It was a few days back that I, just before sleeping in the night, was busy with my daily chore of analyzing the day that has just ended and bang; I was reminded of a question I had read that day – “ Who are you?”
The answer as expected looked pretty simple and obvious, but it really wasn’t. I could have reacted to it with plain feedback like “I am Zubair”, “I am a student”, or “I am a human being”. But that couldn’t be satisfactory to me. The question was not “What is your name?”, “What do you do?”, or “What are you?” It was “Who are you?”.
I couldn’t sleep that night.
The next day I sat staring at the ceiling as my sub-consciousness was pouring in answers into my perception. This was incredible for I never felt that way before. Every thought was pulling me deep into the wells of eternal truths I was afraid to find, there was darkness all around except for a dim light caressing my hair from the above. There were voices all around from the cracks of the walls of that well and I felt breathlessness as the air was thin.
The increasing loudness of these voices was so frightening that I could feel noise getting into me through my scull. The measure of horror was high enough to send shivers through my weak body.
But my desire to get the answer was so strong that I refused to get myself out of this. This desire was necessary to keep life in motion. I never wanted to be thought brave because I was afraid to run away. I wanted to be taken as a thing that knows about itself. And I continued.
Then from behind the dreadful noises I heard a sweet something. A voice, an answer. Sweet tone, but a whispering secret I wish I never had to hear. Cruel words I guess I knew, but never cared to even give a damn thought. The words, the answer – “You are nobody!”
How can that be? I am not nobody. I have heard of things like these before. Things like - we are nothing but humble tiny little creatures on earth, or we mean nothing and nobody ever really cares about us.
But I am not no one. I am, and I should be something for there is something in me that goes unrealized. This gave me an immense pleasure to challenge the voice from that well of eternal truth. And I committed myself to prove it wrong.
For every 20 million living creatures on this planet earth, there is only one human being. A human being is a biological rarity. And I am on top of those 19.99 million creatures and I AM a Biological Rarity. I am rare.
Never was there any person like me in the past and never will there be any in the future.
I am unique. There is no one like me who exists. I am unique to myself. No one can ever replace me. I have my own place and I belong to it and that place belongs to me. It can’t be stolen from me. It resides inside me.
I am important. Important to people around me - my parents, friends and several others, I am important to myself. I have more importance than that of a thread of gold. I am lot more important than that for I am not just a thread of gold.
I have subsistence running in me. This existence comprises desires, love, happiness, pleasures, humor, feelings, pain and pathos – and they spurt inside of me. A “nobody” never has this. I exist.
I have a face – an identity. I have a name – a pedigree. I have a house – a home. I have dreams – a reason to toil. I have people – I love. I have a world – I belong to. I have “haves”. A “nobody” never has this.
But above all this I have God. And He himself has said that I, a human being, am of His best of creations. I am on top of all that He has created. I am enriched by Him, made to become the best of all that subsists. I am an out of the ordinary, unusual creation of God. A “nobody” isn’t.
There are philosophers, philanthropists and thinkers who too gave me answers to this question and they are verily in my favor and in total agreement with me.
I am a sphere around which rhythmic fragments revolve
I am infinite shore to an infinite sea where infinite rhythmic fragments in the form of sand grains reside. People walk on them and leave their footsteps behind only for my rhythmic waves to level them.
I am but a fragment of my giant self, a mouth that seeks bread, and a blind hand that holds the cup for a thirsty mouth.
I am a winged spirit that cannot escape necessity.
I am the one who has chosen the delights of this world and the peace of the next.
I am a secret untold to my own self.
Who am I?
I AM LIFE.