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You are Fictional

What does it mean to say you’re the same person as you were when you were five?

The trouble arises, philosophically speaking, when we try to define what constitutes the ‘same’ person at two different points in time. Most traditional philosophical views relied on some form of continuity over time—either bodily, psychologically, or through the ‘soul’. Bodily continuity was rendered outmoded when we found out that our physical bodies are in a state of constant flux, with cells dying and new ones being created. Psychological continuity faces issues when we consider changes in memory, personality and subjectivity over time. With the advent of the empirical sciences, the soul too has been reduced to an empirically unverifiable concept which is at best a fictive metaphor thats stand in for that vague intuitive notion of our supposed ‘continuity’ over time.

Today, most philosophers accept that there's nothing metaphysically mambo jumbo about personal identity. These constructs are merely theoretical abstractions of an organism from time t1 to time tx, conceived for pragmatic considerations; useful fictions. To think otherwise is taken to be a search for a metaphysical essence located within; it is to reinstate the religious conception of a temporally continuous 'soul' in secular form. But, although it has been stripped from this metaphysically substantive notion, personal identity is nevertheless still perceived to be continuous over time, such that you are the same person as you were when you were a baby.

With the rise of individualism, what has taken over in the mainstream is self-narrations; not only does everyone have a unique and different story to tell but now everyone is their story. One’s “story” or “narrative” is now the fashionable way to express this intuitive notion of one’s personal identity’s continuation over time. To illustrate this, let’s consider a thought experiment.

The Illusion of the "I"

Given the complexity of our lives, we often identify ourselves through stories – intricate, interwoven narratives that define our sense of self. But I wish to go further than that and claim that this abstracted (fictional) narratives constitute everything knowable about us. That is, we are nothing more than the sum of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. This idea is presented in philosopher Daniel Dennett's thought experiment in his paper "The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity".

Picture this: ChatGPT authors a captivating, extensive autobiography chronicling the life of one Gilbert. No human being created Gilbert, all that humans did was create a machine capable of creating Gilbert; that is, Gilbert, in this case, represents a "self" that is created by a non-self (ChatGPT). As you peruse the pages of "The Life of Gilbert," you become utterly immersed in his story, oblivious to its machine-generated origins.

Now, let us take it a step further. Imagine a BostonDynamics-esque anthropomorphic robot, armed with that very ChatGPT's software, navigating and experiencing the world, proclaiming, "I am Gilbert!" This metallic protagonist even adapts its autobiography to include your interactions with it, creating an ever-evolving narrative, such that when you hit Gilbert, the book starts to include the incident of you - your name - hitting Gilbert.

When the robot pleads, "Help me!" from the confines of a closet, we might assume it's Gilbert who requires assistance. But who exactly is Gilbert? Is he the physical robot or merely the fictional persona crafted by the robot's AI? Despite the undeniable connection between the robot's worldly experiences and the unfolding tale of Gilbert, we can still argue that the robot's AI brain remains oblivious to the world; it isn't a self-aware entity. That is to say, even though we might be inclined to see the robot and the character Gilbert as one entity, the AI controlling the robot is not self-aware—it doesn't "know" that it's Gilbert or even that it's telling a story. It's simply processing inputs and generating outputs according to its programming, without knowing of the narrative it weaves.

However, the patterns of behaviour the AI orchestrates are undeniably interpretable as an unfolding life story—Gilbert's story. And herein lies the crux: the robot novelist is not only an interpreter but a self-interpreter, providing a narrative account of its actions in the world. Now, drawing parallels to our own lives, the "self" here is not a tangible, physically locatable entity but what Dennett calls a “narrative center of gravity”, i.e. a construct that gives coherence to our experiences. Pushed further, one can make the inference that our brains, much like the AI, are similarly unwitting creators of the stories we tell ourselves. It is therefore similarly plausible that we are all fictional characters, brought to life by the narratives we spin - byproducts of our own self-narratives.

The Narrative-seeking Outlook

Fine, identities are fictional characters created by the narratives we weave—a controversial thesis but one that is backed up by philosophers as well respected as Dennett.

