Getting to know who we really are can be a difficult thing to do for many of us. This may be because starting on the journey to rediscovering our true selves first requires having very serious doubts about whether we really are any of the things we have come to believe we are.

Inquiring into any subject usually implies having doubts about that subject. Doubt is an essential component of investigation. Where there’s no doubt there’s no inquiry and where there’s no inquiry there’s no discovery. This is why rediscovering our true identity can be a difficult thing to do, because most of us don’t have much doubt about who we are. We all think we know ourselves rather well, so we hardly ever pose ourselves the question “Who Am I?”

Some people sometimes ask themselves that question, but only to respond by listing some of those obvious personal characteristics that everyone usually talks about: That they’re Americans, or Germans, or whatever other nationality they might have; that they’re men or women; that they’re rich, poor, or middle class, that they’re tall or short; that they’re good looking or not; that they’re good in sports, or any other field of human endeavor or not; that they’re intelligent or not so intelligent; and a series of other personal traits that we all have come to believe are fundamental components of who we are.

Hardly anybody has any lingering doubts about their identity. The fact may be that having doubts about anything is not the kind of experience anyone normally seeks to have, and doubting whether our identity is actually defined by our physical, emotional and mental attributes seems to be one of those unwanted experiences everybody wants to avoid. Most of us prefer taking for granted that such attributes constitute everything that we are, which is why most of our lives are anchored on the belief that we’re nothing but our physical, emotional and mental attributes.

The fact may also be that, without such anchoring, most people would probably lose their sense of direction and their sense of purpose in life, with the resulting disintegration of the individual, family and society that such absence of direction and purpose would entail. This may well be the main reason that most people refuse to inquire into the validity of their assumptions about their identity, as without such assumptions their lives would probably lose all meaning.

Out of sheer personal observation, I would venture to speculate that anyone who constantly doubts the validity of this existential kind of personal “self-knowledge” would tend to be a social misfit in one way or another. Such is very likely the case of some philosophers hiding in their ivory towers, or some scientists burying their heads in their laboratories, or some monks locking themselves up in monasteries.

There is, however, another kind of inquirer that doesn’t necessarily have to hide in any of those places to pursue the resolution of their existential doubts. Some of us actually managed to keep living a relatively normal social life while engaged in such pursuit.

But, is having deep doubts about ourselves such an indispensable premise for inquiring about our true identity in a serious manner? Yes it is. As we said above, where there’s no doubt there’s no inquiry, and where there’s no inquiry there’s no discovery. 

For example, someone who doesn’t have a deeply inquisitive mind has probably never questioned any of those basic existential tenets that we all rather obediently absorbed during our formative years. But such is not the case of the self-inquirer. In the view of our kind of existential doubters, no definition is acceptable as the final, ultimate definition for the object of their doubt. Regarding existential matters, there may even be some definitions and concepts that are widely accepted by the great majority of people, but those definitions and concepts may still not satisfy the understanding or general perception of a small number of inquirers.