Who Are You?
By Adam Grossheider
“Who are you?” This question is one of the most
daunting questions we could ever be asked. The struggle of identity is probably
one of the single most troublesome issues that humanity has ever faced. It is
the root and cause of much internal conflict as individuals and, also on a
larger social scale, within groups. When we aren’t worrying about who we are,
we often distract ourselves by worrying about who other people are, or who they
claim to be, and how we can or cannot relate to them. This is no doubt the seed
of conflict that stretches back to the beginning of time.
I once had a trusted friend challenge me with this
question, Who are you? Who were we at birth before our experiences shaped us,
if even our names were chosen for us as well? Never before had I been blatantly
stopped in my tracks, and I found myself in a confused moment, fighting the
urge to answer immediately to satiate my upset ego. Did my friend want an
answer? I don’t believe the question was anything more than a rhetorical one,
but one that was meant to be a catalyst. I sat at my computer like a cartoon
with a giant exclamation point over my head and a grumbling scribble in my
thought bubble.
This question led to others, chief among them being
“Where are you going?” Not only did I have no idea who the hell I was, but now
I naturally faced the inevitable question of purpose. What am I doing with
myself? I felt small, confused, and inept. My friend had dropped the mic and
walked away, but with the best of intentions. So there I sat, slightly angry
and disappointed at myself. Granted, this was not any sort of catastrophic
dilemma. I certainly was annoyed that my immediate answers to the question were
feeble and only revealed how hard my ego was fighting for self-importance. In
the coming weeks, the question loomed and persisted.
Let’s change gears for a moment and put this into
context. Since I am mostly interested and involved in the Western Mystery
Traditions, I will relate this subject in terms of those with which I am most
familiar with. Within the Initiatic structures and even the religious
traditions, at certain points you are charged to create for yourself a new
name. In the magical traditions such as the Golden Dawn or similar
organizations, the Magical Motto is chosen early in the journey to represent
your inspirations, or most importantly, your spiritual aspirations. Dean Wilson
of the same affiliation reminds us that “It symbolizes the end of the old way
of life and the beginning of a new.” This
implies and requires that transformation take place, that forward movement is
necessary for advancement, as opposed to any sort of empty accomplishment.
Those who view the motto in this light are misunderstanding its purpose and
possibly setting themselves up for difficulty, delusion, and ultimately
failure.
Within Freemasonry, one does not choose any sort of
mystical name, but something even more elusive; the Mark. The Mark is chosen as
a personal insignia upon completing the Mark Master degree. This degree, in the
American York Rite arrangement, is the 4th degree and beginning of the Chapter
after completing the Lodge degrees. To understand the philosophical context of
the purpose of the Mark, consider both the operative and speculative purposes.
Within operative Masonry, the stonecutter would “mark” his work as a sign of
completion and submitted it to the overseers for inspection. In Speculative
masonry, the “works” are his Thoughts, Words, and Actions, and his Mark is the
sign that he has taken full responsibility for his moral and spiritual
endeavors. Within this degree, for those that explore the esoteric side of the
Craft, the candidate finds that the work of square angles may represent the
Physical world and Material things, and that the work of circular curves may
represent Spiritual things. This is directly reflected in the two principal
symbols of the fraternity, The Square and the Compasses; representing the
active and passive interplay between Heaven and Earth, the Above and the Below,
Body and Spirit, Man and God, etc. To me, the Square has also always been Human
Intuition, and the Compasses were Divine Inspiration. Where we have our
identity and purpose is where we meet in the middle.
I was told to take my Mark seriously, even if those
administering my own degree had no intention of interpreting Freemasonry in an
esoteric way whatsoever, so I did. I produced a sigil made of a word that
represented a guide toward my highest aspirations morally and spiritually. This
was, in a way, my new name. It makes me think of the symbolism of death and
transformation within the Initiatic and even the Ecclesiastical traditions,
black habits representing the new role of becoming “dead to the world”,
truthfully becoming dedicated to new service to God and Man.
To get back on track, there’s that word again,
identity; the struggle that dawns on everyone of us. Who are we, and where are
we going? In Masonry we simply ask “Whence came you?”, and “What came you here
to do?”, the answers to both being quite purposely ambiguous and equally
unhelpful unless you are willing to meditate on the subject of identity and
purpose. The real answers of course, are much more personal and incommunicable.
This brings me to a possible explanation. What if all
we can claim to be is all we aspire to? A fixed identity is an all too
comfortable, lazy, and dangerous attempt to satisfy the ego in the world of
meaning, which is far from the world of truth. It is a safe illusion we indulge
in regardless of our intentions. The truth is, we are constantly changing,
adapting, growing, and learning. This is the real struggle of identity, knowing
that we might not have a face behind the mask at all, even though we often try
to cement ourselves into a category. This threatens our tendency to feel
special and unique, while the Greater Mysteries has been described as becoming
willing to give up all individuality in the name of the greater good.
Maybe this is it, that our aspirations are, for all
immediate intents and purposes, our identity. Are we not shaped by our habits
and goals, and are these not supposed to evolve on the spiritual path? I have
not answered the question. I might never, and that no longer bothers me. I have
a blurry idea that if my aspirations are noble and that my intentions and
actions reflect them truthfully, I can honestly say that this is all the
identity needs to be.
So where does this leave us? Don’t freak out over who
you are or where you’re going, because you might not have the foggiest. Take
time to form a goal worth striving for, and this journey towards that goal will
truly shape who you are, and that may be all that matters in this life, and we
can only hope to help others along the way.