But one might think that if our identities are narratives, then surely every aspect of ourselves must be as fixed and determinate as the plot of a novel, right? One might as well ask; does Harry Potter have a mole on his left upper thigh? There’s no fact of the matter, there isn’t an answer. It is neither true nor false. It simply doesn't exist until a reader, for whatever reason, decides to imagine that Harry has a mole on his thigh. Likewise, there are countless aspects of our lives that are indeterminate, existing in a kind of limbo without a 'truth value' until we decide to incorporate them into our personal narratives. We simply 'fill in the blanks' of our identities with idealisations, abstractions and more often than not, fictions. And once we have established these narratives, they become a part of our 'identity', in the same way that a reader's imagined details about Harry become part of their personal version of the character.

But what if one cannot weave such a narrative, does it mean that such a person lacks a self-identity? The very nature of a narrative demands coherence; a sequence of interconnected events, meticulously pieced together to create a harmonious story.

Yet, I am unable to tell such a story—in fact, I find it to be nothing more than a chimera which I am unable to capture in words. I've always grappled with the daunting task of writing about myself. It's not that I lack the penchant for introspection or the desire to reflect upon my life—quite the contrary. Rather, I suspect I might be missing that narrative-seeking outlook so many people seem to possess. To me, my life (and by extension, my 'identity') feels like an incoherent jumble, decipherable only through a confabulated patchwork of retrospective biographical stories, abstractions, idealisations and fictions which I am unable to weave.

For some reason or another, the course of my life is such that it cannot be portrayed in an explicit narrative, in some kind of tragedy with a coherent plot, a beginning, a middle and an end, where the events that form the action are somehow linked with one another, almost by necessity, and ultimately reveals some kind of story. I simply do not know how to do that. Interpreting my (past and present) self is just as difficult to me as interpreting indeterminate facts about fictional characters.

And, truth be told, I can't help but wonder: why should I even attempt to frame my life as a character's quest, anyway? I find solace in acknowledging my existence as a series of random occurrences and whimsical caprices, navigated by an often-confused primate, adapting to its surroundings by setting and pursuing goals aligned with its desires, interests, and beliefs.

To me, this perspective feels more genuine, more faithful, than attempting to impose an artificial narrative upon the seemingly chaotic nature of my life. By discarding the need for a coherent story, I can embrace its inherent messiness and spontaneity of life instead of being constrained by a predetermined story. Also, to impose a narrative on my life is, in essence, an attempt to imbue it with a sense of importance and significance which simply does not exist.

Does this mean I lack a personal idenity? I don’t know, but it seems that way most of the time; I do not feel like a gender, a nationality, an artist, a writer, a person who likes such and such. Yes, I grew up reading, and I still enjoy it immensely, but does that make me an "avid reader"? Perhaps, in a social or practical context, but that's not my identity, but simply an imposition, a sort of expectation or script that one feels obliged to follow. When someone labels me as an "avid reader," there's an implicit suggestion that I ought to live up to this label: I should spend my time reading, be knowledgeable about books, and generally conform to the stereotype of what an "avid reader" is. But what if I don't feel like reading for a week, a month, or even a year? Does that mean I've lost my identity? Or was the identity false to begin with? What’s at stake here is the confusion between pragmatic language and essentialist metaphysical notions of identity.

This is not to imply that narratives are always necessarily normatively bad. The art of constructing narratives should not be hastily dismissed as entirely futile or detrimental. Autobiographical accounts of the oppressed—such as political prisoners, former slaves, or those living under the iron grip of patriarchal and theocratic systems—serve as vital windows into the lives and experiences of marginalised individuals. These narratives hold immense value. But for those like myself, whose lives do not encompass profound moral lessons or dramatic turning points, the pragmatic benefits of crafting a personal narrative seem less tangible.

The Web of Relations: A Saussurean Perspective on Identity

In all truth, I find the entire cluster of so-called 'fundamental' concepts like 'Identity', 'Self,' and 'Personality' to be largely elusive and incomprehensible. I have never been able to find any resonance in them within me, other than some trivial way of using them in sentences for ease of communication.

The only aspect of myself that I can truly grasp and deem interesting is the present moment's snapshot of who I am. E.M. Forster once wrote, "Everything is like something, so what is this Ike?". This notion can be aptly applied to individuals as well. The comparisons we draw about ourselves in the here and now, and the relationships we form with others provides a clearer picture of our identity than any elusive "Me-particle" hiding deep within us, continuing over time.

