The Chief End of Me

Paradoxically, the more descriptors I accumulate to define myself, the more the person I call “I” becomes obscured. Seemingly unaware of this, people struggle to expand their sense of self by collecting labels—the names of universities, corporate titles, or roles within their families. Yet these labels do not so much reveal our existence as conceal it. I am no exception. There are many ways I could answer the question of who I am. I could say that my name is Yoonchan Woo, that I am a senior in high school, or that I am a brother to three siblings. But none of these answers captures who I truly am. The sum of my descriptors can never constitute my self. And yet, precisely because of this, I devote myself to accumulating new ones. Even though I know these outer shells are meaningless, I fear that if even the shells are too fragile, I myself might disappear.

Whether or not it is our purpose in life, we inevitably acquire labels as we live. We expect that by accumulating more knowledge and achieving greater things, our sense of self will become more solid. If I sacrifice sleep to earn better grades, perhaps I will become a better person—someone more accomplished, more diligent, more worthy. And there is certainly some truth to this. Compared with the days when I lived without making much effort, I am now spending my senior year in what might be called the “ideal” way. In a sense, I am preparing to expand my self. So if someone were to ask why I am here now, I would answer that I live to broaden my sense of self. I live to accumulate more descriptors, to climb higher, and to look down upon the expansion of my own identity. In other words, I am living in the “here and now” of this life to enlarge the “I” contained within the question itself.

My desire, however, does not end with becoming a “diligent high school senior” or a “student at a prestigious university.” I want to deepen my knowledge and build it ever higher, constructing a universe called “me” that no one else could ever hope to observe in its entirety. I want to establish an identity of my own, deeper and broader than any label the world can bestow upon me, until my sense of self grows immense. At least for now, this is my purpose in life. To me, the self is the very proof of existence.

Yet I know what awaits me. Someday, my sense of self will burst like a balloon. I know that when a balloon is filled with air beyond its breaking point, it shatters into countless fragments. Most people seem to call this an “existential crisis.” We spend our lives inflating our sense of self in search of answers to who we are and why we live, only to fall into profound confusion when that self finally bursts. It feels as though life has lost its meaning, as though we no longer know who we are, and so we continue to fall. Most people whose sense of self collapses never find their way out of that abyss.

But I do not regard such a collapse as an endless descent. Rather, I see it as a kind of salvation: the destruction of the narrow world of the self, which opens the way to something far greater. No matter how immense my ego becomes, it will always be far too small to contain the light of the Lord. Just as a balloon must burst to become one with the atmosphere, I must relinquish the self I call “me” before I can be made whole by His light. It is the paradox of becoming complete only by surrendering myself—the light of God. And so I must believe that I will become one with the Lord. Even after the balloon bursts and merges with the atmosphere, there must be faith that the atmosphere itself will make me whole. Only then can there be true salvation.

Ultimately, Sartre was wrong when he declared that “existence precedes essence.” If the self continues to expand and existence grows ever greater, its ultimate destination is merely the dissolution of existence itself. We are beings who have been given a definite essence. Therefore, my final answer to the question “Why am I here, now?” is this: We live to expand our sense of self to its utmost limits, so that when it finally collapses, we may be made whole by the light of the Lord. I still long to become a greater version of myself. I desire a self that is higher, deeper, and broader. Yet I know that my ultimate calling is to surrender that self and walk into the light of the Lord. And so I expand in order to let go. Though I do not know when that moment will come, I believe that I will be made whole through Him. I believe that upon the ruins of my human existence, I will come to live another kind of existence.