What are you "First"?

[airportkid]

On the laundry list of our personal identity, we rank at the top those attributes, traits, talents or qualities of which we are most proud, which if lost would cripple the very roots of our soul. And at the very top is what we are “first.” Some of us identify with national identity first, some with religious identity, some with avocation, career or passion, some with ethnic identity, some with gender, some with the sheer fact that we are human beings before we are anything else.

There is of course no “best first” here – they’re all equal crowns on the infinite variety of heads of personality, but I believe how we regard ourselves “first” very much colors our view of the world – indeed puts us at entirely different windows not necessarily even on the same planet (!) as we gaze out and try to make sense of the universe – and of each other.

I’ve tried to keep the list succinct, so consider the choices in the broad context intended – no one will find an exact match. (Jew is a special case: I made it an example in both ethnicity and religion because it goes in either - if you consider yourself a Jew first, pick either ethnic or religious identity according to which you feel fits you best).

To save anyone looking in vain for “Procrastinating Old Fart”, I omitted it because honesty would compel me to pick that one for myself, and a list like this should allow us to indulge at least some fantasy about who we are. So I identify myself as a human being first, with intellectual just behind it by a nose in a photo finish.

So, what are you “first”?

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

[Sufferin' Prius Envy]

I'm first at replying.

[Stev0]

I'm a geek first.

[Wildkow]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Apr 18 2007, 11:32 PM) [snapback]425885[/snapback]</div>

On the laundry list of our personal identity, we rank at the top those attributes, traits, talents or qualities of which we are most proud, which if lost would cripple the very roots of our soul. And at the very top is what we are “first.” . . .

To save anyone looking in vain for “Procrastinating Old Fart ”, I omitted it because honesty would compel me to pick that one for myself, and a list like this should allow us to indulge at least some fantasy about who we are. So I identify myself as a human being first, with intellectual just behind it by a nose in a photo finish.

So, what are you “first”?

Mark Baird
Alameda CA
[/b]

You shoulda put the POF on the list cause nothing else is even close for me.
On occasion I wander into the christian area but never manage to stay very long.
Wildkow

[livelychick]

I'm a mother first.
Then a friend.
Then a Virginian.
Then an Appalachian-American.
Then a Hokie. (Even before this event.)
Then a professional.
Then left-leaning centrist.

I guess that's the way I scale it...

[desynch]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(livelychick @ Apr 19 2007, 09:40 AM) [snapback]425966[/snapback]</div>

Then left-leaning centrist.
[/b]

You made me laugh so hard I squirt my morning coffee out my nose.. You're so far left.. "Left Leaning Centrist" doesn't even come close.

--anyway

I'm an American

[Screaming Red]

[quote]
You made me laugh so hard I squirt my morning coffee out my nose..

Ouch!! That can fritz your keyboard.

I'm me first
Then a wife, mother, engineer, daughter, sister, life loving liberal east coast expatriat who will (when pressed) profess to being an on-again off-again Quaker.

How about a "What do you want to be when you grow up" thread?

[eagle33199]

To the right, everyone is "so far left"...

For me, i'm a gentleman above all else. then a Phi Tau. Then an Eagle Scout.

[daniel]

I am not anything "first" because I don't consider that categories properly define us. I am just myself. I have many characteristics, but if I were to list them in this context, someone would insist that whatever I happened to put at the beginning of the list was what I consider myself "first" because I had put it first.

Many people do indeed consider themselves to be "first" a nationality, or a religion, or a color, etc., and perhaps this is a natural product of the human mind. But I resist the impulse.

I am not any category, though I have characteristics, and others will categorize me according to their own views of me. I am just who I am.

[galaxee]

i'm a survivor. the rest of my life couldn't have happened without me doing that first.