we are not ideas, okay

as soon as we say we are something we are no longer ourselves.  as soon as we say we are a feminist or a marxist or a liberal, we are no longer ourselves.  if i say i am a writer, i am no longer myself.  all these things are merely ideas, concepts, at the least descriptors of activities, and if we go into the world saying we are these things then what we are really saying is that we need something to define ourselves.  what we are really saying is that we are afraid that we are nothing, which is what we are.  it's okay to be nothing.  we don't think this could be the truth, so we need something to define that which cannot be defined.  also, as soon as we say i am this or i am that, then we set ourselves up for a fight.  we are ready to fight against that which is not us.  liberal vs conservative.  atheist vs believer.  capitalist vs socialist.  as soon as we say, i am this, we have limited ourselves, backed ourselves into a little box.  these concepts, these -isms, are helpful only insofar as we understand that they are words which describe ideas - it's a stupid thing to consider oneself an idea, though it's equally stupid to think one doesn't have some ideas and that ideas and concepts aren't useful.  better to use these ideas in a kind of flowing way, circumstantially and openly, rather than proclaiming oneself an idea.