Editor’s Note: This column contains strong language. Identity. Noun. The fact of being who or what a person or thing is: “He knows the identity of the bombers | She believes she is the victim of mistaken identity.” BS. Abbr. Vulgar slang. Used as a euphemism for “bullshit.” Who am I? – it’s an inquiry eternally made, as obligatory a question as one’s ever asked. Though one poses it incalculably many times, he or she doesn’t ever quite arrive at a satisfactory answer. The problem, of course: “Who am I” is a grammatically troublesome expression of identity. The verb “to be” implies an exactness of present that’s incompatible with the progressive notion of selfhood. One’s identity isn’t simply “fact,” as the New Oxford American Dictionary suggests. That’s bullshit. The question itself isn’t mathematically solvable, but an equation is an acceptable substitution for it, as it were. Mathematically expressed, “Who am I” becomes “I = x,” where “I” is definite and “x,” then, isn’t. I’m Phillip, for instance, Greek for “lover of horses.” (I’m not one, suffice it say.) My middle name, Thomas, is the given name of my mother’s father. In turn, Sweeney, is the anglicization of the Gaelic Mac Suibhne. – upon emigrating to England, my ancestors left the “Mac” in Ireland with the Potato Famine. I’m only 50 percent Irish, though. The other half – it’s German. I’m partial to whiskey, therefore, just as I’m partial to beer. I’m fond of waxing lyrical, like Oscar Wilde, and philosophical, like Friedrich Nietzsche. I’m all for conquering England – and sometimes, all Europe. I’m Southern, too, of course. The Thomas Francis Sweeneys are Mobile, Ala. natives, where my grandfather was an Atticus Finch of a lawyer first, then a Solomon of a judge later. And I’m his grandson all right – have his ears. Dumbo’s ears. I’m my grandmother – I’m the French toast she’d make me every morning. I’m my eight uncles and two aunts. I’m their left-brained intellects. Their right-winged politics. Their ups and downs, highs and lows. Their off-beat, ill-timed humor – their fart humor, more often than not. I’m an Eagle Scout, like my Uncle Tim. A one-time college dropout, like my Uncle Joe. I’ve got my Uncle Mark’s tender-heartedness. My bark’s worse than my bite, like my Uncle Don. I’m awkward, like my Uncle Tom. I’m a troll, like my Aunt Jody. A jackass, like my Uncle Dan. I’m my cousins – twin fighter pilots Christopher and Kevin, post-doctoral candidate David, now-Parisian expatriate Margie. I’m Rebekah, who works as a teacher for peanuts, and Will, who lives in China. I’m Martin, who had the guts and twang to up-and-move to Nashville to become a singer-songwriter. I’m Robert, who smokes entirely too much weed. I’m my special-needs little brother, who’s hard of hearing – and anything but hard of heart. I’m the Legos we play with, the spaceships we build. I’m the college-level math homework he helps me with, the words he makes me define. I’m his Pokemon – the ones I feign interest in, the ones whose names I could never enunciate. I’m the pictures he draws, those masterpieces to none but me. The handmade cards he sends me – the ones Hallmark could never replicate. I’m my deceased mother’s son, above all – the very spitting image of her. I say the things she said. A book bag is a “book satchel,” for instance. A convenience store is a “filling station.” I do the things she did that I swore I’d never do, like smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. I’m the voicemails she left me, the ones I’ve not yet deleted. The ones I never will. And I’m the father I’ve never known. This is my “I,” ultimately. Accordingly, if the above expression I = x is true – which it is, mathematically – then this is my identity. It isn’t, though. The problem, again, is the equality. The equal sign. The “is.” The verb “to be.” The relationship between I and x isn’t, in fact, one of equality – rather, it’s one of continuity. A mathematical operator whose verbal equivalent isn’t “to be,” as it were – but “to become.” Nietzsche articulated this best, borrowing from the Ancient Greek poet Pindar: “What does your conscience say? – Become who you are.” In this sense, one isn’t a human being so much as a “human becoming.” One’s identity is perpetually fluid, in other words – a moving target, then, for the piss-poor aim of the question, “Who am I.” Such inquiries seek reflective answers in freshly Windexed mirrors, man-made constructs of identity, ultimately. One’s identity is more faithfully reflected in rushing water, where it’s obscured but for its general outline and the general sense of forward-flowing – of becoming. Identity as a static, all-encompassing notion of fact – bullshit. This, then, is the only answer to such a question. Who am I? I’m becoming.
Phil Sweeney is a 25-year-old English senior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_PhilSweeney.
 
____ Contact Phil Sweeney at [email protected]