I’ve talked about And / And over the years, albeit in a different context, but I see that the idea of not limiting one’s choice to Either / Or is permeating through many parts of life. How we define ourselves through what we do is one of them.
It’s becoming more and more common for people to adopt not just one, but multiple professional personas. I’m told that the popular term for it is ‘slashie’, which purportedly originated from the 2001 film Zoolander, with its ‘actor-slash-model’ award. Slashies have evolved since then to encompass any and every trade, and certainly don’t just apply to actor-slash-models.
Being a ‘slashie’ is about variety. Pursuing multiple interests, taking on different jobs and playing different roles. In the music world it’s common place. A smattering of examples include Bob Dylan (musician / poet / painter), Keith Richards (musician / children’s book author / actor), Brian May (musician / astrophysicist ), Roger Daltry (musician / trout fishery owner).
Though one may say that these people have only taken on second careers out of interest and not necessity, the fact remains that being a slashie enables people to apply varied interests to meet different sorts of people, explore different points of view and ultimately, create richer experiences.
Slashie Sarah Liu explains, “It’s about flexibility…it’s not having one job, nine to five, five days a week. It’s about seeing possibilities above and beyond that and saying it’s ok to reject the status quo, that that’s how change and disruption actually occurs.”
Variety is the spice of life.
