Someone asked me recently how I identify. My answer? “Thanks for asking, but I don’t bother.”
I have a strong sense of values and an even stronger sense of purpose. But identity? Eh, not really my thing.
It’s not that I don’t have an identity, it’s that I don’t really care about it. I mean, I’ve had so many already that by now: founder, consultant, facilitator, coach, writer, pilot, sailor, producer, beatboxer, musician, actor, etc. Asking how I identify is like asking what I want for dinner. The just because the answer is “Italian” tonight doesn’t mean it’ll still be “Italian” tomorrow. In fact, odds are it probably won’t be. It’ll be something different. I’m not Italian. Don’t care.
I fully realize how important this question is for other people. Pronouns matter to plenty of people. Being from the San Francisco Bay Area, it’s not that weird to me. I don’t stumble over they/them plurals like some people do. But I’ve also travelled enough that I’ve been called the wrong one more times than I can count by way of simple mistakes. Never offended. Don’t care.
I recall having a discussion at a cafe in Montreal with a friend who identified as a Francophone. His identity was linked to his language, something he was fiercely proud of, and that he said would always separate us because we’d never be native speakers of each other’s mother tongue. That was right for him, but wrong for me. I’ve never once identified as an English-speaker. Don’t care.
There are so many better and more interesting questions to me than identity. I want to explore those instead! Questions like:
- what’s worth doing?
- why do you care about it?
- how are we going to pull this off?
- who will take the lead on which parts?
- when do we start? and when do we stop?
- where are the others, and how do we attract them to what we’re doing?
We’ll get to know each other along the way, beyond the labels. And that’s something I do very much care about.