1/ Five years after having first read @paulg’s essay “Keep Your Identity Small,” I can safely say it is one of the most influential pieces of advice I’ve ever heard. paulgraham.com/identity.html 
2/ And yet, we all place labels on ourselves both to help others understand us and to help us understand ourselves.
3/ I started introducing myself as a writer two years ago, in part to convince myself that I actually was a writer and that I sort-of knew what i was doing.
4/ I was (and often still am) sort-of suprised when people took that seriously and it gave me more confidence in my work.
5/ What gives then? To have or to not have an identity?
6/ The metaphor which has proven helpful for me lately is to think of life as an improv performance.
7/ The improvisor holds two ideas in their mind simultaneously. I am and I am not my role.
8/ They very seriously try to make the audience believe they are an 18th-century Victorian housemaid that has been kidnapped by a troll and taken to the candy forest - Yet, they know they are not.
9/ In improv, like life, you do not know the script in advance.
10/ In a good improv performance, as in a good life, it may look like the performers must have had a script because the performance was so convincing, but that is never the case.
11/ In improv, surprises are “yes and’ed”, that is they are seen as new and unexplored opportunities, to shift the role you are playing.
12/ "To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.”
13/ Keep your identity small, but don't let that stop you from throwing yourself into the role.