To further illustrate this point, consider the analogy of each person as a number. Let's say I am the number sixteen, and I wish to describe what the number sixteen is. Asking questions like "what is the number sixteen apart from its relation with other numbers?", "what is its essence?" or "what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for the number sixteen?" prove unfruitful, as numbers, by their very nature, defy essentialist descriptions. Instead, we can only offer relational descriptions such as "less than twenty," "more than one," or "twice four," yet none of these explanations capture the intrinsic nature of "sixteenness." In a similar vein, I can only devise relational descriptions of my own identity: I am Hutu, not Tutsi; Shia, not Sunni; Black, not White—and so forth.

The relational view of identity finds its roots in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure. According to Saussure, the meaning of a sign can only be comprehended through its relationship with other signs within a representational system, such as language. It is the sign's difference from others that makes meaning possible in the first place. This idea can be extended to our understanding of identity.

In this sense, an individual's identity is not anchored in their physical body, psychology, ‘soul’ or any inherent traits, but rather in the complex web of relationships they form with others. Like Saussure's train or chess piece, a person's identity can only be discerned within a system of family, friendship, and social interactions. This perspective embraces a relational view of personal identity, emphasizing the role of connections in defining oneself. In Saussurean terms, identity is understood negatively, constituted by difference relations.

These relational elements are, in turn, shaped by the socio-historical context in which they emerge, given that differences and similarities do not exist in isolation. Instead, they are embedded in a broader network of discourses that influences the ways in which we perceive ourselves and others.

Identity is irreducibly social and not an individualised narrative

When we think about personal identity, we start by inquiring, "Who am I?". Then, we begin to start listing our idiosyncratic features, those elements that define our individuality and those that contrast or bind us to others. It is through this intricate comparisons and contrasts that we gain a semblance of the elusive 'self'.

Let’s try to play this game. Imagine, if you will, an assemblage of peculiarities that make you, well, you: the peculiar penchant for pistachio ice cream over the banality of vanilla, the idiosyncrasies in your mannerisms, the sexual magnetism towards certain individuals, and the myriad ways you present your outer self to the world. Now that we identified these amalgamations of mental states and experiences we then claim that they are not mere possessions of a fixed 'self,' but rather you are merely them. In other terms, you are the sum of your contrasts and comparisons to others, rather than you “having” features and mental states that compare and contrast with others.

And so the next step is to embark upon a quest to write down the story of your life—an autobiography, if you will—where you seek to weave a story of seamless coherence from the dynamic, kaleidoscopic threads of your mental states and features. What you will soon find is that such a task is Herculean through and through, given that the fluidity of your existence resists confinement to a static, linear narrative. This is the ordeal I find myself in.

Our autobiographical fictions may trace the constellations of our desires, moods, attitudes, beliefs, and habits, attempting to attribute their origins to specific catalysts, be they experiential, social, or even biological, but this endeavour, though valiant as it is, can only ever capture a fleeting snapshot of my dynamic self which isn’t reducible to a story.

One important element has not yet been mentioned which is the socially and historically conditioned conceptual frameworks with which we construed such stories. As we must inquire: whence do these notions of man and woman, pistachio ice-cream aficionado, American or Chinese, Sikh or Muslim, Tutu or Hutu, emerge? We do not arrive in this world inscribed with such classifications; thus, how do they come to reside within our cognitive purview? And do these concepts, these labels that we use to compare and contrast, truly encapsulate our who we are, ‘essentially’ speaking?

Here is the crux of the matter as I view it: these categories are (mere) historically conditioned descriptors ascribed to us by our linguistic communities. And in our ever-globalising world, our identity is intricately interwoven within the fabric of a socio-historical discourse which is treading closer and closer towards some form of isomorphism, such that contrasts are no longer as rigid as they seemed to be in the past (in which anthropologists scramble to create interesting tales about “other” members of our species that are alien to us, and to which suburban kids respond by inventing new identifiers to distinguish themselves from others).

Language take center stage as it is through this vehicles that our identities take shape. These systems of symbols, far from being impartial bystanders, are deeply intertwined with the historical and cultural fabric of our lives. To assert that there exist language-independent, underlying 'facts' about a person is to underestimate the profound impact of discursive practices on the formation of our identities.

