How do we become the subjects we are? How do the threads of our stories link to our political goals and projects? Through my own story, I approach the heart of an upper-middle-class urban society in Latin America, marked by the dynamics of rural-urban migration and some routes of social ascent of families during the twentieth century. Upward social mobility in Latin America hides whitewashing processes that progressively distance us from the possibility of rediscovering our peasant and ethnical roots. However, encounters with an open academy, sensitive to the production of knowledge articulate a possibility to discover and rediscover a path towards oneself. The armed conflict, with its long presence in Colombian history, has become one of the pillars of our subjectivity. The search for self-discovery confronts us with the multiple ways in which war becomes a deep wound in our biographies. It also reveals the possible ways in which the generosity of affection and compassion with our fractures can become tools for social transformation. The classroom as a space of encounter between historical subjects allows us to weave between teachers and students a welcoming fabric that promotes the discovery of oneself.