One day, in the outdoor café where we used to hang out, out of the blue, Nashar, a well-known painter asked me, “Who are you?” Understanding immediately that he was testing me, an upstart young writer, I replied, “Hmm, even I don’t know who I am”.

He nodded vigorously. Apparently my answer satisfied him, as he realized that I had interpreted his presumably factual question as an existential, philosophical one.

Indeed, “Who am I?” is one of the most basic questions in life, certainly when one embarks on a path of spirituality and self-awareness.

In these days of identity politics, I reckon most people are clueless as to who they really are. They think they are this or that, but often their identity is socially imposed through brainwashing by authority figures, the family or other social institutions, whether religious or secular.

Nadya Karima Melati, a 27-year-old Indonesian post graduate student in Bonn, Germany, was forced to adopt an identity she felt was not hers. For seven years, from 2008 to 2015, from the time she was in high school to university, she had to wear the jilbab (Muslim headscarf) as it was the required school uniform.

However, internally, she revolted against it. As it made her feel mentally and emotionally disturbed, she kept on going to a psychologist, who diagnosed her with a range of mental conditions from depression to bipolar disorder. Eventually, the psychologist identified her as having body dysmorphia, an obsessive mental disorder that has the sufferer view their own body as severely flawed or distorted.

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