06/28/2025
We had a newspaper interview this morning, and our journalist asked us a question we have never been asked before! Kudos to him, as it was an absolutely brilliant question that got us thinking as well. I’m paraphrasing here: he said that we had composed a lot of philosophical writing, and he wanted to know how we saw our role walking the country—did we see ourselves as preachers or something else, for example. It took a moment, but if I recall correctly, I think we answered as well as we could hope to, stating that we try to remain amorphous—without form—since identity creates so many of the problems facing our world.
This really gets at the heart of a deeper truth we hope to convey to people. While identity can be a useful tool for navigating a world of data, it isn’t truly real. Identity is merely conceptual, while reality, as we have recently written about, is in a constant state of change.
As the Walking America Couple, we have continued to change dramatically throughout the course of our journey, and so has the journey itself. We had no idea starting out that we were going to talk to people about the things that we are now talking to people about. We had no idea that we were going to learn the things that we have. And when we box ourselves into a title, we limit our ability to reach certain people. How many would be put off by the title of preacher, or philosopher, or guru? At the same time, adventurers seems to be a bit reductive. And so it is with the titles that we assign ourselves and those around us.
Mark 6:4 says something like this, but I first grabbed hold of the saying in line 33 of the Gospel of Thomas, where Jesus says, “No man can be a prophet in his own village.” The point being: People you grow up around have you in a particular box. You might go off, learn something incredibly enlightening, experience more of the world than they could ever imagine, but it is incredibly difficult to escape the identity they assigned to you.
We’re doing this to each other all the time—telling ourselves, “I know this person. They’re this way or that.” And even if they’ve become more distant from who they once were than the people they grew up around—people who still resemble that earlier version—anything they say or do that even slightly echoes that former self is almost certain to reinforce others’ beliefs about their identity. This can make it incredibly difficult for us to grow out of bad habits, accept our or others’ capacity for change, and feel properly appreciated for the positive change that we have worked toward in life.
Beyond any of that, whether we realize it or not, we are all somewhat captive to the judgments we often inadvertently form due to perceived identities. “This person is a Democrat, so they are like…” “This person is a Republican, so they are like…” “This person is religious, so they are like…” “This person is wealthy, so they are like…” “This person is a parent, so…” “This person is homeless, so…” “This person is a vegetarian, so…” and it can all be utter fabrications of the mind.
We’ve met well educated, once wealthy, homeless people who are living intentionally. We’ve met Democrats and Republicans who disagree with their party’s current politics. We’ve met the most giving, kind hearted wealthy people, as well as the most giving, kind hearted impoverished people—even multiple homeless people have tried to donate to us.
So we will continue to avoid assigning ourselves any identity beyond the Walking America Couple—the very act of what we’re doing. Not merely so that we might remain free of these judgments ourselves, but so that we might remind people that identity is illusory—a limited tool through which we navigate the world, often to our own detriment—a contrivance we need not be enraptured by.
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