8. What Do You Do?

Musing Interruptus is a podcast meant for sharing thoughts and stories and enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation.  Hello, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. When getting to know someone, we might ask questions about their occupation or occupations. Often, people have diverse sources of income. We don’t do just one thing. I think we are bound to do more because we need the income and mental stimulation. Mostly the income. It is a privilege to make a living doing things you enjoy. It has taken me a while, but I can say that I love what I do. When I don’t love it, I at least really like it or barely dislike it. I think that is pretty good. I can remember several times when I intensely disliked what I was doing most of the time and only enjoyed a few of the activities I was hired to do. This is either progress or proof I have lost my soul to the machine. Either way, I feel happy about it, and that is the bottom line, for now. Back to getting to know someone. When you ask someone about their occupation or occupations, you might say: What do you do? Or What do you do for a living?  When I ask, I can’t help thinking that this is a question banks ask. They pretend to care where your money comes from. If they do care, it is not for the reasons we imagine. I suppose, when we ask people about their occupations, we are not as interested in what they make as we are in how they decide to spend their time to make a living. What you do for a living says a lot about your life decisions, the opportunities you’ve had or made for yourself, what occupies your mind, day in and day out, and how you explain and experience the world.  For instance, a doctor might be someone who is motivated to heal, and who organizes reality in terms of symptoms, ailments, cures, timelines, side effects, and palliatives.  A firefighter might be drawn to fire and also the use of water and other chemicals to quell and extinguish the flames. Fire hazards, emergency exists, extinguishers, and tipping the balance of life and death, towards life. Have I told you have I have a firefighter friend? He’s strong and knows how to drive a rig. He told me he was motivated to serve and protect. The wild child who tamed fire or at least did his best to save people from the flames. You have my deepest admiration. A police officer could be guided by a desire to establish order and protect. Their environment is explored in terms of laws, limits, the need for a siren, and good against bad. There is also the good cop turned bad. They tend to be a scary breed. We hope there are more good cops than bad cops. The good ones do good things to keep us safe.  A teacher might be driven by the desire to educate, which at its core is a matter of stimulating the intellect. I think that one is great. To understand the world and try to explain it through the different lenses supplied by great thinkers, scientists, and philosophers, opening up possibilities and worlds, opening doors through which humans walk. Those who cross the threshold may themselves create new doors, windows, and planes of reality. Teachers facilitate those processes. What thing to be surprised and learn from different types of intelligences and discover how each student learns. It becomes a matter of strategies and creativity.  A writer, a dancer, a sketcher, a designer, a painter, a photographer, or a cinematographer might be into storytelling via the mediums of their choosing. You’ve gotta love a storyteller. What motivates them to present the ins and outs of reality and fiction? Could it be they desire to understa