Who am I? Frankly, I don’t know; except for the fact that this question haunts me every night among a billion other things ranging from death making life meaningless or the fact that people change each day without them even realizing it.

When I was younger though, I had a clear-cut image of who I was, and who I had to be. When asked once by my teacher about who I wanted to be, I had the audacity to reply back, “to be well-liked by everyone”. My future self would have sniggered at that- considering the number of feathers I had managed to ruffle during my lifetime, which was of a considerable amount.

I framed silly rules and rituals in my head for conforming to that ‘perfect role. They were extremely trivial, to be honest, like smiling at literally every person I walk by (looking back, there is a chance that some of them would’ve thought me to be a lunatic) or contributing myself to extreme kindness (which backfired on me, causing more harm than good).

But then, as time passed by, I found that image to wither away just how quickly as it formed in me. I found- or rather, caught myself violating my own rules (Some of them were extremely dumb), contradicting with my idea of myself. That was a very confusing time for me indeed. Then I realized that I didn’t know who I was anymore. I strayed too far.

Regarding the self, however, there was one idea I had loved too much- that we were “made of star-stuff”; how I adored that! Really, if you think about it, we are exactly that. But then, if everyone were made up of it, what made you and me special? There, the concept of self becomes important. Primarily, regarding who we were to ourselves.

And finally, after *years* of self-reflection, *countless* discussions, and *numerous* readings, I realized one thing.

I still didn’t know who I was.

However, I arrived at a satisfactory definition. I was a mixture of abstract ideas based on others’ ideas of me. A meeting point for the weirdest yet most amusing ideas- an amalgamation of different expectations of myself and others around me, which I try so hard to be, but strays far away yet again. And in that process, I join the path to finding the answer to that question; if there ever is one.