The question: “What do you do?”

And my inability to answer it.

“What do you do?”

“Where do you live?”

I laugh these days as I stumble over what are meant to be simple, polite questions. Do I take a paragraph to explain the nuances of my nomadic-inbetween-becoming state? Or is it best to simplify for the un-initiated, provide them with a placeholder word that will allow them to sort me into a comfortable box?

It’s no secret that humans are uncomfortable with uncertainty. But it’s been a work in progress to grasp that even strangers are put off by the ambiguity of others. In making ourselves hard to classify, we challenge the neural shortcuts our brains create on our behalf. Reality and nuance is simply too great of a cognitive load. So we subconsciously reduce and filter, making our infinitely complex world digestible for overloaded brains. (Just ask Daniel Kahneman, badass leader in the field of Behavioural Economics.)

As we create new spaces for ways to work and live fluidly by leaving cubicles behind, building avenues for income that were unthinkable only a few years prior, we are still left to check boxes on forms and find a way to describe our work or our home in a single word.

We may not have concise or pretty answers for these well-intentioned questions. And when we choose to shelve the multitudes of our real responses, in some way it seems we do a disservice to the questioner as well as to ourselves.

To its credit, “Freelancer,” can act as a cognitive anchor. It can provide a place to start. But it struggles to capture the day-to-day, the dozens of other things that are essential parts of the picture.

I’m still building, I haven’t gotten there yet. And so we return to the ever pervasive tightrope: when does doing something allow you to claim the title?

I write, but I’m not a writer.

I paint, but I’m not a painter.

And so too, I freelance, but I am not yet comfortable claiming the title of a freelancer.

I can tell you where I’m from, but not where I live. Because it changes. And because I don’t know.

In trying to convey our own confusion and mutability, we upset the brain’s shortcuts to understanding. In providing that quick and easy answer, we allow the perceived barriers we are challenging through our work and our lifestyles to remain an intact illusion for others. The cubicle walls remain untouched.

My answers to these simple questions fluctuate by the day and with my mood. No matter the response, I remain mindful of the privilege in my backpack and on the tip of my tongue. It is wound around my wrists instead of the chains that could be there were I born in a different body or in a different time. With arms unbound, I feel something of a responsibility to at least try and communicate nuance by putting my hands through holographic walls.

Thanks for reading. I’m new to this sharing publicly thing and would love any feedback you may have for me. Cheers x