Who Do You Think You Are?
questions worth asking…and answers worth questioning
I remember a recurring scene from my childhood—my parents in the front seat driving home from somewhere, me in the backseat staring up at a night sky. Stars dotted the darkness and the moon seemed to follow us. Something about the unknown vastness of it all would stop my ordinary thinking. If God created the world, I wondered, who created God?
The question was a crack in the floor of the known world. Through it, something mysterious breathed.
I noticed that most adults didn’t seem troubled by such questions. They moved through the world with a kind of resolve—following protocols, honoring conventions, accepting givens. My big questions were generally unwelcome in school, especially in math class—where, with a degree of impatience, I was encouraged to follow the procedures without asking why.
Some questions don’t want answers so much as they desire company.
Who do you think you are? is one such question. In childhood it can often be heard as an accusation—a form of shaming to put someone back “in their place.” Yet, when asked with genuine wonder, it is an invitation to look more closely at the mystery of being a self at all.
Wonder questions are what the Wheel of Wisdom encourages. And it offers good company for sitting with them. It coaxes us to step back and appreciate the vastness of life—like the night sky.
The Wheel asks you to consider that life is unfolding within three octaves or realms of existence: Nature, Human, and Soul. Each octave has a different quality of energy, distinct ways of knowing, and an equally vital relationship to the whole.
In the Nature Octave, existence is collective and instinctual. Plants and animals participate in an intelligent choreography of balance—following the movement of life without the burden or benefit of individual self-conscious choice, as we think of it.
In the Soul Octave, existence is more luminously collective. Individuated aspects of a single source move in accord with what we might call divine will. Here too, the individual serves the whole, though at a different order of being.
Then there is the Human Octave—the realm we inhabit. In a sense, the human form is like scuba gear, in that it allows the higher, faster energy of soul to travel and learn within the slower, denser realm of nature. The Human Octave provides the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual conditions that allow soul to perceive a distinct self that is capable of acting either in harmony with nature’s collective balance and soul’s divine will, or doing something altogether different.
The capacity to choose is what makes us distinctly human—
and it’s made possible by something we call ego.
Ego has acquired a bad reputation—particularly in spiritual circles, where it is often cast as the enemy of enlightenment, the obstacle to experiencing the divine. Some traditions have even suggested that having a strong sense of self is morally shameful. It is a perspective worth examining—and, I think, worth questioning.
The Latin word ego simply means “I.” It refers to the invisible, intangible aspect of a human being that feels, acts, and thinks as a self. Far from an obstacle to remove, the Wheel of Wisdom sees ego as a vital part of the 'scuba gear' that allows soul to travel where it otherwise could not—to perceive, to choose, to learn within the human realm.
The distinct ability to make choices is what we call free will—and with it comes a distinctly human responsibility. If used to shame the self, the question Who do you think you are? maligns the very instrument that makes human experience and human virtue possible.
The Latin word centric means “pertaining to a center.” Egocentrism, then, is not simply having a strong sense of self, it is what happens when the self-making instrument malfunctions and places the self at the center of everything. The scuba diver keeps breathing and moving, but cannot see or hear or appreciate the vastness of the ocean—access is lost to the very experience the gear was meant to enable.
Ego creates the experience of a unified self, capable of choice.
Egocentrism cuts the self off from what it’s here to experience.
A self that knows it is part of something much larger—the mystery that breathed through a childhood crack in the floor—is able to act with genuine freedom. It can choose in ways that honor the whole. However, a self that has forgotten its place within the whole thinks it’s a closed system and accounts only for its own continuity, its own certainty, its own comfort. It doesn’t perceive or value what lies beyond its own edges.
Is that moral failing or a failure of perception?
We could say that egocentrism, at its root, is a kind of forgetting. It’s a narrowing of vision that misinterprets the part for the whole. That misperception has consequences—sometimes brutal and devastating. I’ve come to see egocentrism as a wound. A lost sense of belonging. One that’s often passed on and infiltrates cultures. Individuals can forget their place within the whole. So can societies.
When an entire civilization organizes itself around the assumption that human desires are the measure of all things—that nature exists to serve us, that other beings are our resources, that Earth is a backdrop for human ambition—it is operating egocentrically. Not out of malice, necessarily, but out of a very old forgetting.
The consequences of that forgetting can be seen in the destruction of ecosystems, in the accelerating financial gap, in the brittleness of institutions that once seemed sturdy. We might say that our zero-sum thinking and reflexive contempt for what we don't agree with or prefer are symptoms of a civilization that has forgotten its reason for being. Our life-enabling gear is malfunctioning. Remembering may be how we repair it.
A restorative question might be:
What becomes possible when we remember?
This question, like my childhood wondering about who created God, wants company more than an answer. In moments of genuine curiosity, our willingness to question accepted givens can open a crack in the floor of the known world, through which something larger can breathe.
Our egos are not the enemy of remembering. They are instruments through which remembering is possible. A self that knows it is part of something larger—one that holds its own individuality respectfully but lightly—is able to perceive beyond its own edges. It can make choices that honor the whole. It can meet others in the field of belonging, instead of the theatre of opposition.
The Wheel of Wisdom invites the ego to perceive itself
as a significant and beautiful part of a vast mystery.
Who do you think you are? is a worthy question. When contemplated with genuine curiosity, humility, and the willingness to be surprised, it opens a path to remembering. Remembering keeps us connected to the wonder of the night sky and what truly matters. In a world that values certainty and diminishes what’s unknown, that is a radical act.
If you’d like company to sit with this and other big questions, Wheel of Wisdom consultations are just that—an invitation to perceive beyond your ordinary edges.
Beautiful offering. Wonder questions are so important (and it's a great term too) — portals into the inner world and onto the path of self-discovery.