On nouns, verbs, and identity

How parts of speech can shift your perspective

I grew up as a first generation Chinese American in a relatively conservative community. Like many first generation minorities, I grew up under a framework very familiar to the art of stereotyping. As a result, I became torn between rejecting my culture entirely out of shame and embracing it out of appreciation. It was my introduction to the concept of identity: who others think I am, who I want to be, but most of all, who I am.

Once I started university I discovered that this question of identity wasn’t exclusive to the ethnicity I bubbled in on scantrons — that it extended to my major, what clubs I joined, who I associated myself with, my profession, and ultimately, how I chose to spend my time. Aka everything. And all of a sudden, I didn’t know who I was anymore, or who I wanted to be.

I realized that my struggles to identify myself stemmed from the fact that every label I seemed to try on never truly fit. I joined the rowing team but didn’t quite think I embodied a rower, so I quit after a year. I tried out for sororities and spirit groups but found that maybe I wasn’t Greek letters, or a spirit, or a sweetheart, so I never joined one. I’m in a specific program at my school called BHP but contemplated leaving many times because, well, I never thought I was a BHPerson.

My problem was with the nouns. I identified myself and others as the nouns they chose to label themselves with. I struggled with nouns because they told a story about who I was before I got to tell my story. In describing ourselves with nouns, we rely on how other people perceive the noun based on their individual experiences.

I began experimenting with shunning nouns and describing myself with verbs. I felt uncomfortable calling myself a designer because I wasn’t sure if that communicated what I did accurately, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a designer anyways. So I chose some verbs: I design mockups for websites and apps and enjoy designing systems. I didn’t like calling myself an introvert because no one believed me (“But you’re such an extrovert!”) so I told people: I prefer meeting with people one-on-one and value a few solid friendships over many.

And once I started using verbs, something incredible happened. I no longer felt the need to identify myself with nouns and felt comfortable with who I was. Similarly, I have acquired the art of ignoring nouns when others introduce themselves to me in order to get to know them as they are. As the verbs that make up their identity.

It makes sense when you see the definitions side by side:

Noun: a word used to identify any of a class of people, places, or things

Verb: a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence

Identity: the fact of being who or what a person or thing is

Identity is a state of being — in other words, Identity is not a classification but the actions that make you who you are.