Who Are You When Everything Is Stripped Away?
A dying actor, a dinner with a friend, and the question that illuminates everything
Who are you when everything is taken away?
Not your job. Not your relationships. Not your body or your habits or your goals.
Just you. Alone. Reduced to nothing.
James Van Der Beek faced that reality—and what he discovered on the other side of losing everything is incredibly powerful.
I haven’t stopped thinking about it…
The Video
JVDB was an international sex symbol in the early 2000s.
An American actor who captivated the attention of teenage girls around the world in his roles on various adolescent dramas.
He played a hunky heartthrob called Dawson on the very popular teenage romantic drama series Dawson’s Creek. This role saw him catapult into stardom and saw him gain international appeal. After that concluded in 2003, his Hollywood trajectory continued—scoring roles in other TV series and plenty of films as well.
I never watched Dawson’s Creek or followed VDB’s career, but everyone from my generation knew who he was.
I hadn’t thought about him in over 20 years… until last week.
A video was sent to me by my darling Mother. In the video, VDB is talking to his back phone camera in a very intimate/raw POV style piece of content.
He goes on to say that he had been fighting cancer, and during this fight (and the ensuing tidal wave of emotions), he had spent a lot of time thinking about his identity and the purpose of his life.
He talked about how when you’re sick and clinging to life, nothing matters. All your roles/ideas/dreams and identifying features are stripped away:
Father
Husband
Provider
Steward of his land
All stripped away as he fought for life.
Unable to fulfil his duties or play the roles assigned to him, he was faced with a question…
“If I am just a too skinny, weak guy, alone in an apartment with cancer… what am I?”
After meditating on that question, the answer came to him…
“I am worthy of God’s love, simply because I exist… and if I am worthy of God’s love, shouldn’t I be worthy of my own?”
After that, he permits listeners to remove the word "God" if that, in some way, triggers them and detracts from the meaning. Reiterating that the core concept of “I am worthy of love” still holds.
This video was posted on 9th March 2025, when he was on the road to recovery.
He had a sense of optimism as he slowly fought his way back from a life-threatening illness and pondered life’s big questions.
Sadly, he passed away on 11th February 2026.
Watch the video below.
The Conversation
I was having dinner with a female friend recently (a sneaky little Nandos run on a Tuesday night, mind you), when she revealed a few concerns she was working through that day.
She had been flat all day and was struggling to process the feelings:
Burnt out
Lacking motivation
Not having the energy to train
Beating herself up for things out of her control
I acknowledged her feelings and gave her my full attention.
We talked about the underlying motivation behind the feelings and what actions she had at her disposal to combat them, and discussed a few practical ideas based on the wiring of her brain.
Like 99% of human beings, she has a strong internal motor and positive self-talk when things are going well, but not as strong when life gets shaky.
A common hurdle (and the one that mostly triggered today’s feelings) looks like this:
Long work day
Finish work late, exhausted
Takes a moment to decompress
Doomscroll for quick dopamine/mental break
Spend too long on phone due to its addictive nature
Put off the important task (gym) for long enough until its too late
Beat herself up because she avoided the task she knew would bring real joy
This is a very VERY human cycle that we are increasingly finding ourselves caught in.
She was overworked, burnt out and needed some relief.
But the catastrophising on the back of this very human behaviour is not at all helpful, leading to increased negative self-talk and a feeling of failure. Noticing through her language, I saw that there was a clear link between her actions and her self-esteem, so I began probing…
“You’re upset with yourself because you didn’t go to the gym?”
“Yes”
“Why?”
“Because it’s what I do”
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t go, I don’t feel like myself”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve done it for so long, it’s part of my identity”
“And if the gym were taken away, would you still have an identity?”
“Yes, because I have work and other hobbies”
“And if they were taken away?”
“Then I wouldn’t be much”
“Ok, what if you had more gym, better work, more money and more hobbies, would you have more identity or be happier?”
I think you can see the point I was getting at.
We didn’t reach a resolution or clear answer, but we had a very lovely conversation, talking openly and honestly about what it means to have nothing and still be everything.
The Question
Jimmy VDB posed a truly remarkable question as one of his final acts on Earth.
When everything is stripped away, when my responsibilities have faded, when I am reduced to nothing but an infinite soul, wrapped in a temporary vessel, traversing my final moments on this plane, what am I?
After you strip everything away…
Status
Job title
Relationships
Sexual orientation
Identifying features
The several roles you play
All your knowledge and wealth
Who are you? Really.
My friend had clearly tied too much of her ‘self’ to her outputs and roles.
Gym goer
Hard worker
Loving partner
Budding creative
Responsible adult
When any of these were not aligned, it rocked her.
I tried to remind her that this negative feedback loop is normal, but not helpful, and certainly not permanent.
My question to her, as is my question to you…
Without your worldly possessions, friends, family, hopes and dreams, who are you?
What are you?
Nobody has a clean answer to this question. Not me, not VDB, not your most enlightened friend.
But the people who sit with it — really sit with it — live differently.
A certain weight gets lifted.
I guess.
If you have an answer, I would love to read them—simply reply to this email and share it with me (I read them all).
Thanks for reading!
With gratitude,
SAV
If you’re trying to rebuild yourself—financially, creatively, emotionally, or physically—you’re in the right place.
I write here to document the process honestly, not perfectly.
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