What do you say to
someone you meet at party? How do you identify yourself? Probably from the
outside in.
Not by your religious condition. I’m
a ‘miserable sinner’ (prayer book); I’m a ‘child of God’ (catechism); I’m an interrelationship
with everything in the universe (Buddhist); I’m a compendium of chemicals
strung together with electrical impulses (atheism): I am dust, and will return
to dust.
Nor with family: a good parent (I
feed my children), or bad (I beat them); a filial child (heeding my parents),
or neglectful (ignoring them). The wise avoid politics: gripping hard to the
right or spinning out with the left. More approvable your football team or
favourite band. No strong emotions: I’m in love, I’m pregnant; I’m gay; I’m
inspired. Or I loathe, I hate, I despise.
Even work shuns the personal. Who
says: I’m a trustworthy employee (honest), or slipshod and lazy? a sincere CEO (devoted to the good), or corrupt
(follow the money)? Do the arts save us? I’m a pianist, an actor, a watercolourist?
Am I first an artist or a teacher? Am I a ball of skills, personalities,
impressions? All these? Or only dust, gold dust, maybe?
