A few weeks back while at a party here in Buenos Aires, a girl asked me “what do you do?” I fucking hate that question. What do I do? I “do” a million different things god damnit! I sketch, read, go for hikes, make youtube videos, drink tea and mate, smoke fine cuban cigars, travel the world, make websites, blog, write e-books, make e-courses, tinker with photoshop, consult with people on business and spirituality, study plants and animals, and the list goes on…. What I “do” is as endless as my being.
But I take it that she was asking “how do you make money?” Yup, that was the real question. Well I decided to pick one random thing that I “do” and I told her that “I study and speak about astral traveling.” “What’s that,” she asked. “It’s when your spirit body leaves your physical body.” “Ohh.. okay… uh huh…,” she responded with a weird and confused look.
Well my little test told me a lot: People really don’t care about your passions and interests—most people don’t, at least—they care about 1.) How you are making money and 2.) Whether or not what you “do” is commonly acceptable or “weird.” Period.
Society has done their job well to keep the herd inline.
For years I’ve continued this experiment and have seen how people reacted by telling them what I do… When I worked on Wall Street and told people about it I got a lot of “wows… awesome..” When I spoke of my spiritual training and studies, I got a lot of “cool.. explain that to me… or wow… that’s scary!” When I spoke of my computer design / programming I got “okay, so that’s how you travel the world and make money.”
It’s pretty fun… You should try this game, too!
But fuck it, tell them your passions next time someone asks you what you “do.” Tell them what you truly live for, not how you make money. Because, sadly and usually, how you make money isn’t what makes you happy.
Welcome to the wonderful society we live in.
[here's a link to a video I made about the topic.]
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