Who are You?

I recently heard an author being interviewed. He said that one of his high school teachers claimed that the entirety of Ancient Greek philosophy could be summed up in Socrates' instruction, "Know thyself."

So who are you?

How would you answer that question? 

There isn't an easy answer. Am I what I think? What I believe? What I feel? 

I often find myself mulling poet Walt Whitman's famous lines: 

Did I contradict myself?

Very well then, I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I think that's probably how most people feel about ourselves, which is why it's impossible to answer the question "Who are you?" We are different people in different situations, often contradicting ourselves. I am one person when I'm at a dinner party and another when I'm being interviewed. I'm not the same person when I'm at work as I am when I'm home alone. Some would say that this apparent multitude is just our singular self being viewed from different angles: that who we are in any given moment is just a matter of perspective. This answer is, of course, satisfying, although it implies that there is a central core of who we are that is unchangeable, even if it's not fully knowable. 

Perhaps "Know thyself" is an impossibility. Perhaps we can only know ourselves through others.

Maybe I am the person my dog thinks I am. In that case, I'm pretty awesome.

Maybe I'm the person the guy who flipped me off in traffic thinks I am. In that case, I'm a dangerous idiot.

I know that when I leave this earth, I will become the a sum of the stories people tell about me.

Young children don't care about what I think or believe or feel. They know me for what I do. They know me not by my thoughts, but by my actions. They know me not for by my beliefs, but by my words. They know me not for my feelings, but rather by my tone, posture, and expressions. They know who I am through my responses to what they do and say. And this is also how they come to know who they are.

Humans who have been tortured by isolation, like prisoners in extended solitary confinement, report feeling unreal, invisible, and disconnected from their selves. That's because our self emerges in relationship. I know I'm funny because other people laugh. I know I'm trustworthy because other people trust me. In know I'm lovable because I am loved.

Young children already understand something that most of us spend a lifetime trying to figure out: we are what we do together.

They come to know me through my responses to them, and they come to know themselves through my responses to them. Who we are is not hidden somewhere deep inside, waiting to be discovered. We become ourselves every time we interact with another person.

Perhaps that's what it means to know thyself.

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Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in way that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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