True Identity: A Never-Ending Quest?

[Maverick]

I was thinking about this question a few weeks ago and it seems a good one to post. I'm not sure if there has already been a topic on this as I'm new, so I'll just go ahead.

Who is truer: Who I was, Who I am, or Who I will be?

As a child I swore that I'd become a Ghost Buster. Yea yea... we all had crazy ideas, I was only in preschool. What troubled me about this however is the following: If I betrayed the faith I had as a preschooler that I would become a ghost buster, then what good was my current faith in what I would do? Of course, one's ideas are more liable to change when they are a preschooler, but the principle remains the same. What identity does the future hold?

After a small bit of thought, I decided that one's true identity must be a sort of melodic string. We often think of our identity as a single point, what and who we are now. If one adds more dimensions to this model, he/she finds that it becomes a living, breathing, multidimensional thing. Of course there are many biological factors to all this, but the idea is interesting.

I want to know what some other people think about the question.

Who is truer: Who I was, Who I am, or Who I will be?

 

[wuliheron]

A Zen master might hit you over the head with a stick to answer such a question. In the heat of the moment, the past is only a memory, the future is only a dream.

 

[Maverick]

And I suppose a zen master would deny the truth to memory? And deny any truth to dreams? If a zen master would do such a thing, I'm sure glad I'm not a zen master, and I aspire to go nowhere near such blind foolery. Anyone who lives in such a "heat of the moment" and refuses to acknowledge past and future, lives without vision.

 

[maximus]

a good point, maverick. both our memories/instincs of the past and our vision of our future help shape who we are. but wuliheron's point is important: it is only in the living moment that we truly exist.

 

[wtfc]

You were what you were.. You are what you are and You will be what you will be..
But do "You" exist as you believe, think, feel ? Dont you think the very fact of you being able to raise this question to you means there is more than one "you" in you.
It is like you can measure the speed of a car relaitve to a point from anothere refrence frame. If you are inside the car even at 300 MPH you are not moving relative to car.

 

[Another God]

Doesn't "what you were" determine "Who you are"?

Doesn't "Who you are" instantly become "Who you were"?

Isn't "Who you will be" just a consequence of "Who you are"?

 

[wtfc]

As per another god, it is always what you were that drives the rest. But "what you were" is already past which means you cannot change what you are and will be. So your furture is already chalked out by yoursleves. So is everybody else's. Does that allow an inference that one cannot change what is currently happening in the world. The entire present and future is all pre-written by ourselves but we cannot change it ?
Does one needs to explore the first "you were" but can you change that first instance ? Is there anything before that "first" ?
But philosophy cannot help solve things if we allow recurssion into the equation.