"What do you do?" I hate this question. I never know what to say. In fact, it bothers me so much that I may have already written a post about it but here's another one. This time, however, the thought took me in a different direction. Why do we ask that question? What are we even asking? Are we asking how the person pays their bills? Are we asking what the person is good at? What they enjoy doing? Last weekend Lisa and I met a couple and I asked them what they did. The answer was a firefighter and a fertility specialist. Woah, those are pretty noble professions, I says. I tried to pry a little more but the conversation pretty much ended with that and we moved on to something else. They didn't ask what we did, which, as you know, was fine with me. What I realized at 3am this morning is that I should have asked "what do you guys enjoy doing?" Now that's something most people can sink their teeth into. We might have even found some common interests that we could have chatted about which, actually, is what organically happened. We chatted for a long while about this and that but none of it was about our "professions".
So now, for me anyway, "what do you do" will be, "what do you enjoy doing". Fortunately (or unfortunately at times) for me, the thing I enjoy doing is the same thing that pays our bills but I still don't have a one word answer for it.
Machinist? Absolutely not. I wouldn't disrespect the trade by making that claim.
Craftsman? Maybe, kind of.
Designer? Pretty vague.
Artist? This one makes me cringe and sometimes spiral into depression. It's a heavy load. I know many artists. Real artists. What they do is mind blowing and then I start to compare my "art" to theirs and it destroys any level of creativity I think I have and then I decide that I'm just decent at making silly things that people might want to buy but wouldn't hold in high regard like a Picasso sketch. Why are we so obsessed with comparing ourselves to others? We all do it so it must be some innate primal thing. Maybe to evolve as a species or something? Dunno. I'm sure if I Duck Duck Go'ed it there would be pages of reasons but I don't believe most things I read anymore so I'm left wondering. And was there just a few talented ancient homosapiens that did the cave painting or did they all take part in it? I've also never looked into this but always imagined everyone sitting around the cave creating some art but why would that be? It seems there would be some that were more creative and artistic than others that would handle that job. But honestly, none of it is that good and seems like even a toddler could handle the job so were any of them really impressed with the quality of it? We're blown away by it because it's been there for thousands of years but they must have been like, "meh, I guess it kind of looks like a giant sloth but it's just okay". Were they even using words at that point? When was language developed and how do we even know? I could look that up as well but keeping this old school. Wait. Is that what the cave paintings were for?! To COMMUNICATE?!? Has anyone ever thought of this? I can't believe I just came up with this. I knew I should have been an Anthropologist. Well...I didn't know when I was young, I just kind of figured it out a few years ago but I was almost 50 by then so, what's the point? I guess the main point would be to answer the question with some confidence.
I'm an Anthropologist. And then just blow peoples minds with all of my knowledge about Cave Painters.Â
So, what's the point? No point, this was about 5 minutes of my 1.5 hour 3am thought rant.
You're welcome. Time to refill the coffee.
Anthony
