The Meaning of I

There's nothing quite as destructive as a revelation. Whether it's a joyous or disastrous one, it's dynamite. In the case of the former, it shatters the walls that keep you imprisoned by misunderstanding, opening up paths to new, relief-filled enlightenment. For the latter, it attacks the very core of your understanding, damaging, even obliterating the foundations upon which you've based all of your beliefs.

Many times I've speculated that if a true, faithful follower of Christ had presented to him completely irrefutable evidence in the nonexistence of God, thereby disproving all doctrine upon which his faith was based, when the reality of that sank in, he could become the most dangerous man in the world. The reason being, everything he had been shown as the work of God's hands, everything he had been told and taught, everything he believed, everything upon which he based all of his morals, ethics, and truly life itself, would be a lie. He would have no reason to continue in any of that. Combined with the emotional trauma that would be inevitable in such a situation, he would either snap and live a life of sheer recklessness likely ending in a quick death, or he would accept and complacently waste away.

Mind you, and I reiterate, this would have to be completely irrefutable evidence. Therefore, since no such evidence could possibly exist, this scenario is completely hypothetical. It is, however, tied in with identity crisis, which is a different revelation of the same general sort. Incidentally, it's what I'm experiencing right now.

All my life, I've built up this view of myself. Who I am, what I like, my natural tendencies, that sort of thing. I've liked to think of myself as somewhat of an expert on myself. Who better to know you than yourself, right? There is no one that will ever understand you the way that you do, except God (which, sidenote, is one reason why relationship with Him is so important).

But what happens when you're wrong about that?

This morning, as I sat in class reflecting on my apparent lack of understanding of the subjects that will be covered on the exam next class period, then naturally allowing that to spiral downward and accumulate negative thoughts about the other aspects of my life that appear to be falling apart, I came to the stark realization that I have no idea what I'm doing in life. I am studying a field in which I have invested an interest, but is evidently conceptually beyond me; my brain simply refuses to process it.

The damaging part of all this is, I never envisioned myself doing anything else. As I try to do that now, I have to ask myself what it is that I enjoy. This was already something I was doing, with some frustration. Part of it must come from depression, but I'm having trouble discerning what things I actually enjoy, versus what I've just picked up from my various associations. It makes me question how much of "me" is just adapted as I'm trying to fit in somewhere. In essence, am I really "me"?

That brings up another concern, which is on a different field entirely: social. I'm sure I've mentioned before that I feel like I don't fit in anywhere, even though I associate with a lot of people. Being peripheral in a lot of groups seems so empty and shallow when compared to being an important part of one or two. In the social circles I'm in some way involved in, I add little and have trouble relating. I try too hard, and it's obvious.

I'm afraid of the conclusions I might draw from all of this. But more than that, I'm afraid that I won't ever draw conclusions. In the past I've been completely convinced of who I am, at least in certain respects, only to realize later that that wasn't me at all. When that sort of thing happens (as it has more than once), it makes me feel wishy-washy; like my character has no integrity, and I'll just shapeshift again to match my environment when it changes. But I'm never truly happy with that, because I'm still not true to myself.

This is more long winded than I wanted it to be, so I just want to sum this up a little bit. The things mentioned here, while they do bother me, are not the reason for my despair, so much as symptoms of the fundamental problem of truly not knowing myself. My fear is that my hopeless feeling is correct; that I will never truly know myself. My prayer, of course, is that I will gain clarity, which will fly in the face of that hopelessness.