Who Am I? What Am I?

Posted by Colin Harvey Oct 10, 2009

On Tuesday I attended my first seminar, when we were encouraged to team up and --based on a quick background briefing-- each introduce our partner.

Dominic is a rugby-playing creative-media aspirant who had spent his gap year teaching rugby at a Sydney school.

When I briefed Dominic, I freely admitted my age, Kate’s name, where I live, and that I had changed careers. But oddly I omitted that I was already a writer, which is the opposite of my normal behavior. Even while working full-time, I always described myself first and foremost as a writer.

Most adults label themselves by their job when making introductions, as if that defines what they are. Writers are an exception, because we usually have two jobs, giving us two distinct identities. It’s shorthand. What our work is allows strangers to place us in the social hierarchy.

Later I sheepishly admitted to my lecturer that I had published both fiction and non-fiction, but wasn’t able to articulate why I had omitted that core fact in my intro.

I now realize that it was a defence mechanism. At the time I’d met no other mature student. I’d admitted to Kate the night before that I’d begun to feel like some sort of freak; the other students clearly didn’t know what to make of me– one even changed rows when I said “hello” when sitting down for a lecture. It amused more than upset me, since I understand the shyness that’s sometimes masked by bravado at that age.

But when I was briefing Dominic, I felt instinctively that I was already hard enough for the others to pigeonhole, without prompting a flurry of questions. I’m getting to know people now, and volunteer up-front that I’m a writer, but at the time it seemed a useful simplification. But you can tell how much it trobled me by the fact that I'm blogging about it. Just for a moment, I was someone else, and I didn't like it. It's not just what I do, it's what I am. A writer.