Ever the pertinent question to our purpose in life is that of how we define ourselves. Typical responses include a combination of factors but one usually dominates a person’s perspective on life such as sexuality, ethnicity, social class or religious subscription. In addition to this, a crucial ingredient for definition of oneself is one’s job. Linked to social class, this can allow those who have not relegated the ego to its proper place in human psychology to either boost their self esteem or be crushed under social stigma.

In 2009, at what then seemed like the peak of a freak financial storm, I sat trembling on a packed rush hour underground train in Glasgow. Coming toward the end of a turbulent Philosophy course with no clear career navigation, the anxiety of having to work full time doing something I hated, or worse, be unemployed, seemed my only two prospects. Sensing my fear as I flicked through a post-graduation careers guide, the endearing Glaswegian next to me offered his advice: “Look wee mannie, dinae worry boot it. A job’s a job, if ye dee it well”. Now, thanks to Frankie Boyle and Billy Connolly, Glaswegians are not known for their pleasant wisdom. However a cessation of stereotyping is in order. This kind hearted stranger rolled off his tongue more efficiently and concisely what Martin Luther King Jr must have spent hours trying to crystallize into the following: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well’ ”. Needless to say the guy next to me was not a neurological surgeon but a toilet cleaner.

A job is indeed a job and one should have more to offer the world than simply their 9 to 5. But, what if you don’t have a 9 to 5? What if you have a 24/7 365 that occupies your every heartbeat and breath? Yes, what if you are “an artist”?  When asked that crucial question, “what do you do”? at a friend’s wedding ceremony, a party or by a stranger on the bus, what on earth are you supposed to say?! The false (and irrelevant) construct of pretension aside, something does not seem right about saying, “I’m an artist” or “I’m a writer”, especially when you are still at the bottom rung on the ladder of attainment making your definite way up. It seems “artist” is a title that one should be given by others, like an OBE. In this case,  it feels as if it should be society, social commentators that do the honours. It is a strange thing to describe yourself as something which is a) not objectively defined and b) cannot really be proven (until fifty years after your lonely death)  and c) isolates you from the dull accountants, bankers and lawyers you inevitably bump into. Unfortunately these guys are ever present in my confused, narrow social circle. Thus, introducing myself as “an artist” is akin to introducing myself as an asshole.

I live and I learn…not to socialise… ever.