We must therefore acknowledge that the act of self-conceptualisation and narration inevitably occurs within the confines of an interpretive framework—one that is anything but neutral, and one that is slowly converging in the post-modern world. The mental states that comprise our being are far from isolated, pre-linguistic facts that exist independently of a frame of reference. To reduce our very existence to mere biological or neurological causality while ignoring the ‘social’, for instance, would be a grave misstep, as in claiming, as reductionist physicalists might, that 'who I am' is solely attributable to the neurones that spark joy at the taste of pistachio ice cream, or the unique cocktail of hormones and neural connections present at birth.

Let us, then, thus consider the myriad forces that conspire to shape our self-conceptualisations. The significant others around us, the situated social environment, and the vast expanse of global culture into which we are immersed all play a part in interpreting and framing our 'biographical facts.' We are, in essence, reflections of the linguistic communities to which we belong, with our vocabularies, linguistic practices, and conceptual systems serving as testaments to this connection. And so the ways in which we discuss ourselves and the world around us are prefigured, be they universal or culturally specific. We may call ourselves women, Americans, pistachio ice cream enthusiasts, Mormons, Democrats, and so forth, but these labels only hold meaning because our linguistic communities have imbued them with significance. It is these socio-historically constructed concepts, rather than any pre-existing, non-linguistic 'facts,' that we map onto ourselves.

Society and its institutions are constantly engaged in the act of redefining and crafting new classes, taxonomies, and identities (such as those pertaining to nationality, tribe, or religion). This ever-evolving process shapes—defines—how we conceive of ourselves, and in doing so, 'makes up people' (see Ian Hacking’s article “Making Up People”).

At this points, we may ask: Are we wholly puppets in the hands of socio-historically constituted linguistic communities, or do we possess some semblance of autonomy, an inner narrative that serves to illuminate our non-relational selves described apart from that community? While the world around us may indeed dictate our conceptual toolkit and frame our understanding, is it ultimately our own internal interpretation that breathes life into these external influences?

Let us consider the reflexive stories we tell ourselves, the intricate narratives we spin to render our organismic selves intelligible and coherent. We may sift through the treasure trove of our experiences, autobiographical memories, and mental states, all the while seeking to crystallise our “essence”. We may recite the litany of facts that comprise our attributes: our fondness for pistachio ice cream and football, our allegiance to Kpop and the United States, our devotion to Christianity and the Democratic Party, our attraction to mullets, our identification with the male gender, and our Arab heritage.

These pre-defined categories and classifications can be a comfort, a means of simplifying the labyrinthine complexities of our existence. But it is only when we attempt to weave these disparate threads into a coherent narrative that we are quickly confronted with a confounding enigma: that such a narrative does not have any metaphysical weight, it is a chimera.

Essentialism, Alteration and Bootstrapping 

Essentialism

The quest for a coherent self-narrative can be a Sisyphean task, an endeavor that leaves us feeling disoriented and ill at ease. In striving to weave a seamless story of our lives, we may find ourselves grappling with the elusive nature of our ever-changing selves. The written word seems to lack the finesse to capture the fluidity of our existence, rendering our attempts at self-expression clumsy and incoherent in comparison.

The more I write about myself, the less I am inclined to know about myself, because it is not the moving wave that I am writing about but a still and blurry picture of the wave. The wave can be approached in different ways, through novels and fictions, metaphors and analogies, but it can never be seized. To attempt to seize it is again the search for platonic forms and essences, for a secularised soul fashioned under the name ‘identity’; a chase after rainbows, it cannot be attained. This futile search ironically ends up with me having false (because inconsistent with my interests) and misleading beliefs about myself.

Some clarification here is needed. I am not claiming that the pursuit of a coherent self-narrative is inherently flawed due to its focus on the elusive essences of the self. Rather, it is the dichotomy of a "True" non-linguistic Self versus a false Self that I am rejecting. The narrativists argue that by weaving together seemingly unrelated contingencies, events, and discontinuities, we can derive valid inferences and determinate narratives about our lives and characters, discover our true selves. However, life and character, particularly in my case, do not adhere to this logic, and moreover, the pressure to create such a logic is more burdensome than beneficial.

