I am me.

If you had to answer with one word to the following guestion, what would it be? The guestion being: "What are you?" Not "Who are you?", but "What are you?"
Like what are you all about? ..how would you answer that, what would you say? What would I say? I think... maybe many of us would answer to that by telling what it is that we do. Like: I am a business man... or teacher... or nurse... or math student... or a footballer... or musician... or... a sports fan... or...

But I was just wondering.. pondering.. that isn´t that really the answer to the guestion of "What do you do?" instead. So, If I answer the "what are you?" -guestion by telling what it is that I do, does it make me the same with what I do. What I do for living or what I do just for fun. But both ways, is that really what I am?

Like, what is it that really defines me. as a man. as a person? And if it is the thing or things I do, then does the definition of what I am change all the time with the things I do.

Like for example if one day I am having a great job as an assistant manager working for this big company, and in that case the answer to "what are you?" would be an assistant manager. Which I guess is kind of a cool thing. So I would be kind of a cool person.. I guess.

But then. The echonomical depression hits hard the next day, and I get sacked from the company. So the answer to "the guestion" would be unemployed. Which, I guess is not that cool a thing. So, I wouldn´t be that cool a person anymore... I guess.

But. Would I really have changed as a person between those two events at all? Probably not.
But if I define me as what I do, then the definition would have changed overnight though I would be just the same person as I were before.

Or if I defined myself as a musician, a violin player, and then I get into an accident and break my arm so bad I can never play again. What am I then? Nothing? Ex-musician?
It just doesn´t make sense somehow. We have to be something more than just what we do. That can´t be the first and the biggest attribute to define us. That can´t be the answer to the guestion "what are you?". It just shouldn´t be.

I have had to wrestle with that stuff in my mind lately, as I´ve been doing pretty much nothing. And sometimes feeling like a rat for that. And when meeting new people, my answer to the usually first, or at least second guestion of "so what is it that you do?" has been: nothing.
And...well... honestly, usually when saying that I feel like crap. Why? Because even if I didn´t want to, I feel like I´m answering to the guestion "What are you?".
Nothing. I´m nothing.

And still I´m not. I´m a way more. And I know that. But somehow it gives me the feeling that is what I´m being defined by. And I hate that. And I hate the fact that I know right after finding a cool job I would answer to that same guestion proudly by telling what my job is...what I am. Stupid.
And that has made me think about the same thing the other way around. How do I define the others? Because, so many times I have been the one asking the guestion "what is it that you do?". And that maybe being the only guestion asked in the short conversation with someone new, I have built up some kind of an image about the person based on the answer to that guestion.
And, because a lot of us really do something way different from what we really wanted to do, the image may be totally wrong.
So, what I have tried to do lately is that instead of the usual guestion, I have started asking people "what is it that you really wanted to do?". Because I think the answer to that tells a lot more of a person. A lot more of who the person really is inside that all.

Or, we could also answer the guestion "what are you, or what is it that you do?" totally differently.
By saying what we really are. Like, I´m a husband.. or.. A mom of three. A dreamer. An adventurer. A man of god. A person looking for the anwers. Still trying to find out. A good friend. Loyal. Trustable. Curious. Social. Shady. A fighter. Something original. Something great.
I am me.