I used to think this was an easy question to answer.
One where you’d respond with at least your name and occupation as two identifiers.
And then you’d feel that this was an adequate enough response to progress the conversation because it puts a name to a face and a level to the things you’ve achieved.
But if we take those two things away, how would you answer it?
J. Krishnamurti was asked this question with the same intention.
‘Who are you?’
He responded with a smile, and turned the question saying ‘who am I?’.
These questions are quite meaningless, he explained.
Like reading a menu outside a restaurant that wouldn’t actually satisfy your hunger.
To satisfy it, you’d have to go inside and eat the food.
I think he meant to go deeper into this question and unravel the layers of identity that make you who you are, rather than accept the surface level markers of a name and occupation which are deemed acceptable by society.
’Are we not the result of a lot of imitations? - J. Krishnamurti asked.
I’ve tackled asking this question of myself for years; figuring out what I’m about, and why I am the way I am.
What makes one unique, away from replicating others?
This exploration really started because I wasn’t very happy with where I was in life.
Some of it has been revelatory.
I didn’t realise I had been holding onto things that triggered certain emotions like fear, and I hadn’t fathomed the level of anxiety they would cause either.
But you do have to explore these layers of yourself.
Else how would you know who you truly are?
‘You’ as a word always feels quite accusatory.
I often imagine a finger pointing of sorts.
Like when the spotlight is on you and you have to respond.
‘You’ feels very specific.
And very singled out.
Maybe ‘you’ feels quite embarrassing?
And that is probably why the lack of time is usually an excuse as to why it’s not explored on a deeper level.
I’ve never really understood where this word came from, and how it got to us in the English language.
As I said last week, all words are immigrants, and have travelled the length and breadth of the world to reach us at this moment in time.
It would be somewhat futile to claim them when they are consistently on the move.
It seems the term ‘you’ has its foundation in the Proto-Indo-European root *yu- meaning ‘you’ as a second person plural.
This evolved into the Proto-Germanic term ‘juz’, still retaining its meaning in plural form.
We then see its evolution into the Old English Ä“ow as a dative/accusative plural, and Ä¡Ä“ as a nominative plural.
An example of a dative plural would be ‘I spoke to you’.
The ‘you’ in this would be dative because it is a ‘receiver’ of an action used when something is given to or for someone.
In the example, ‘I saw you’, the ‘you’ is accusative because it is directly affected by an action, and is used for the direct object of a sentence.
Plural is, of course, applied to more than one person or thing.
We see the term evolve into the Middle English term ‘ye’ as a nominative and ‘you’ as an objective term.
‘You’ became the standard form of both singular and plural, replacing ‘thou’ in most contexts by around the 17th Century.
I don’t think J. Krishnamurti was wrong when he said we're the result of a lot of imitations.
We follow societal pressures and expectations to recreate what feels ‘normal’.
But, after understanding where the word came from, it’s evident the term ‘you’ went through its own evolution to focus on itself as a standalone object, as well as multifaceted plural.
Words are as alive as we are.
It is then perhaps necessary to take some time and understand the deeper layers of words on an even greater scale; not just to get to the heart of their meaning, but by becoming more and more aware of the story of their movement.
So,
Who are you?
Where do you begin?