Some years ago, I was at a party where the host introduced me to a stranger as "a business journalist who has been around for a long while now". I smiled and extended my hand, but before I could say any more, the stranger lit up and said, "Tell me, what's your take on crypto?" I don't remember much else about that conversation. I probably mumbled something incoherent (crypto has never been my thing). But what stayed with me was how uncomfortable it all felt.
Whenever I think about the incident now, I think about how tightly we wear our professional identities.
So much of the time, we are not really presenting ourselves or being perceived as people in a wholer sense; we are being equated with what we do.
I am Charles, the journalist. You may be Vinicia the techie, Rohit the baker, or Sunny the stay-at-home parent.
It's not entirely our fault; it's how we've been conditioned to think about each other, and ourselves. This hit home harder recently, when scrolling through my phone contacts. What started as a casual attempt to delete defunct numbers quickly turned into a philosophical thought experiment. For each entry, I asked myself: "Is this name here because I care about this person? Or because of the title this person holds?"
This story is from the December 22, 2024 edition of Hindustan Times Thane.
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This story is from the December 22, 2024 edition of Hindustan Times Thane.
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