Who

Who is merely the form following the function what (adapted from V for Vendetta). Now, what I am is a human, a person, an existing essense of something that is alive. But who is that face in the mirror when I am waking up and brushing my teeth? Who is the emotional connection beneath the rather masked expression that I place on my face when among others? Who is the self that is everything that the other is not?

When I was two and a half, I found a dead mouse in the yard of my father's house. It was raining. I picked it up and put it under some leafy thing growing at the edge of the field.

I've also done horrible things to nice people, out of self interest or all out cruelty. No specifics because they would also be admissions of guilt.

Which one is more me? Which one was a slip?

you

I used to ask of the ether, "Who am I? Whom will I become?"

Now I understand that those questions should have been addressed to myself, as it is my responsibility to create myself. My decisions and efforts define me, not some all-knowing ether. We are the ether.

Somewhere between the villain version of me and the hero version of me (both believed to be the true me by different groups of people that have taken having known me negatively or positively), there's a smiling kid lying in warm, tall grass in the sun, watching a beetle crawl across his outstretched arm.

Who am I?

Can I be the savior, the sage, the legend spoken of by those particularly impressed with my deeds? Can I also be the betrayer, the criminal, the misanthrope, the incubus whose vile nature is spat out in contemptuous words by ex-girlfriends?

Do I have something of a permanent nature that will bind me to my virtues or condemn me to repeat my mistakes? Or is my nature contrarily so mutable that I can no more take my failings as permanent condemnations of my soul than take my virtues as being true, accurate reflections of it?

Is it even important to have a strong sense of self? Or is it more important to give careful consideration to my actions at any given moment, apart from the context of my life?