Everything has changed/Absolutely nothing's changed

So I’m starting a new job next week and I have that new boy anxiousness.

The work isn’t rocket science, so I know I can do it, but still, new people and a new environment make me a little uncomfortable as I’m a creature of habit. Also when you think that you spend half of your week at work – the same amount of time you’re at home (or wherever else you may be doing the things you actually enjoy in life) it kind of makes you wonder how much you become your job, or how much your chosen work affects your identity.

Keats said ‘A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence, because he has no identity - he is continually informing and filling some other body.’

Now I don’t call myself a ‘poet’ but if you replace that word with ‘artist’ you can see what he means. So maybe it’s even more difficult for someone who willingly embraces differing personas to feel anything but unsettled when having to introduce ‘himself’ to new people. Especially those to whom a good first impression is so important.

This counts even more for those who have been in the same job for maybe 4-5 years. It must inform part of your personality without you even realising until you stop and consider it for a moment.

‘I am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his madness without also taking away his identity?’ Saroyan.

Again if you think of ‘madness’ in this context as artistic or creative expression of some kind, you can see what I mean. It’s a tough balance – and at this point - even at my age and with all my experiences, I don’t know if it ever ends.