WHAT DO YOU DO?

Who me?
You have to know that I just spent nearly three weeks in Europe in a country where the dominant language is one that I know perfectly well.  While I was there I met at least 50 people whom I had never met before in my entire life.  It was a very rich experience.  There were people from all walks of life.  There were even people who were not residents of that country at all.  Some were South Americans, some were Africans and some were Asian.  Not all of them spoke the dominant language of the country in which we had all come together, but they all spoke enough of the languages that I understand so that communication was rather easy, and comfortably so.  For about 35 or 40 of those new acquaintances, our sojourn together was about eleven consecutive days.  The other ten or fifteen of the new faces were rather short inter-relations.  The reason for all this detail is the preparation for the topic sentence (remember those?) of this post.  None of these people asked me the famous American question, "What do you do?"  Not a one.  Believe me, not a one.  They asked me my name; the number of siblings I have; my birthplace; my educational background, not the school's name, but the mainstay of the school's curriculum.  They asked how I had maintained my language skills.  They asked about my religious convictions, my political leanings and the kind of food I prefer and finally, they gave me permission to use the familiar linguistic form of address when speaking to them, which I, of course, reciprocated.  Through all of this getting to know you inquisitiveness, they never asked me "What do you do?"  That is not to say that it did not get put on the table through all the casual conversation, but it was never an important piece of information to any of them.  
I, of course, expected this since I had lived in other cultures for many years before this last experience.  It is still in my mind though, that in such a swirl of new faces, international differences, hodge-podge of languages and intensity of interaction that I was never asked the question. I guess it is because who I am is more important to these people than what I do.After all, what I am, I am forever, here and after-here.  What I do changes and will change and even go away some day.  Who I am will never go away.  Dead or alive, there is only one of me, and ever will be only one of me. Those who know me, know me, not so much what I do, but who I am.  What I do is only a temporary reflection of who I am.  My self, my identity is forever, no matter what I do. There is a corollary to this statement here, if you want to sniff around and see what it is.
It is therefore on the table for you to give some thought to figuring out who you are separate from what you do.  Have fun.