I Am Much More than my Job

Wherein Our Heroine Contemplates the Notion of the Self.

There is a concept in art called negative space. It entails looking at the area around an object in order to see the outline of an object more clearly. The concept has been described as what happens when Bugs Bunny runs through a wall: Bugs leaves an outline of his body (ears and all) as a hole in the wall. The wall is the negative space - you can recognize Bugs by what he leaves behind.

Negative space is both visually interesting and aesthetically appealing when done well, but it has its limitations. Basic recognition of shapes can be achieved, but many details are lost.

When someone asks me "what do you do?" I feel as if they are asking me to define myself via negative space. When I had an answer for "what do you do?" that answer provided an outline of what I was (and also a vast space around that outline - what I was not). But while that answer might have provided the answer to what I was, it never really addressed who I was. In addition, a person's career is often one of the least interesting facts about them.

I would like to propose a new list of questions we can ask as a follow-up to, "What do you do?" that strike a nice balance between seeking interesting information and being noninvasive. It would be too much to ask to actually replace that question, as it has become one of the approved polite initial inquiries, but after those preliminaries have been cleared away what else should we ask one another? What will fill in the details of that outline?

"What are you reading these days?"

"Do you have any pets?"

"What do you plan on doing when you retire?" (a potentially interesting question for those who are nowhere near retirement)

As a side note, for college students, "What is your major?" is the college-age version of, "What do you do?" however; finding out what someone did major in in college might be an interesting question. It's amazing how many people majored in things that bear no resemblance to what they are doing now.

What are you good at?

What do you enjoy?

If you think of interesting questions, send them to me (via the Feedback link below). If I get a good list of them going, I will post them later on.

Posted: Monday - February 09, 2004 at 08:24 AM | |