Who We Are

“If we die, we die as who we are.” This is a quote from Tuon in Knife of Dreams, I think, the 11th book of the Wheel of Time. When I read it, it felt…striking to me, I guess you could say. It’s a powerful thought. In the book, it’s because Tuon was “under the veil”, meaning instead of being recognized as the Daughter of the Nine Moons she was hiding herself and being just the High Lady Tuon, and when they prepared to leave into danger, she decided to remove the veil. But the words itself are rather more than that.


The first thing that comes to my mind, probably the most important, is the part about “who we are”. It implies the words of someone who knows who they are, what their place is, and where they’re going. They have a set course in life. But so often as we grow up, we find ourselves not knowing who we really are. We don’t have children, or a job, or anything like that. We’re simply one of so many attending schools all over. I probably couldn’t tell you who I was if you asked me. Oh, I could tell you my name, who my parents are, where I go to school, what I do for fun. But what about my purpose? It’s so hard to know, isn’t it? Only it feels like everyone should know why they’re here and what they’re going to do. So many people, however, don’t really know, I think. There are far too many of us, even adults, who are still searching because they’re still not sure what they want to do and how they’re going to achieve it. I’d tell you I want to do something worthwhile, want to leave something behind, like a work of mine, writing, something that exhibits some of the truths I’ve known, some of which are chronicled in this blog. And maybe that’s a small piece of who I am, the dreamer, searching for something…different, and wanting to leave something behind. But there are always more facets.

Maybe it’s a gift, as well. If we knew what we were meant for, there would be different problems, like all the ones there are with prophecy; the hero is told what’s going to happen, and nothing’s going to change that, and then there are wrong interpretations, and bad things happen. It’s good not to know everything, but sometimes I wish we could know a little more. Just a little more of what we are, of who we are.

And then if we know, the second thing about those words is dying as who you really are. Not as the person you’ve built up through the years, not as the face and manner you show to others, but the person you are in deepest night when your thoughts blend with dreams and wishes. The person you always wanted to be and the person you never thought you could. At the very last, at least once, you can and must shed off the things you’ve done to fit in, to handle this world, and show, for one moment, the truth inside of you; to show to the world who you were, who you are, and who you always will be. For only then everything can come to be in full.