answering the first one, forget I asked that last question. This cannot be all there is though, you are not solely your memories and experiences. There is something deeper than that.

Your consciousness is something quite grand. It is different from an experience, it is more like THE experience. I set the card up, now I can knock em down. I firmly believe I am my consciousness. I am the person writing these words, I am the person who is listening to the radio, I am the person sitting in this chair, I am the person looking at this room. This is me speaking now. But if I speaking now, who spoke then? Just joking, not a real question. I am the person who hopes you will read this, and as luck has it, you will. From this very moment in which I lay this ink down, these words have begun a long journey to whom you are its destination.

I am the person who can say This is right now. Obviously I am eternally changing , from one millisecond to the next I am not quite the same person. But, deep down inside, I am like you, and you like me(whoever the hell you are anyways). I believe this is who we all really are, the person who can declare the present moment. If you can read this, right now, this is who you are. I've given you the dots, draw the lines. Her'es my answer summed up; I am me.

And now a poem for deeper consideration:

I see myself

Through my eyes mental view

But I know I am not just me

I am all...

Haunting is the thought of my ego, my identity

Calm rests my soul still, center within my balance

Perhaps I can understand that I am simply more

We all are simply more

My name is a label without the adhesive to permanently stick to my being

My thoughts of "Who really is this consciousness that speaks?"

This consciousness that feels emotion and ultimately knows knowledge.

That is I, this consciousness which can speak to you through syllables

Words and thoughts abbreviated into finite concepts used daily

That is my power as this being, and you have your own.

I am in all sense and rights of reality a god within this flesh

This I understand now and possible it remains for all

I can see the light thought the shrouded thickness of diseasing darkness

I will not be stopped by the fear of or confrontation of evil

Self-righteousness is inapplicable as a description for my ideology

For I believe in no one true physical self, how can I be righteous of it?

...You see, me writing this and you reading this is really the same thing....

Wider the door opens, deeper the tunnel gets.....it's all the same journey.