Who am I?

It's a philosophical question which has been asked for thousands of years. Now in our petty ego driven society. The question of who you are is even more confusing than ever. Most people spend there days perpetually confused by a sense of conflicting identity.

I'm a big fan of Eckhart Tolle and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj whose principle philosophy is one that eschews ego. You're not anybody; you just are. I suppose this correlates with that old Taoism thing. ''A tree isn't a tree. Once you call it a tree; it ceases to be a tree. Tree is only a word. A symbol representing something else.''

It's a very long, arduous and complicated thing, all of this ego business. The gist of it is: you are born with self-esteem, and all of the requisite tools to survive and procreate hardwired in your brain. Once your natural self-esteem takes a bashing in nursery and then in the playground, you start to create a story for yourself. Your story about yourself will be good or bad, and you'll look for things in the environment that will corroborate your story of 'who you are'. This is your ego. Now this for a lot of people is where it all gets very confusing.

When you're young, you begin to look for people to identify with. Cliques. You make and accept judgements which define 'you'. Then after a few decades in the most extreme case scenarios you end up in some shrinks office paying hundreds of pounds an hour for ten years. Just to come out with a huge dossier. Like the results of a MySpace quiz times a thousand. And also about a thousand times more confounded than you went in.

Who am I then? Well with all of this in perspective. It becomes tougher to answer. I admittedly have a huge ego. As a child I used to actually believe in my head that under my chubby little bowl haircutted exterior that I was actually a child prodigy and a genius. My grades and class marks said otherwise. My lack of distinct popularity in the playground only served to enforce my vociferous ego. Rather than viewing it negatively. I viewed myself as an outcast due to my prodigious nature of course. A miniature Gallileo.

I carried this with me for years. Always believing to the point of absolute delusion and actually making up lies to reinforce the story of 'who I am.' When the lies weren't enough fuel for my ego, which by seventeen was like a bullimic at a buffet. I resorted to schadenfreude and the classic 'emotional defence mechanism' of I don't give a shit. Or some other permutation of this. I was percieved as arrogant. Of course my ego viewed this arrogance as confidence. I still had the story in my mind that I was an overlooked superhero, sex-god from beyond time who could do anything. No amounts of insults, rejections, or the fact I was grotesquely overweight, had lied my way into university and failed the course were going to change this.

At some point. I can't remember exactly when. I finally realise and accept the hopelessness of my situation. My entire vicarious existence. From then on it was time for a total transformation. Time for action. Time for glory.

Six months at the gym and I start to get on track. My own arrogant insecurity is becoming replaced with a more acute self-awareness. The ego is there. Obviously. Only time and dedication will remove it from me entirely. To get back to a place of total self-esteem. Like when I was a child. The ego is riddled with traps that will catch you offguard. As Tolle says in 'A New Earth': ''It maybe impossible to lose the ego completely. Perhaps the best you can do is just be aware of it.''

I feel it's diminished somewhat. I know these days I'm not so judgemental and reactive. I'm more aware. Last week rather than being what is traditionally considered 'egotistical' and asking what they like about me. I asked them what they didn't.

The conclusion? Well, obstinately: I'm a self-aggrandising, vain, completely self-absorbed, untrustworthy when drunken, Matthew McConaughey obsessed ignorant cunt who talks about himself alot and tends to get angry at people and possibly inanimate objects, says chode a lot, thinks he’s cooler, more intelligent and mature than he actually is. Also spends too much money on protein shakes, but I suppose that falls in with being 'vain.' A cock, a swine and a little shit.

Which isn't quite how I saw myself through my ego. An internet friend of mine off a forum I go on who I've never actually met in real life said this: ''I'd hazzard a guess that Michael is an intelligent guy, not afraid to speak out on any subject whether or not he knows a thing about them, demonstrating his individuality by wearing his hair in a horizontal halo, getting blindingly drunk at every given opportunity, a terror with the girls and an all round wilful wild child who is bewildered when he is called out for it. Peel that thin top layer off him and I reckon that there is a decent, caring bloke with an inborn sense of fairness and concern for others and a wide streak of uncertainty and emotion that he is fighting to hide from the rest of the world in case it takes advantage of him.''

So does any of this help me uncover who I really am? Not really.

Most of it merely defines my outer image as percieved by others. Whilst perception is reality, as they say. Surely without delving deeply into the realms of metaphysics; whilst I accept all of the things bad and good. On the grand scale of things it means fuck all. Like the analogy I used earlier about the psychiatric patient. I'm none the wiser.

To summise. Descartes' famous quote said ''I think therefore I am'' and whilst this is a grand sentiment and would be a brilliant marketing syllogism for the magnificent and almost limitless capabilities of the human mind. Perhaps it's the lesser known Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj who comes closer to the more profound truth. It's when I don't think. ''I just am.''

-Michael (or whoever)