<story><title>Call yourself titles</title><url>https://josem.co/call-yourself-titles/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mjr00</author><text>&amp;gt; The problem is that most of us didn’t do the only X that matters, which is to actually write. [...] Writers who don’t write seems like a niche phenomenon of a narrow and privileged set&lt;p&gt;Nah, I think this is super common across titles that people romanticize, mainly in the arts, since there&amp;#x27;s no real barrier to entry. (Unlike, say, claiming &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m a lawyer&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m a doctor.&amp;quot;) I&amp;#x27;ve seen tons of people say &amp;quot;I want to be&amp;#x2F;I am a musician&amp;quot; and then spend a bunch of time watching YouTube tutorials, hanging out in musician&amp;#x2F;producer Discords, etc. and not actually, you know, making music.&lt;p&gt;For a lot of people, &amp;quot;I want to do X&amp;quot; actually means &amp;quot;I want to &lt;i&gt;have done&lt;/i&gt; X,&amp;quot; and then reap all of the benefits that comes from that: the sense of accomplishment, the fame, social media follows, whatever.&lt;p&gt;These days I&amp;#x27;m usually very suspicious of people who make big public pronouncements about how they&amp;#x27;re starting X task, whether that&amp;#x27;s going to the gym, learning guitar, building something in Rust, or whatever. If you wanted to do the activity, you&amp;#x27;d just do it without all the pomp and circumstance. Every time I&amp;#x27;ve seen a friend on social media announce they&amp;#x27;re going to start a grand new adventure, they fizzle out after a month or two. The ones who get shit done will show up to a party looking amazing and casually mention, &amp;quot;Yeah, I&amp;#x27;ve been hitting the gym.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>jeffomatic</author><text>I can see how this could be a helpful reframing for some folks, but IME centering your attention on how to title yourself can have the reverse effect, which is to encourage you to indulge in an identity that doesn’t have much substance underneath.&lt;p&gt;I had a phase where me and my friends all thought of ourselves as writers and artists. At the extreme, there was a buddy of mine who would answer simple questions by prefacing with, “Well, as a writer, I tend to X.” And X would be many secondary tendencies you might associate with writers: look at the world differently; ask annoying questions at parties; overanalyze pop culture; drink too much caffeine; procrastinate; joke about procrastinating, etc.&lt;p&gt;The problem is that most of us didn’t do the only X that matters, which is to actually write. And I think we knew this on a subconscious level, and it was why we were so angsty all the time. (Being angsty is another X that writers are supposed to do, so it was a vicious cycle.)&lt;p&gt;Writers who don’t write seems like a niche phenomenon of a narrow and privileged set, but I feel like I see this elsewhere. I’m an engineer these days, and I occasionally come across junior folks who have a similar thing going on. Especially in bigger orgs, you can see people struggle for years with this: there’s something about the job they like (perhaps what the job seems to say about them as individuals), but they have a hard time with the actual moment-to-moment work. I generally think it’s not my place to judge people, let alone gatekeep or call people out on it, but I sometimes feel that I did those folks a disservice by not telling them: hey maybe this just isn’t for you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pixl97</author><text>&amp;gt;titles that people romanticize,&lt;p&gt;Very strange that right after the arts are two titles that are highly romanticized. Back in the days I owned my own business and had a sizeable medical client base, I cannot tell you how many doctors had to buy a BMW because their other doctor friend has a BMW and you&amp;#x27;re not one of the &amp;quot;doctor club&amp;quot; unless you own one.&lt;p&gt;I come from a family heavily involved in the criminal justice system, and the lawyers, police, and judges I know have the same problems with falling in common tropes.&lt;p&gt;And don&amp;#x27;t even get me started on engineers. Give them 10 minutes and we&amp;#x27;ll tell everyone how liberal arts are the end of the world ;)</text></comment>
<story><title>Call yourself titles</title><url>https://josem.co/call-yourself-titles/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mjr00</author><text>&amp;gt; The problem is that most of us didn’t do the only X that matters, which is to actually write. [...] Writers who don’t write seems like a niche phenomenon of a narrow and privileged set&lt;p&gt;Nah, I think this is super common across titles that people romanticize, mainly in the arts, since there&amp;#x27;s no real barrier to entry. (Unlike, say, claiming &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m a lawyer&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m a doctor.&amp;quot;) I&amp;#x27;ve seen tons of people say &amp;quot;I want to be&amp;#x2F;I am a musician&amp;quot; and then spend a bunch of time watching YouTube tutorials, hanging out in musician&amp;#x2F;producer Discords, etc. and not actually, you know, making music.&lt;p&gt;For a lot of people, &amp;quot;I want to do X&amp;quot; actually means &amp;quot;I want to &lt;i&gt;have done&lt;/i&gt; X,&amp;quot; and then reap all of the benefits that comes from that: the sense of accomplishment, the fame, social media follows, whatever.&lt;p&gt;These days I&amp;#x27;m usually very suspicious of people who make big public pronouncements about how they&amp;#x27;re starting X task, whether that&amp;#x27;s going to the gym, learning guitar, building something in Rust, or whatever. If you wanted to do the activity, you&amp;#x27;d just do it without all the pomp and circumstance. Every time I&amp;#x27;ve seen a friend on social media announce they&amp;#x27;re going to start a grand new adventure, they fizzle out after a month or two. The ones who get shit done will show up to a party looking amazing and casually mention, &amp;quot;Yeah, I&amp;#x27;ve been hitting the gym.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>jeffomatic</author><text>I can see how this could be a helpful reframing for some folks, but IME centering your attention on how to title yourself can have the reverse effect, which is to encourage you to indulge in an identity that doesn’t have much substance underneath.&lt;p&gt;I had a phase where me and my friends all thought of ourselves as writers and artists. At the extreme, there was a buddy of mine who would answer simple questions by prefacing with, “Well, as a writer, I tend to X.” And X would be many secondary tendencies you might associate with writers: look at the world differently; ask annoying questions at parties; overanalyze pop culture; drink too much caffeine; procrastinate; joke about procrastinating, etc.&lt;p&gt;The problem is that most of us didn’t do the only X that matters, which is to actually write. And I think we knew this on a subconscious level, and it was why we were so angsty all the time. (Being angsty is another X that writers are supposed to do, so it was a vicious cycle.)&lt;p&gt;Writers who don’t write seems like a niche phenomenon of a narrow and privileged set, but I feel like I see this elsewhere. I’m an engineer these days, and I occasionally come across junior folks who have a similar thing going on. Especially in bigger orgs, you can see people struggle for years with this: there’s something about the job they like (perhaps what the job seems to say about them as individuals), but they have a hard time with the actual moment-to-moment work. I generally think it’s not my place to judge people, let alone gatekeep or call people out on it, but I sometimes feel that I did those folks a disservice by not telling them: hey maybe this just isn’t for you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>away271828</author><text>&amp;gt;  &amp;quot;I want to do X&amp;quot; actually means &amp;quot;I want to have done X,&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I co-authored a book with someone, which ended up meaning I did 90% of the work and they could be prodded with considerable effort to contribute in a few areas and give feedback. But they were thrilled to have been an author and hand out copies etc.&lt;p&gt;No real harm from my angle. I have no issue with them being a co-author. Doesn&amp;#x27;t hurt me. But a perfect example of this principle. A former boss at a small company was a somewhat similar example. They liked being a $X. They came to not like doing the work of being a $X.</text></comment>