Selfless

Who are we? It seems like a simple enough question, but as soon as we try to answer it, things get complicated. 

Are we simply what we do? Are we doctors and plumbers and windsurfers and stamp collectors? And if we stopped doing those things would we cease to exist, or become someone else?

Maybe we’re only who we are to others: son, daughter, mother, father, sibling, enemy, friend. But when those relationships end, or fracture, we run into the same problem.

Perhaps we’re just a collection of cells, or a bag of chemicals and compounds. But if I have an organ transplant, or a surgical amputation, or a massive stroke, do I cease to be who I am?

It’s tempting to think that we are our memories, our thoughts and our values. But all of those things are notoriously shifty--changing according to situation and circumstance, and profoundly unreliable.

When you look at it closely, there only seems to be one rational answer. Who are we? We aren’t. The whole concept of the “self” is an illusion.