[Catwoman]

By your name I mean a symbol - encompassing everything you think you are.

Say my name is Elkie Smith. What does that mean?

'I am Elkie Smith. I work for an advertising agency and write for a hobby. My friends see me as funny, caring, precocious. My parents think I'm good at everything. I have moments of self-doubt punctuated by embarrassing arrogance. I shock people by interchanging intelligence with incredible dappiness. I have a strong sexual appetite and a passion for knowledge. My parents are divorced and I have experienced violence and sadness in my life. My first love now loves someone else. I am female, young, professional, immature, angry, happy and very, very curious.'

All these things are just fragments of a personality I have created for myself, through my past. Who would I be if all these symbols, experiences, associations were taken away from my interpretation of me? I am not a product of my past. If I removed everything subjective and irrelevant from that sentence I would be left with:

'I am alive.'

Funny, I missed that one out to begin with.

So now explore what 'being alive' means (the key is in this sentence).