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Projects

First, know that this exercise has no relation to your ability to think or to be, but it says everything about how psychologized we've all been trained to be by others and by media. In the moment that we think to describe ourselves or others, we fall into the trap of using pop-psychology terms about behavior, attitudes, and our motivations.

So instead of thinking about this impossible question of "who are you?"; let's think about "what you do in the world" and not as a job either (which is the usual answer to "what do you do?")

Here are a few that pop into my head at the moment.

Solitude Seekers. Some people spend much of their time focused on having the time to go fishing, or hiking--to be in nature, to enjoy quietude.

Thrill-seeker. Some people always seek physically demanding and thrilling adventures.

Creator. Others focus on making something, be that baking, craft, music, art.

Nurturer. Others always seek to help or assist others, be those others people, animals, or even houseplants.

Crusader. Some have causes, seeking to right certain wrongs or to promote a communal good.

Travelers. There is a real cross-over between those who walk the world travelling and those who recline and read books or novels, both seeking to learn about other places, other peoples, other ways of life--even if those places and people are fabrications of fiction.

Movers. Others seek to move more fluidly through space-time by moving their body, be that working-out at a gym, running, playing on a team sport.

Collectors. Some people are collectors, from Coca-Cola Memorabilia to stamps, searching continually for that ever elusive rare piece or for more knowledge of their specific interest.

And the above are but a few. There are Inventors (who seek to create new machinery or technology), Sages (who seek knowledge), Wanderers (who seek spontaneous and random experiences), Advisors (who tend toward being the uncle/aunt/wizard/mentor), Healers (who heal people physically or mentally) and on and on.

We, in academia, in philosophy, tend to use the word “project” when referring to people in this manner. What is your project in life, or what is your life’s project.

While any one person could have some of each of those above projects in their lives, my question would be "what way-of-living," what project, do you lean into, which one has you feeling the most alive, as having the meaningfulness.

And each of those above relate back to my question: What do you do. Our actions in the world and the choices we have made, the choices we currently work on making, and those we need to make in the near future, all determine who we actually are.

Many, many (many!) people do not make choices to fit who-they-are; rather, their choices are continual reactions to the world around them, like a pinball bouncing through a pinball machine. As Gasset says in the reading, "the weightiest thing he has to do is to determine what he is going to be". For many people, we must make choices in regards to surviving life, often neglecting choices to further our specific project in life.

So if we could roll the film of your entire personal history, and if we can edit out all of the choices you didn't really make--where your parents moved you to, which schools you had to go to, etc. -- what is left. In all of the decisions you are able to, were able to, make for yourself, what does that say about what you do, and that is the trajectory--all you have willfully chosen to do, all that you now willfully choose to do.

Caveat: Let's not make the false assumption that the 8 intelligences or stages of Bloom's taxonomy have direct correlations to these projects. Each project needs all intelligences and all levels of Bloom's.