on Role/Act
Learning the difference between "I do this" and "I am this"
I never know what to write in the bio field. Because the moment you pick a noun you have to stick to it (well, I also don’t fully know what I do, but that’s a separate problem).
Call yourself a painter and now you have to paint. Call yourself an artist and everything you do is a statement.
There’s a difference between saying I paint and saying I am a painter. One is an act. The other is a role and roles come with audiences, and audiences come with expectations, and expectations come with an obligation to keep being the thing you said you were.
People reach for the noun thinking it elevates the work (it doesn’t). What it elevates is the anxiety. Everything you make has to justify itself against the title you picked and the brand you’ve knowingly or unknowingly built around your name. The work, which used to be just the work, is now evidence.
The noun is useful, I get it. Nobody asking “so, what do you do?” wants to hear “it depends”. They want a noun. Something they can file you under and move on.
But the noun is also a trap, and most people who use it early don’t see the trap until they’re already in it. Saying I’m a writer turns it into something you have to live up to. Saying I write lets you just do the thing.
In Japan, craftsmen practise for decades before they’re comfortable using the word artist. They understand what the word means and that the bar is high. You don’t claim it. You wait until the word fits. Some wait until their eighties or nineties. Some never use it at all.
“I do this” asks less of you than “I am this.”
—
Felix Ng
Co-founder, Anonymous