When I was growing up, this was the perennial question.
I thought the question could be answered.
Of course, at the age of 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 there is no answer.
There are the beginnings of the answer.
Most of what happens up to 30 is preparation, not accomplishment.
Who I am is really spirit.
But in as far as I have an identity in the material world it is this:
How I live, how I occupy my time, what I accomplish.
The answer to the question, Who am I? ...
... is therefore my life itself.
The catalogue of my labels: sex, gender, sexual orientation, star sign, ethnicity, nationality, religion, ... are all trivial.
If you say: Bobby is male, do you know anything meaningful about Bob?
If you say: Jean-Pierre is French, do you know anything meaningful about Jean-Pierre?
Are they kind or unkind, diligent or lazy, bankers, bums, or blue-collar workers?
Bobby is a banker. Does that tell you about his personality, his relationships? Does it tell you what he has achieved, who he has helped, whether he will leave the world a better place?
My search for identity was a wild goose chase.
The so-called answers were not remotely answers.
They were the abstract equivalent of a tattoo or an Armani shirt:
Paltry decorations.
What's worse:
Identities separate me from others.
If I am this and you are that, we are separate.
It's entirely illusory: we are not separate because I have a tattoo of a a dog, and you of a cat.
Tattoos are skin deep; as are identities.
My whole search for identity was a dead end.
It was a manifestation of my emptiness.
I sought to fill the emptiness by filling the house with furniture.
Rather than living a life in the house.
Instead:
I have sought God.
And God has given me things to do.
And, when I'm dead, others will get to decide what my identity was.
My identity, in as far as I have one, is absolutely none of my business.