Ota's Tales

Forget Who You Are

I knew a fellow who once told me about how he woke up. I mean, he slept pleasantly. He didn't wake up, he slept just enough, and in the morning he woke up to a stroke from the sun, along with a bird's talk. Two tits, both on the opposite side, as if they were trying to play a concert.
So this fellow, Frederick, got out of bed with his right foot, stretched, smiled, and stopped. He stared blankly out the window, and with uncomprehending eyes he crawled over objects, perhaps to grab hold of something. At last he looked around the room, looking at the table, the bookshelf, the wardrobe, but it didn't matter much. He'd completely forgotten who he was.

So he stood there like a pillar of salt, rolling his eyes, looking for clues in his head that might tell him. Nothing. There was nothing there. He was terrified. He knew all sorts of facts, like where he was, what year and month it was, what his name was, and so on, but he couldn't remember how he acted. Was he in a hurry in the morning or not? Was he eloquent, or was he holding back on the conversation? Was he nice, honest, polite? He was absolutely stunned.

The first thing he did was get dressed. Then he opened the door and looked out and saw me. We were roommates. He looked at me strangely. With a look I'd never seen him give. I knew at once that something was wrong.

"What is it?" I asked, because he didn't even seem to dare to tell me.

He was struggling to say it, but he managed to convey the essentials.

"Then it must be neat, eh?" I exulted. Frederick didn't share my joy at all. He was horrified and wondered how excited I could be about it. If I'd known what it felt like, I'd have called it off. So I calmed down and sat down at the table and ate my breakfast. My roommate sat down next to me.

He was quiet and still stared around in puzzlement. Then he looked at me and said, "Help me to be who I am again, please."

You can't refuse a friend's hand, so I agreed, we both took the day off to teach Frederick who he was, who he used to be.

But it wouldn't be me to carry out the wishes of others without consideration. As soon as we went out for a walk in the park, I explained to him why I'd cheered.
"After all, so many people are who they aren't at all. They play someone because that's what others expect of them, because that's what you expect of yourself. Forgetting who you are is a gift. You'll simply do what's natural to you, normal. That's how you'll find out who you are."

I don't know what I did wrong, but it didn't convince him. It was probably the fact that people prefer to accept their thoughts than the thoughts of others. If I'd made it seem like he'd come up with it, it might have turned out very differently.

"That doesn't seem like a good solution to me," he told me, "then my identity will be lost. It wouldn't be me anymore."

I got angry because I couldn't understand if he wanted to be reminded of who he was or who he used to be. But we simply didn't understand each other. We each had a very different idea of how things should be, how things could be. And that made it harder. But he agreed with me to remind him of who he was.
We did a whole series of exercises that showed him who he really was. More and more it turned out that he was actually someone I didn't remember him at all. He was more honest, confiding in me and sharing more of his joy. But in a lot of examples he was still the same stubborn Frederick.
By evening he was pretty sure. He thanked me very much and I was glad that I could become a kind of his teacher. He was falling asleep, afraid that he would wake up again and forget his talents, but I managed to reassure him by saying that he might wake up and know who he was.
The next morning he jumped out of bed and I knew that nothing surprising had happened overnight. It was the old-fashioned Frederick. After breakfast our paths parted.

As soon as I got home he was waiting for me there. He was frowning and looked as if I had done something to him.

"What is it?" I wondered at his appearance.
To this he said, "What is it?! With everyone I talked to today immediately told me that I would be different. It was terribly unpleasant. Well, thanks for helping me yesterday."
I guess we just didn't understand each other. And yet I know that from all misunderstandings there were always more misunderstandings that spawned everything bad. I could argue with him that I had done my best, but I didn't need to. I simply told him to bring a pencil and paper, and I would tell him how I remembered him.
He wrote everything down carefully, and then I suppose he made it his mission to learn it as a role in the theatre, because over the next few days I quietly noticed how Frederick was changing.
I just don't understand it. It's not easy to get an offer like that. But maybe it's about the misunderstanding. Why take it as a disaster when I can take it as a gift.
And that's where my story ends. I haven't seen Frederick for a long time. The last time he went away he really wanted to know himself. We can know ourselves indefinitely. But I wish we could learn to accept ourselves.