Do My Ideals & Principles Make Me Who I am?

Recently, a friend asked me this rather simple but incredibly challenging question... Who am I? Apparently I'm not supposed to take into account my ideals and principles... which makes answering this question an even more arduous prospect. Without my ideals and principles, I'm but a shell. A vestige of my commitment to upholding everything I believe in. Without my beliefs I am nothing.

Our emotions, character, ethics, our interpretation of morality are all the symptoms of our ideals(not the other way round). We may not even realise what our ideals are and in fact discover our ideals, our philosophy and principles later in life as we get educated. And early adulthood is a journey to discover these. Our true self.

Discovering our true self is NOT a frivolous pursuit. How can we live our lives without certainty of who we really are? That would be like living on the edge of our existence, never knowing exactly where the wind or the stream will bring us to. Yes... like a driftwood(personally... been there, done that). It's perfectly normal to expect some uncertainty, in fact, it is advantageous to be a little 'unpredictable' and spontaneous, but the knowledge of our self comforts and calms us from the chaos of our daily existence.

So to the question... Who Am I? I am Theshigen Navalingam, an anarchist, a non believer of god, an altruist, selfless, unwavering in my stance to stand up towards any injustice. I uphold with relentless rigor the rights of the individual, freedom of expression and the freedom of the individual to lead the life that they want. Never judging, but always a helpful and kind soul(which by the way, I do not believe in the soul or the spirit). It's a hard hard task to live up to my principles, but i never falter in the preservation of my principles.

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