Last night’s dream featured the same shadow-me who was standing beside the old man, asking me over and over again, “What does it mean, to be me?”. Fine, bitch. Lemme try this and give you an answer.
Old English beon, beom, bion “be, exist, come to be, become, happen,” from Proto-Germanic *biju- “I am, I will be.” This “b-root” is from PIE root *bheue- “to be, exist, grow, come into being,” and in addition to the words in English it yielded German present first and second person singular (bin, bist, from Old High German bim “I am,” bist “thou art”), Latin perfective tenses of esse (fui “I was,” etc.), Old Church Slavonic byti “be,” Greek phu- “become,” Old Irish bi’u “I am,” Lithuanian bu’ti “to be,” Russian byt’ “to be,” etc. It also is behind Sanskrit bhavah “becoming,” bhavati “becomes, happens,” bhumih “earth, world.”
To be then, is to come to be. Then what is to come:
Old English cuman “come, approach, land; come to oneself, recover; arrive; assemble” (class IV strong verb; past tensecuom, com, past participle cumen), from Proto-Germanic *kwem- (cognates: Old Saxon cuman, Old Frisian kuma, Middle Dutch comen, Dutch komen, Old High German queman, German kommen, Old Norse koma, Gothic qiman), from PIE root *gwa-, *gwem- “to go, come” (cognates: Sanskrit gamati “he goes,” Avestan jamaiti “goes,” Tocharian kakmu”come,” Lithuanian gemu “to be born,” Greek bainein “to go, walk, step,” Latin venire “to come”).
To come is to go? But what then, is to go:
Old English gan “to advance, walk; depart, go away; happen, take place; conquer; observe, practice, exercise,” from West Germanic *gaian (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Frisian gan, Middle Dutch gaen, Dutch gaan, Old High German gan, German gehen), from PIE *ghe- “to release, let go” (cognates: Sanskrit jihite “goes away,” Greek kikhano “I reach, meet with”), but there does not seem to be general agreement on a list of cognates.
To be me, then, I have to release me. To let go of the idea of me. Perhaps to let go of what I falsely think is me, so that what is really me can emerge. What, then, is me?
me:
Old English me (dative), me, mec (accusative); oblique cases of I, from Proto-Germanic *meke (accusative), *mes (dative), cognates: Old Frisian mi/mir, Old Saxon mi, Middle Dutch mi, Dutch mij, Old High German mih/mir, German mich/mir, Old Norse mik/mer, Gothic mik/mis; from PIE root *me-, oblique form of the personal pronoun of the first person singular (nominative *eg; see I); cognates: Sanskrit, Avestan mam, Greek eme, Latin me, mihi, Old Irish me, Welsh mi”me,” Old Church Slavonic me, Hittite ammuk.
Oh rabbit holes. Bait taken. What is I?
I:
12c. shortening of Old English ic, first person singular nominative pronoun, from Proto-Germanic *ek/*ik (cognates: Old Frisian ik, Old Norse ek, Norwegian eg, Danish jeg, Old High German ih, German ich, Gothic ik), from PIE *eg-, nominative form of the first person singular pronoun (cognates: Sanskrit aham, Hittite uk, Latin ego (source of French Je), Greek ego, Russian ja, Lithuanian aš). Reduced to i by mid-12c. in northern England, it began to be capitalized mid-13c. to mark it as a distinct word and avoid misreading in handwritten manuscripts.
There is a quip to be made here about allowing one’s ego to run free. But then again, that’s kinda the point, isn’t it.
ego:
1714, as a term in metaphysics, “the self; that which feels, acts, or thinks,” from Latin ego “I” (cognate with Old English ic; see I). Psychoanalytic (Freudian) sense is from 1894; sense of “conceit” is 1891. Ego-trip first recorded 1969, from trip(n.). Related: egoical; egoity.
If I knew Latin, I could probably plumb that rabbit hole better. But all I’m able to find this morning leads to “ego” as being the first person self-identifier. That moment when instead of referring to the collective, the speaker refers to themself as a unique individual, different from the other members of the collective, and worthy of being considered as one instead of part of the many.
What does it mean, then, “to be me”. From what I’ve gathered this morning, it means to let go of what I think I am, so what I really am can reveal itself.
That’s my coffee and I’m gonna drink it.
(Etymology chase shamelessly stolen from coldalbion.)