What is most crucial to your identity?
Practice and skill. I realize this now that I'm nearer to 50. Once someone can ride a horse that is part of their identity. Learn to do this and that, and practice it. It doesn't have to be a practical skill, either. Playing a videogame is a skill, so it can be part of your identity. Friendship is a skill, too. All of these are things are good and strengthen the self.
For example, what would you say it is that motivates most of your life that without it you'd lose your sense of self?
I believe that I did at one point start losing my will to move forward but not my sense of self. As I came to understand who I was I was also unhappy about it, but that was my mid-life-crisis. I have moved on, carrying the weight of who I was and am. I have realized, too, the importance of practicing skills. They may not be identity, itself, but they are a big part.
How would other people who know you answer this?
I have heard different things. Some people say its our flaws which endear us to others. I can partly see that, but some flaws are not endearing to all. Different people find different flaws endearing which I would find repulsive. Some friends would say that it is being loved by God or loving God. Some are all about their children or other things they have invested in such as careers.
What would it take for you to no longer recognise yourself?
Parkinson's. I've seen this disease up close in my mom. She first began to lose her abilities, such as her ability to speak up audibly, then to drive, to operate a stove, to use a remote control, then to walk, then to eat. All along she was losing herself as well as her ability to reason and to know when and where she was. When she died her face was thin like a tree, like a mask. She forgot her adult self and thought she was a child. What she always did remember was, ironically, my face. She never stopped recognizing me! She remembered people such as myself and her child self and her mother but not her adult self.