I am, by my nature, not much of a belong-er. I don't tend to define myself as 'a blank-er', where 'blank' can be running, or engineering, or riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. This last one is almost certainly the one most salient to the conversation at hand, because there is a huge difference between owning and riding a Harley-Davidson, and being a Harley-Davidson owner. I own a Harley. I ride it. I like it, although I'm looking to sell it right now (anyone need a motorcycle?) But I'm not a Harley guy. I don't own any Harley gear other than one of my motorcycle jackets. All my other motorcycling gear is not Harley-branded. I don't own a single Harley t-shirt. I would never go to the Sturgis Rally. I give the little 'hey, you're riding a motorcycle too!' wave to non-Harley riders when we pass on the road.
This tendency definitely bleeds off into other areas of my life as well. I don't tend to socialize with my coworkers after hours, because I don't want to be one of those people who spends their entire life with the same tiny set of people. I like many nerdy things, like science fiction movies/TV shows and board games, but I've never been to a Con, and the one time I went to a meeting of the Boulder Board Game Meetup group, I felt like I had to take a shower afterwards. You know all those stereotypes you have in your head of creepy, socially inept nerds with bad personal hygiene, who laugh inappropriately loudly at the most unusual moments? Yeah. I feel like my experience of a Con would be much worse (maybe some newish readers can weigh in here - James, Eli, AJ, Josh, Lindsay?)
There was definitely a period where I was an Ultimate Player, but those days are long gone, and it was definitely the single glaring exception.
So, that's me. But the one thing I'm not actually sure of is: is it a good thing? I used to think that being a blank-er was kinda lame - why define yourself as one thing, whether it's your job, one activity, whatever? I can still run, and ride my Harley, and take beautiful photos, without being defined by any of those things. But I've been doing a lot of reading lately, from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers to Drive by Daniel Pink (I recommend the latter, in particular; Gladwell is great as always, but Pink really opened my eyes about some unusual ideas about satisfaction in the workplace), and I'm no longer at all convinced that it's a bad thing to be consumed by a single or small number of habits and hobbies.
Much more to come on this later, but for now, a question: are you a do-er or a be-er? If you could change, would you? Why?
6 comments:
I'm going to Denver ComicCon. I will report back. Possibly on the way out of the shower.
I have logged in, but Blogger still thinks I am unknown This is a creepy opposite of the usual "I never logged in but it shows all my Facebook friends."
I will stay anonymous and you can just Guess.
As for your final question, I maintain steadfastly that I am Uncategorizable by Mesdames Myers and Briggs and certainly by the damned Enniagram people. And thus yes, certainly not a Be-er in the sense of creating my identity by allegiance to a set group. A big part of my identity is being impulsive and creative but I do not belong to the Society for Creative Impulsiveness.
I have found 98% of the people at Cons to be quite "normal" and many are a lot of fun. There are of course the weird folks and the socially outcast that make you feel the need to cleanse, but on the whole they are intelligent, fun people with similar interests. Definitely more positive experiences than negative, by a huge margin. -Eli
Yeah, actually Dave, is the issue about Cons that you felt no interest or that you perceive that the people who go are people who have the identity as Babylon 5 fans or whatever? One can go to things regularly and feel like that's one's identity, or totally not.
Post a Comment