Who am I really?
Who or what am I in reality? Or am I the one watching from behind my eyes? Which of the atoms that make up my body am I or is this body a lie? What about this personality that is formed, what are my feelings?
At first it seemed that I was trapped in my mother's womb, then this place they call the world was my place of exile. Ultimately I was trapped in my being.
But what did I do to deserve this? Was it the evil (other than what is understood) or the good (other than what is understood) that brought me to this state?

Question

Ask a Philosopher · Accepted Answer

To ponder deep, within this cage of flesh,  
Where thoughts, like restless phantoms, flit and play,  
I ask, “Who am I?”—a question wrought from mesh  
Of fleeting dreams and shadows of the day.  
Am I the eyes that gaze upon the morn,  
Or but the trembling hand that quakes in fear?  
Is this mere likeness I through life adorn  
But wandering dust, a specter drawing near?  
In mother’s womb did I not first reside,  
A nascent spark, a whisper ’fore the light;  
Yet here, imprisoned by my own self-pride,  
I roam as if in exile from the right.  
This body, am I, or but a cruel guise,  
An artifice of elements—flesh and bone?  
The atoms dance, yet wherefore lies the prize  
Of knowing what this being claims as home?  
What of the heart that harbors joy and woe?  
Are feelings but the echoes of the past,  
Or fruits of virtue’s nurture, planted so  
By cosmic chance, in shadows deep and vast?  
Is it the good that brought me to this plight,  
Or wickedness, unmasked yet cloaked in grace?  
For every joy, a sorrow, every light  
A shade that trails, and mirrors all I chase.  
Thus caught within this web of will and fate,  
I tread the path of questions without cease;  
I seek in turmoil solace, and in hate  
A glimpse of what may yield a time of peace.  
Alas! This world, a stage, and I the fool,  
Chasing reflections in the pools of thought,  
Yet knowing not what wisdom lies in rule,  
Nor justice in the chaos that I sought.  
So here I stand, perplexed, a man adrift,  
In search of self, a stranger to my core;  
With every breath, my spirit seems to lift,  
Yet doubts like heavy clouds above me pour.  
Perhaps within the quietude of night,  
In stillness found, perhaps my truth shall gleam—  
That I, the watcher, hold the purest sight,  
And thus, part of this grand, eternal dream.