Do you ever find yourself in a conversation with a new acquaintance, and almost invariably the first personal explorative question asked or received is "What do you do?". What a socially ignorant submission to behaviourism. Our identity is not wholly tied up in that which we trade our time for money.
TuHnIiNqKuEeR
Our life is precious. Our time here can be taken tomorrow ... shouldn't what you do with your time (whether for money or not) reflect what kind of person you are, what you believe in, what you invest in?
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the time and thought you took to comment. Your comment is a very valid angle to take on the question. I think very much that what we choose to do with our time should be a reflection of our innermost values being manifest. The thing I was calling out is that often - what we do 'for a living' falls into exactly that category. What we do to make enough money to live in a consumerism and materialistic economy for the majority of people is incongruent with their highest aspirations of themself. What we do is not what we are. It can be - and it is beautiful when it is, but in that case it is not what we do that 'causes' who we are. Who we are is who we are. When who we are is in perfect congruence with what we do (for a living) then we have gotten to a much higher plane of life expression than most. I think you could grant me that. I argue that when sitting down at a table with new aquaintences asking "...and who are you?" as opposed to "...and what do you do?" is considered socially awkward when it is actually such a more beautiful question. The awkwardness felt if recieving this question, or after asking it is the truth we've socially and subconsciously agreed to not acknowledge. It's depth is uncomfortable and not socially acceptable for many reasons I hope to all get to through the growth of this forum.
ReplyDelete