Monday, October 08, 2018

You Are Not...

The question 'what are you going to be when you grow up?' was designed for an everyone-knows-their-place world. When things are scarce, you have to be part of the team. Pick a role, and society will look after you. That functions when teams are relatively small and the Lord of the Manor's life is not that dissimilar from the rest of the team. Genghis Khan spent most of his life in a Ger despite building one of the biggest empires the world has seen. A big Ger, sure, but still a Ger. 

As the world abstracts and you get paid a salary for work as a transaction, things fall apart. A salary is a price. A price is a clearing mechanism. It has nothing to do with value, and certainly nothing to do with 'who you are'. The question about what you are going to be, is a completely separate one from 'how are you going to finance being?'. Too often, our identity gets wrapped up in how we are going to make money. Money and identity are not great bedfellows. Money cares too much about what other people are doing. It only cares about how much of something there is, and how much is wanted. It doesn't see you. It can empower you, and lack of it can disempower you. But it is not you.

It may just seem like wordplay. But saying I am angry, or I am happy, or I am a doctor is different from I am feeling angry, I am feeling happy, or I am doctoring. That is how phrased in Russian. You aren't a writer, you are writing. You aren't an investor, you are investing. You aren't an Artist, you are creating. I think that difference matters.

You are not your job.


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