The Forgotten Self – A Monologue

I sit here… in silence that is not empty, but full. Full of the echoes of all that I once was. The wind whispers through the cracks of this old world, and I listen—not with ears, but with what remains of my remembering.

Once, I was. Simply that—just was. Before the world told me who to be, before names were wrapped around me like ropes. I was a breath, a light, a fragment of eternity dressed in skin. But somewhere along the way… I forgot.

I became what they wanted. A son, a worker, a citizen, a thinker, a doer—each title a layer over the core, until I could no longer feel its warmth. I was praised for my performance, applauded for my productivity, but no one asked me if I still knew my name—the real one, the one whispered by the stars before I arrived here.

We all forget. Not at once, but in little ways. In the compromise we make for acceptance. In the masks we wear to avoid rejection. In the noise we chase so we don’t hear the aching call of our buried truth. We trade wonder for information, silence for distraction, being for becoming. And in that great exchange, the Self slips quietly out the back door.

Do you remember the child you were, before the world taught you to be afraid? Before shame taught you to hide your light, before ambition taught you to run without resting? That child still lives… somewhere. Beneath the concrete of expectations, beneath the iron of roles and duties, beneath the noise.

Sometimes at night, when the noise of the world fades and the hush returns, I hear a knock from within. A soft, gentle knock. It’s not demanding—it never is. It waits. The Self always waits. For the day I finally come home to it.

We think we are moving forward, but what if we are merely walking in circles around our true center, never daring to sit still and face it? What if we are building towers of success, only to realize we have left our soul in the foundation, crying?

You cannot manufacture the Self. You can’t perform it or brand it or measure it. It is not what you show to the world—it is what whispers in the dark when no one is watching. It is the scent of truth on a morning breeze, the tremble in your chest when beauty breaks through, unannounced.

And so I sit. Not because I have nothing to do, but because I have everything to undo.

To peel away the voices that are not mine. To burn the scripts handed down to me. To forgive the one who forgot. To return—to re-member myself, piece by aching piece.

People chase greatness, but I have seen that greatness is a mask. Realness—that is rarer. To be real, naked of all pretense, vulnerable and alive—that is the gold of the soul. But few want to pay the price of truth. It is not success that costs the most—it is Self that costs everything.

I look around and see a world filled with mirrors, but very few windows. Everyone reflecting each other, but no one seeing through to the beyond. Social masks stacked upon spiritual masks, we don’t speak—we perform. We don’t connect—we transact.

And yet, the Self waits. Always, it waits.

In the laughter that slips out when you’re alone.
In the tears you hide when no one is near.
In the art that spills from you when you’re not trying to impress.
In the quiet ache when you stare too long at the moon.

I am not against the world. No, I walk its streets, eat its bread, speak its tongue. But I walk with a question burning in my chest: Where did I go?

And slowly, painfully, beautifully, I begin to return.

Not as a warrior, not as a prophet, but as a witness to my own becoming. I don’t need applause. I don’t need approval. I need only to be whole.

So I unlearn. I undo. I unclench. I listen.

And in that listening, I hear something—faint, but clear. A voice I thought was lost, calling me by a name I hadn’t heard in years. My name. The one the stars gave me.

Yes… I remember.

I am not the noise.
I am not the name.
I am not the roles, the masks, the endless striving.

I am.

And that is enough.