Who am I?
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Wolran Kim
June 2011



Who am I? No, what am I? This question always makes me perplexed. Which philosopher ever gives us a definite answer about "What is human?" So I still don't know how I can conclude this foggy labyrinthine question. This condition is getting worse as I grow older by my doubts about life. I thought I was Wolran Lee (maiden Last name) simply when I was young because people called me this. But it was just one word which made for a birth registration, and this is no different than I call my dog "Toby." I really did not know who I was in adolescence, and I was even afraid to find out who I was. People say that it is not easy you recognize who you are when you are young.

After I came to America getting married, my name changed to Wolran Kim. Changing the last name meant that I started my life as an immigrant,—Korean people keep their last name even after get married—a wife, and a mother. Now 21 and 18 years old two youngsters call me a mom. But these names are just words which home and community organizations gave to me. I might start writing poetry to find out who really I am. I might come back to school and try to understand a little more English as my old age among the youngsters who are my kids' ages to find out who I am. But all instructors tell me that I will be more unaware about this question, because learning is the process of realizing about unfamiliar knowledge.

Some say people make 50% of their fate. Then who makes the rest of my life? I have been seeking all of these wonders from God and clung to him. He is still inside of me but I pushed and placed him in the corner of my room. I often push him away because I do not want him interfering too much. When I see people who die in traffic accidents suddenly, He says to me "I told you." Our lives are like that. I like Michel Paul Foucault's (1926~1984, French structuralism philosopher) words, he said that the hardest thing for people who believe in God, is belief in God. Buddhism says that the state of knowing who we are is freedom from the ties of this world.

Looking to the past shows us exactly who we are. If I explain the yardstick of the world, I was born in a middle-class family in South Korea and I graduated from a third-rate college. I had been working for 21 years after came to America and have two children. My children are all grown and not participating in my dolls playing, because I treated them as my dolls. And I went back to school because making money, doing house payment, and eating three times every day, all of these things have no meaning to me at all.

A language barrier of immigrants is putting into a holding their potential in the dead storage. Having a mid-life crisis, I was really surprised. That was it? Really that only is my life? I had asked myself this question millions of times. The newspaper article about a 95 year old grandmother receiving a college degree, gave the courage to my puzzling mind. I am happy when I write poems, do assignments, and study for exams. Aristotle said that the highest good which all human beings pursue, is happiness. I would like to believe this happiness is me. I can see myself when I am happy.

I wish I can distinguish myself with my family relationships, profile, height, weight, address, driver's license, Social Security Number, hobbies, religion, twenty kinds of advantages, and twenty kinds of disadvantages. I wonder if I eagerly live my life because I don't know who I am, just as the Creator's greatest gift is that I don't know when is my last day.