In September of 2018, a friend of mine invited me to a party for Fleet Week in San Francisco. The theme was "by land or by sea." Or something like that. Last minute, I found a purple pirate hat complete with octopus tentacles coming out of both sides—twirling around and all. Usually deployed in advance of all others, the question, "what do you do?" was replaced by, "what are you supposed to be?" It felt appropriate for a costume party. After trying on a few different labels, I settled on, "I am an Octopus Hunter."
A few hours and double as many pints later, my friend asked me, "What is your identity?" She wasn't asking me how I identify in the 2018 sense of the phrase. Turns out, this is one of her favorite questions. I struggled and eventually turned it back on her. Of course she'd asked and been asked this many times, and she responded with a trail of different nouns—each complete with thoughtful elaborations. I so loved the question after a week or so of thinking of it as I walked that I sat down and took a first pass at my answer with a clear head.
While I don't expect this will ever cover the full range of identities I take on or like to think I hold, I think this will be a fun list to keep, share, and update. For the sake of mystery and convenience, the list is not in any particular order of importance—so don't read into it.
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I am a part.
- A son, a brother, a grandson, a nephew, a community member.
- “To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.” — Dr. Seuss
- “Those who think they have no need of others become unreasonable.” — Luc de Clapiers
- “He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.” — Samuel Johnson
- “People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care” — Zig Ziglar
- "What you do is what the whole Universe is doing at the place you call here and now. You are something that the whole Universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something the whole ocean is doing." — Alan Watts
- ”the function of the artist is to make people like life better than before.” — Kurt Vonnegut
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I am an optimist.
- It's a hell of a lot more fun this way.
- "In dreams begin responsibility" — W.B. Yeats
- "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." — Henry Ford
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I am a humanist.
- "being a humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead." — Kurt Vonnegut, from God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
- "I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers which can't be questioned." — Richard Feynman
- “If we crave cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.” — Carl Sagan
- "The central value of humanism based on knowledge then is critical inquiry: the ability to point out flaws in existing knowledge and propose alternatives." — Albert Wenger
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I am a classical liberal.
- I believe in the equal rights of all human beings, supporting & creating institutions that support individuals' rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- I do not identify as a Democrat or Republican.
- "You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, 'Look at that, you son of a bitch." — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut
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I am a writer.
- I have been happiest during the periods of my life in which I've written frequently. For all of my emotional hose kinks, writing may be the only way to relieve the pressure.
- “The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.” — Edwin Schlossberg
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I am a philomath.
- "Aun aprendo" — Francisco Goya (translation: Still I learn; I am still learning)
- “Become who you are by learning who you are.” — Pindar
- “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” — Stephen Hawking
- "The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive.” — Bill Watterson
- “Good questions outrank easy answers.” — Paul Samuelson
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I am an entrepreneur.
- For better or for worse, the dominant mechanism whereby humans solve problems at this point in history is by banding together in a company—an association of persons for the purpose of carrying on some enterprise or business (Webster).
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I am an eccentric.
- "Deviating from stated methods, usual practice, or established forms or laws; deviating from an appointed sphere or way; departing from the usual course; irregular; anomalous; odd; as, eccentric conduct." — Webster
- "Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive." — Bill Watterson
- "Most people would rather be certain they're miserable than risk being happy." — Robert Anthony
- "The hardest thing to listen to, your instincts, your human personal intuition, always whispers. It never shouts." —Steven Spielberg
- "Don’t listen to your friends. Think for yourself." — Ben Horowitz
- "So my recommendation would be follow your contribution. Find the thing that you’re great at, put that into the world, contribute to others, help the world be better and that is the thing to follow." — Ben Horowitz
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I am a storyteller.
- Stories, I'm convinced, are the way people connect with one another.
- I believe we build relationships, buy products, and choose how we spend our time based almost entirely on stories—whether we recognize it or not, is another subject.
