You strip away everything external about you—leave the town where you grew up, make new friends other than your classmates and workmates, sweat or freeze in a new climate, see new scenery, grow your hair out, wear different clothes, and speak another language.
All of a sudden, one night in some far-off country you’ll get back from the bars and look yourself in the mirror in your dingy hotel room with a roof that leaks and say, who am I? And after a brief period of panic, you’ll discover that there’s something buried deeper that’s been there all along but you had to sift through all the muck. And what you find there, deep inside, that’s you.