One may object that while lifetimes are constantly in flux and that personal identity over time may not be actually ‘identical’, this does not mean that we cannot specify a single episode of a life at a single time and analyse its properties. Consider geographical boundaries in maps where we want to map a wetland at the edge of a forest. We can't fix a determinate point in which the wetland becomes a forest because the environment is in constant flux throughout the seasons. But it seems that maps are nonetheless useful for pragmatic reasons even if properties are gradient and not sharp. Likewise, the fact that our identities are always changing should not deter us from describing and expressing our past identities. 

However, as I will explore later through the distinction between the I/Self and the Me, examining our past selves often is in practice akin to psychoanalysing a separate being based on sparse descriptions. The objection raised by those who support creating narratives of past identities overlooks the crux of the issue: it is not that our ever-changing self-conception renders self-writing futile, but that constructing a narrative (as a continuous, determinant, and teleological description) out of one's life is unintelligible, akin to discerning a coherent story from a series of random mathematical algorithms.

Alteration

Indeed, autobiographical writing—particularly of the psychoanalytic tradition—may have a more sinister aspect, as it compels us to weave a coherent story that appears to make sense. In doing so, we may inadvertently alter our past experiences to fit our present understanding of ourselves. The vast body of psychological research on the fallibility of our memories only serves to underscore this phenomenon.

As we attempt to make sense of our current selves by sifting through our past, we do not simply recover past events; we reinterpret and redescribe them through new lenses. Our present meanings reshape the past in significant ways, often leading us to concoct erroneous cause-effect relationships when, in reality, there may be none or, at the very least, none that are clearly defined.

This is not to say that our past experiences do not influence our present selves. However, by seeking correlations relentlessly, we risk falling into a trap of overgeneralisation and misguided speculation. This is reminiscent of the misguided attempts to identify a "gay gene" or attribute male homosexuality to early socialization. In our quest for the elusive "Self-gene," we may inadvertently transform ourselves into objects of scientific inquiry, creating stories about ourselves that neglect the richness and complexity that can only be captured in the visceral moment—the person who truly matters. I refer to this as the alteration-effect of autobiographical writing.

Bootstrapping

Additionally, the act of writing about myself seems to fuel a tendency to perform and conform to the role of this written-on-paper fictional character, who, in actuality, remains an ever-shifting, indeterminate target. To make sense of and render this character interesting and recognisable, both to myself and my readers, I feel compelled to map it onto familiar categories and definitions. In doing so, I attempt to control and narrativise random sequences of events and faulty memories, inadvertently breathing life into this fictional character within the non-fiction realm. Consequently, I find myself categorising and performing roles such as a "shy person," "someone who had a good/bad childhood," "an American," or any other type of person, which then manifest in real life through a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yet, my sense of self emerges only when I actively seek it in cognition, when I put forth effort. Effort, however, is an action, a form of movement that is inherently dynamic and inexhaustible. It can only be truly expressed in the moment as it occurs. In essence, I can only know myself when I am actively engaged in the present moment, embracing the fluidity and ever-changing nature of my identity without succumbing to the constraints of predetermined roles and narratives.

The act of capturing and defining my identity through writing thus inadvertently creates a sense of rigidity and constraint. By attempting to seize the moving target of my identity and describe it as a fixed entity, I inadvertently impose limitations upon myself. Rather than remaining fluid and dynamic, I become increasingly cautious, feeling compelled to align my actions with the person I've depicted in my biography. Yet, I was never truly that person; I did not explicitly experience myself or engage with society in that manner before committing my identity to writing.

The situation is reminiscent of the observer effect in quantum mechanics, where particles only become determinate when measured by the scientist (or, in this case, the biographer). However, people are not mindless particles; they resist such measurements and ultimately reject these imposed constraints.

This process forces me to engage in an artificial internal dialogue, attempting to convince myself of the kind of person I am, rather than focusing on who I want to be, who I ought to be, or the direction in which I'm naturally tending. Yet, it is crucial to recognise that what I desire and strive to be cannot be divorced from my identity; in fact, they more than constitute it. I refer to this phenomenon as the bootstrap-effect, where my self-imposed constraints from writing about myself inadvertently impact my actions and self-perception, altering the very identity I was attempting to capture.

