How much of your Self is molded by external forces and how much is it truly you? And can you even tell the two apart?
Looking for full-time work to support my son’s case transfer has me sorting through my unconventional career path. Trying to explain my resume to potential employers, a deeper question emerged: why didn’t I pursue writing from the beginning?
In 2003, when I was sure I wanted to write, what made me start working on my linguistics dissertation instead?
Patti Smith’s new book, Bread of Angels, gave me one of the answers: like her younger self, I always thought artists were others––not me. Being the daughter of a music-business executive, I assumed I didn’t belong in the artist category.
The other answer was: fear. Would I be successful?
When Patti Smith decided to commit to art, she writes, she didn’t know whether she had the skills, but committed to develop them.
Me? I thought that if I didn’t have the skills right away, that meant I wasn’t a writer.
But, like a cross-armed nightclub bouncer, a more prosaic force kept me out of art: I needed to earn money.
Instead of “What do I want to do?,” I asked “What will the market pay for?” A PhD sounded credible, marketable. Writing was just a pipe dream.
So I shaped myself into someone the job market would accept.
And when I left soul-crushing, politics-ridden academia, I discovered the job market had no place for a linguist. So I ventured further: coaching, consulting, workshop facilitation. Always asking: what will someone pay me for? Never: what do I want to create?
Only when I stopped requiring writing to earn money did my true Self emerge: I am a writer, unbounded by economic constraints.
Which raises the question: how much of our True Selves is constrained by the demand to survive in a market economy?
What part of you would you drop if you didn’t need to pay the bills?
Love,
Carolina
Carolina Perez Sanz 