Who am I?

I read my nephews post asking this question: who am I?  A question I have asked myself to which I identify with my nephew.

While reading, I hear in my mind's ear the song now being sung during drinking sessions "Who am I?" (sounds like Creed to me) by casting Crowns. Lately, I have been hearing these "Christian" and Hellsong errr...I mean Hillsong praise and worship music being sung during drinking sessions and this gives me that strange feeling, a cross between shouting blasphemy while saying praise God for the bums and the alcoholics are being reached out! But depends on which side of the planet one is on, as for me, who cares! 

Maybe this and maybe that, but I don't know if the Holy Spirit of God can work side by side with the spririt and spiritum of San Miguel Beer and Gin to bring about repentance and salvation. But just the same, maybe in their hour of hang overs, head aches, expiration (of the alcohol and what have you's effect) and flash backs these people may come to the realization of the lyrics that they were singing and in that hour of vulnerability the Holy Ghost could do his works...who knows. 

But they may simply be singing because they like the melody and the guitar riffs, the basslines, and the drum rolls and none of that spiritual blah, blah,blah...

                                                            Who am I? (Casting Crowns)

                            

      When I first heard this song, I thought this was a Creed song. Good song and I understood why it became popular: the lyrics and the style.

How many times have I heard, the most popular of which was Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life", that who we are is that we are God's children and that our purpose is to worship, serve, surrender--our existence is grounded upon God, the ground of our being  (Tillich), the fact from which all facts arises (from CS Lewis and I don't like the way it sounds) and that our existence is not an accident, blah, blah, blah...words that could inspire confidence and to some may prove the final answer to the question of existence: the Bible drama, so to speak.

But it would be dishonest to say that this is not the case for many who asks about the existential-ontological question and for some this answer maybe or is worse than saying our existence is an accident because the God-answer smacks of determinism and helplessness in the face of planned existence as opposed to the existentialist's understanding of an absurd but free existence: we are who we want to be (or something like that) as Sartre expressed it. God: Purposed but Determined; Accident: Absurd but Free. The existentialist believes that the latter is the brave choice to which I agree, to some extent.

I don't know, up to now I still ask this question and if one really delved into this kind of thinking or asking, the mind would go into a loop an endless loop which may prove unhealthy in the long run. Our existence is determined, as can be seen by the laws of nature that governs our existence, but this is not the whole reality because there is also an element of indeterminism at the sub-atomic level of our existence, so, there are two seemingly opposing realities within and without us both working harmoniously. 

Anyway, the problem is not really the question, it's really how we think. Our mind has been programmed to thinking in an either or manner that we cannot accept or it has become counter intuitive to think of possibilities existing at the same time. 

Who am I? To quote God: "I am who I am." 

Doesn't matter...watch the movie The Nines starring Ryan Reynolds and be entertained how the question of existence was tackled.

I don't think life would be fun if we all know the answer...