The Question Behind the Self
At the end of one of the talks, she heard applause.
First a few scattered claps, then many more, forming a continuous sound that filled the theater. Amid the applause, voices mingled in brief comments, laughter, and words she could not quite make out.
She caught the scent of someone’s perfume nearby.
Beside her, someone unwrapped something. She glanced discreetly at the person, who broke off a piece and brought it to their mouth. The gesture stirred a desire to eat something herself. She took a small piece of chocolate from her bag and felt its flavor spread across her tongue. She noticed its texture, its temperature, and the way the chocolate began to melt.
Meanwhile, her eyes wandered around the room. She saw the speaker, the people settled into their seats, someone crossing their legs, a woman adjusting her hair.
Everything was happening at once.
Without giving it much thought, she brushed her leg against the chair’s seat. She felt the softness of the upholstery against her skin. Then she slid one hand along the wooden armrest and noticed its firmness as she touched it.
It was such a familiar experience that it had never seemed worthy of reflection.
But in that moment, she began paying attention not only to the things she perceived, but also to the act of perceiving them.
The sensations were different, yet they were all part of the same experience.
A question arose, almost involuntarily:
What did it mean to perceive all of this?
She looked at her hands.
She could choose to keep her fingers open or close them. They were her hands, the ones she used every day to hold objects, open doors, write, and greet other people.
Until then, she had never given much thought to her body. Now, however, she could observe it, too.
But if the body was hers, who was she?
She could answer with her name, her story, her memories, her choices, and everything she recognized as part of herself. Yet none of these answers seemed to reach exactly what she was trying to understand.
But she did not seem to have the same degree of control over her own thoughts. They arose, linked together, and led her to new questions, without her being able to fully direct their course.
And if she had no control over them, what did that mean?
Were they part of her?
Were they truly hers?
Who, after all, was observing the whole?
The speaker continued talking. Some people whispered to one another. A few rows behind her, an armchair creaked.
She closed her eyes for a few seconds. The sounds continued to reach her, but they seemed to change as she focused on them. At times, they grew more intense; at others, they nearly disappeared.
The same was true of her sensations. She could notice her heartbeat, follow the rhythm of her breathing, or become aware of an emotion passing through her.
When she opened her eyes again, shapes, colors, and movements returned to fill her field of vision.
It was as though her senses were pathways through which the world came into being for her.
But did everyone see it in the same way? Or did each person, without even realizing it, experience a reality of their own?
If she could perceive things differently, would everything seem different to her?
She knew, at least in part, the explanations of how the brain contributed to perception. But something still puzzled her:
Knowing how the senses worked was not the same as understanding what it means to feel.
She could understand the mechanisms of vision and still wonder what it meant to see.
She could recognize the body as an inseparable part of her existence and still ask herself:
Am I the body that feels, or am I the one who perceives what it feels?
The question brought her no answer, only another, even more difficult one:
When I say “I,” what exactly am I referring to?
The face she saw in the mirror? The memories that made up her story?
She felt unsettled. For the first time, it was as though she were standing before a stranger.
She remembered herself as a child. She had grown up; her opinions and desires were no longer the same.
Despite so many changes, she still recognized that little girl as herself. She could look back on the past and say, I was that child.
But what allowed her to still recognize herself in that girl?
Was it the continuity of her body, or the memory that connected one moment to the next?
The woman remained seated, her eyes turned toward the auditorium, but her attention had already wandered far beyond that space. The speaker’s words reached her ears, yet she was no longer following what was being said.
She decided to conduct a small experiment.
For a few moments, she tried to empty her mind.
She fixed her gaze on a point in front of her. But soon, an image appeared: a street she had walked along that morning. Then she remembered something she needed to do later. A little while afterward, she realized she could not stop thinking.
She almost smiled.
How was that possible? Her body remained there, seated before the stage, but her attention slipped away, darting off like a mischievous girl to places and situations that were nowhere in front of her.
Even the attempt not to think had turned into a thought.
If I can perceive my thoughts, am I only what I think?
She remembered how many times she had believed in an idea and, some time later, changed her mind. Things she had once considered important had taken on different meanings over the years.
Even so, she recognized those old convictions as her own, even when she no longer agreed with them or when they caused her anguish.
It was as though she were trying to squeeze her grown feet into a shoe she had outgrown.
What was it that maintained this continuity?
As she reflected, a childhood scene arose in her mind. She saw the backyard of the house where she had grown up, the sunlight on the ground, an avocado tree beside the wall, and butterflies dancing above the flowers.
The memory came with a feeling of familiarity, almost as though she could return to that place.
But she was no longer there.
At that moment, she remembered a difficult conversation she had had a few days earlier. The memory brought back what she had felt then. For an instant, she experienced the same tension again, the same sense of having been wronged.
Then she realized that she was irritated once more. Her body grew tense, her throat tightened, and her mouth went dry.
The anger was there. It was impossible to deny what she felt.
Her mind replayed the words of the conversation, and the emotion seemed to fill all the space within her. She mentally repeated the things she wished she had said at the time, as though she could still rewrite the conversation.
How many times had she said, “That’s just the way I am,” as though the feelings, habits, and reactions of a particular moment defined her entire existence?
Was she confusing what she experienced with who she was?
She looked around.
The speaker gestured as he addressed the audience. Some people listened attentively; others seemed distracted. Someone checked their watch. A young woman adjusted her glasses. A man coughed quietly.
Everything continued to happen.
And she was aware of it.
Her attention could turn not only toward the world around her, but also toward what was happening within her.
And the more she observed, the more questions arose.
If she could not define who she was solely by her body, her thoughts, her memories, or her emotions, was it possible to discover something that remained behind all these things?
Or was the very idea of a permanent self just another thought, a way of organizing everything she experienced?
For the first time, she did not try to answer immediately. The question was too vast for that moment.
She turned her attention inward.
She tried to perceive who was observing all of it.
If she searched for an image, she found her body.
If she searched for a definition, she found a thought.
If she searched for a memory, she found something that belonged to the past.
But who was she while all of this was happening?
She tried to look within herself as she would look at an object. She searched for something she could recognize, name, and finally point to and say: this is what I am.
But she found no definitive answer.
Perhaps she was looking in the wrong way. Perhaps she expected to reach something she could recognize and name, as though it were an object.
Or perhaps she simply did not know enough to understand what was happening.
There was no way for her to know.
The sound of another round of applause brought her back to the auditorium. The speaker had finished his presentation. People stood up and gathered their belongings. Someone passed by her, asking her to move aside.
She stood up, too.
She felt her feet firmly planted on the floor and the movement of her legs. She picked up what she had left on the chair and followed the others toward the exit.
Everything seemed familiar.
The same body. The same senses. The same world.
But something had changed in the way she related to it all.
Not because she had discovered a hidden truth or found answers to the questions that had arisen. On the contrary, she was leaving with more questions than before.
All her life, she had said I without hesitation.
I think.
I feel.
I see.
I exist.
She had never realized how much mystery could be contained in those tiny phrases.
As she crossed the theater’s doorway, she paused for a brief moment. People continued to pass by. Voices mingled in the hallway.
The light outside seemed less intense.
Until that day, she had believed she knew who she was.
Now she recognized the depth of a question that had always been there, though she had never put it into words:
Who am I, after all?
She kept walking.
She had no answer.
But she could no longer ignore the question.
https://digitalmehmet.com/author/rschumaher
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Discover more about my journey as a writer in my interview with Dr. Mehmet Yildiz.
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