What is Being a (Enter Job Title)?


In the context of work and job titles, what exactly is being?

Am I a writer because I say that I am a writer, or because you’ve been reassured that I have access to a pen and a piece of paper?

What makes a geologist, a geologist? Their triumph in studying and then recalling the dates and theories that they were fed by a textbook, or the mere fact that that person thinks that rocks rock?

Am I what I say I am, or what the rest of the world and a piece of paper (read: qualification) say that I am? Is the labeling highly dependent on the majority, thus, democratic? Am I what most people regard me as?

Is a red car red because most people perceive it as red? Or because it’s red? Is it still a red car to a person that is colour-blind?

The world is how one (and not the rest of the world) perceives the world.

I say a person is whatever they say they are. Seeing that being this-and-that is nothing but a reference, for it does not make the referred to, the referred to.

I might have never fixed a tap, but should I call myself a plumber, a plumber I will be. I might have never been near a plane but should I call myself a pilot, a pilot I will be. And, I might have never boiled an egg, but should I call myself a chef, a chef I will be.

If we are what we are as the aftermath of the array of skills that we were taught, doesn’t that make an uneducated person nothing?

(Go ahead call yourself an astronaut, … I will still take you seriously.)




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— July 19, 2010.