A couple months ago, someone asked me something that's been on my mind ever since. "What do you do? I don't mean your job."

I was taken aback. I don't ask the "what do you do" question much, I usually ask "how do you sell your labor" because I don't think a person's job is what they do. But in this case, I didn't know what else to say aside from my job.

There's this episode of the 2017 DuckTales series (really good, highly recommend) wherein the green nephew laments that he doesn't know what he brings to the team, he doesn't know what he does. "What do I do?" he asks.

And I've been feeling that since. How do I answer that question? Who am I? If you've read a lot of my blog, do you have any answers?

When I was younger I really liked labels. I loved collecting labels for myself. It felt like every label I accumulated told me more about myself. Bisexual, non-binary. A nerd, a weightlifter, a mustang lover. An IT guy, an educated humanoid. ENFP, Aries, Fire Tiger. Scientist. Socialite. Gentleman.

It eventually felt like if I picked up the most prestigious labels for myself, that maybe I'd finally feel safe and loved.

Of course it doesn't work that way. Cool Runnings (1993) put it best I think: "A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without one, you'll never be enough with one." And so any pursuit of power and glory always led me back to the same place: the same sad boy wondering why the world was so damn scary.

After a while though, the labels stopped being so helpful. My identity is tied up in so many things, that one label is tied to three others, that are tied to three others, and so on. It seems impossible to look at myself in neat little categories anymore, even the smallest, most mundane ones.

So this gentleman asks me what I do, and I sputter out some words. Ramble about my day job a little. But my day job is a big part of what I do, in that I have a tremendous amount of downtime and I use it to read, watch movies, and chat with folks.

Seems like the sort of thing I should just let go, right? I'm not sure why it's been on my mind so much.

I used to define myself by what I wanted: to go back to California, to become a naval officer. To collect all the stuff I wanted when I was a kid. One of those isn't happening anymore, one would be tremendously painful to pursue, and so that just leaves me as someone with a house full of toys and sputtering out labels.

There are points in my life where I was doing a lot. In college I ran clubs with my friends, wrote stories, drew monsters, generally lived a life of adventure. Nowadays it all feels so very mundane.

Yeah I still go on adventures. Walked around the flood waters with Caitlin the other day when the river spilled out everywhere along the trail. Snuck into a sewer tunnel when I was walking along 3rd a little while back.

And I still hang out with all my friends from the clubs. Well, a few that are left, who were the people that made those clubs fun for me.

I write now and again, fiction still feels pretty rusty. Been running a DnD game for a few years now that's filled with a lot of my strange ideas about the world. My aesthetic has been labeled Dark Whimsy, and described as "A Ghibli story if it was full of horror." I am pretty proud of that label, it is definitely something I go for.

Haven't drawn in a while though. I did a bit last year, mostly old Hanna-Barbera adventure characters from the 60's. Part of me is anxious to hold a pencil to make something. Will have to meditate on that. I do miss doodling, I used to keep a doodle pad on me in college but I got out of the habit. Might be good to try again, I've got plenty of time in the IT Cave.

I drew the Knight of Wands at a fun little tarot card machine a couple months back. The mysterious proprietor told me it represented passion and the effort to keep it or win it back. I really did feel like it spoke to me, like I used to be the Knight of Wands, but living here in this mundane world and letting the river take me where it will has kinda decayed some things in me. But y'know, every person I've ever been is still within me, for better and for worse.

So is that who I am? The knight in rusty armor? I think more likely is that all the world falling to pieces has me more contemplative than usual (and I am usually extremely contemplative). I do love me an archetype though, Jungian stuff always gets me a little excited, no matter how much I dedicate myself to science.

I think I'll have to go back to the guy next time I see him, in all my neurodivergent glory, and explain that I cannot adequately answer his question in a satisfying manner, and that who I am and what I do at any given moment is my only possession.

It pains me to give a cop-out answer, but at this point, it's the best I've got.