"External identity" was a hasty definition on my part. It means that I do not identify with the way others identify me. I was a professional sportsman for year

"External identity" was a hasty definition on my part. It means that I do not identify with the way others identify me. I was a professional sportsman for years, and that was the way many people saw me. When I stopped, I no longer played that sport, without torment or suffering: when I decided to move on, I didn't need others to move with me. If I had to wait for others, I would have had a "crisis of identityt". When I stopped being an academic researcher, I moved on quickly. In a week, I saw myself as a software engineer; if other people with whom I had a personal or professional relationship continued to see me as a scientist (and a "failed" scientist at that point), that didn't affect me. I don't have a Zen attitude or life. I feel as joyful, angry or bored, depending on my internal state, as anyone else. But I've never, as far as I can remember, had an identity crisis that wouldn't allow me to pursue other paths without being particularly concerned about how others identify me. And I see it is as a strength. I had been concerned with "identity", each move would have been ten times more painful than it was. It's not that I don't care how others see me -- I dress very fancy for a reason. It's that it is my life. If you do what do you do because you think that it will be better for you in the end, you don't have identity problems, you followed a rational path.