The I and the Me

Maybe I'm mentally deficient in some way (another attempt to pick out a determinate fact about me) and this is all nonsense. Or maybe I’m just being honest about self-narratives; that we are episodic and our lives really are just 'one damn thing after another'. Either way, I have much to relate with Rousseau when he wrote in his Confessions

...in my narrative of circumstances relative to myself, of the treatment I have received, and all that has happened to me, I shall not be able to indicate the hand by which the whole has been directed, nor assign the causes, while I state the effect. ...it is impossible for me to explain, even by conjecture, that in which the different causes are combined to operate the strange events of my life. If amongst my readers one even of them should be generous enough to wish to examine the mystery to the bottom, and discover the truth, let him carefully read over a second time the three preceding books, afterwards at each fact he shall find stated in the books which follow, let him gain such information as is within his reach, and go back from intrigue to intrigue, and from agent to agent, until he comes to the first mover of all. I know where his researches will terminate [hint: nowhere]; but in the meantime I lose myself in the crooked and obscure subterraneous path through which his steps must be directed.

As we pirouette through the intricate choreography of existence, some of us find ourselves free from this narrative-seeking disposition, that alluring siren's call which beckons us to trace patterns and forms. Instead, we whirl amidst a maelstrom of goals, projects, and desires, fervently grappling with the external world as it resists and shapes our intentions. Our identity is a dynamic fabric, woven from strands of criss-crossing, occasionally discordant, and sometimes competing aspirations. Amidst this tumult, we strive to position ourselves for success, to pragmatically setting ourselves a bunch of goals and strive to reach them, without needing a narrative to make such an endeavour coherent.

This dance may appear transactional or robotic, but it is our raison d'être, the heartbeat of our existence. Our steps are guided by the external stimuli that bombard us from all directions – the people, the environment, and the circumstances that color our world. In response, we continually reassess and reweave our goals and interests, assigning truth-values to propositions based on their alignment with our projects. This intricate pas de deux is the essence of who we are if there really was anything as an ‘essence’ – an adaptive, ever-evolving identity.

Let us now borrow a distinction from psychology (specifically William James’) to further illuminate our understanding of identity. Consider two facets of selfhood: the 'Me'¹ and the 'Self'².

On the one hand, the Me¹ is the organismic, brute entity that endures through time, despite the ever-changing atoms that constitute our physical bodies. It is this perceived corporeal aspect that can be observed, discussed, and dissected by others.

Conversely, the Self² is the immediate and reflexive cognisant presence, coextensive with the non-accusative 'I'. This 'I' is a primal nominative, only expressible through indexicals that anchor a proposition to the speaker's current context. The 'I' indexes the reader's Self when the reader utter the word “I”, yet when I, the writer, speak the same phrase, it captures my own Self.

Our journey begins in the realm of retrospection, where Self'² can recollect pivotal moments that have sculpted it, sculpted the identity the reader experiences at the moment. Armed with the lexicon bestowed upon it by its linguistic community, Self'² starts examining its childhood through the prism of its current perspectives, desires, and beliefs.

Yet, while these past events undoubtedly shaped the person Self'² has become, they do not reside within Self² as the past. These occurrences belong to the Me¹, the human organism that has traversed the tides of time, rather than Self² as the reader experiences it in the present moment.

As Self'² attempts to recall the experiences of its organismic Me¹, it must engage in an act of psychologising – interpreting the past through the lens of its current understanding. In this process, it transforms the character of Me¹ into a narrative akin to a fictional creation, resembling the ChatGPT character Gilbert. In essence, 'Self'² was not present to interpret the events that transpired in the life of 'Me'¹. Self² thrives in the vibrant immediacy of the present, seldom pondering what lies beyond the horizon of the past.

Self-Narratives as Self-Expressions

Though we acknowledge the flawed nature of self-narratives, we cannot abandon the pursuit of self-expression. To cease expressing ourselves is to relinquish our very existence – and we yearn to keep the flame of life burning. Importantly, self-expression need not be constrained to the narrative form. While some may find solace in the embrace of narratives, others may be invigorated by alternative forms of expression. Our individual proclivities toward storytelling may render narratives intelligible and coherent for some, while others, like me, may experience them as a dissonant cacophony.

So in our quest to understand identity and the veracity of self-narratives, we ultimately find that such questions as “does identity persists over time” may lose relevance. What is identity? What am I? Are so many irrelevant questions, as in the final analysis, what truly matters is the enrichment and fulfilment we derive from our lives, and narratives and identities are just more instruments in the gamut of instruments we wield in our pursuit towards happier, richer, more fulfilling and satisfying lives.