Who in the world am I?

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”

-Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland 

“Finding yourself” is a theme present in almost every coming of age story I've seen. Some, like An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns or Going Bovine demonstrate a dramatic cross-country road trip as the best way to find yourself. Holling's older sister Heather in The Wednesday Wars ran to California to find herself, and Colby in The Disenchantments traveled from San Francisco to Portland, and then throughout Europe, in an attempt to discover who he was. Lindsey Weir in Freaks & Geeks set off to follow the Grateful Dead to Texas in a VW bus (although we never learn if she really did find herself during that trip, because the show was canceled before the next season - but that's a post for another day!).  

In A Beginner's Guide to Living, one of my favorite books, Will is deliberately attempting to learn about himself, to find something so true he would live or die for it - he is aware of his journey, but he doesn't know where's he's going or what he will discover when he eventually gets there. 

Even more commonly, however, the self discovery process seems almost incidental. The protagonists of The Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Old School, and Looking for Alaska aren't specifically trying to embark on a transcendent journey of awakening self awareness - they're just teenagers feeling lost and alone and trying to understand how they fit into the world.  

It's not just teenagers who want to discover who they are, though. The thought that we don't necessarily know ourselves is a pervading theme throughout almost all literature, and thousands of self-help books claim to help you discover your "true self." Bob Marley said that "When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself," and just googling self discovery will lead you to pages suggesting anything from meditation and religion to beauty pageants, kayak trips and group retreats.

In All the King's Men (a political novel which definitely had some self-discovery elements), the narrator, Jack, says “They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren't any other people there wouldn't be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people.” Similarly, Mahatma Gandhi said that “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” 

Dorothy Parker disagrees, writing:

“In youth, it was a way I had,
To do my best to please.
And change, with every passing lad
To suit his theories.

But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do,
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you.”     

Trusting others to define you never leads to real self awareness. In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the narrator says: "All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.” 

In the end, no amount of books or quotes or sayings (or even blog posts) can help you find yourself - but they can provide you with inspiration throughout your own journey.

~Maya