Are you a writer?
Are you a writer? I'm not, apparently. I recently failed an “Are you a writer?” online quiz. Yeah. I know. Lame to take it, lame to care... But it caused havoc with my writing this morning. I want to rephrase what I hear some Buddhists say: you can only call yourself a Buddhist if you meditate (if you Bhud? Bouder means pout in French...) and you are a writer if you write, a painter if you paint, etc. But those statements aren't always true. Sometimes awareness of yourself not meditating is what's happening, a story is hibernating for the winter, or a new way of seeing a landscape is hatching. Anyway, how are we not setting ourselves up as jerks if we start declaring that what is or isn't happening in the moment defines a person's entire identity? Which leads me to think that identity is the problem. I clearly care way too much about what I call myself, and what others call me. Every time I show a painting, it feels like I'm exposing