Modern man has reached a “fallen” state by becoming obsessed with being when what we really need is to know who we are. We cannot learn who we are through being. Being is a kind of essence; a state of awareness or consciousness of our surroundings and our own existence; it simply is; it has no identity. We discover who we are by learning about our own culture, about our own society, about the history of our own people, about our own personal past. To have an identity, to define ourselves, we must first put ourselves firmly in context.
Being is analogous to a radio carrier wave. Identity is the music that modulates the wave and gives it meaning. (Image: public domain)
Thomas Cotterill 