Slots

We have developed a sort of shorthand for describing ourselves.

If we were things it would be easy to say, I'm a teapot, a stamp, a linen napkin, or even a vase.

Since we are people we say what we do, I'm a teacher, a salesman, a nurse, doctor, psychiatrist volunteer.

Locking ourselves into tiny cubicles of voluntary restrictions that encompass whatever our "thing" is, suffocates me. Would it be so bad to just go through life doing good things for yourself and other people?

Yes it would. We have a name for those people. Do-gooders. It is derogatory and actually only encompasses a small fraction of people who misuse the idea, but it is there.

We do not trust, or perhaps just don't understand, people who cannot define themselves in some concrete way that appeals to our societies sense of rightness. Without that we are not easily slipped into the appropriate slot that defines where we belong in others worlds.

We even have a term for people who no longer need to do those things that pay. We call them retired as if that defines exactly who they are now. Of course it is no more definitive than saying they are fish, or dogs, but it is easy.

Right now I am experimenting with having no obligations other than social ones that I choose on a piecemeal basis and I am starting to love it. I don't get up thinking that today I have to be somewhere to volunteer, or that tomorrow I volunteer, both meaning I need to get as much of the rest of my life as I can in order right now. A few hours of compulsory commitments affects many hours that could have been free.

For me this really works. I am totally capable of entertaining myself on many levels and it enriches my life immensely.