This is the body that carries the work.
It has traveled through years and places, shaped by encounters that left their mark—some obvious, most not. What appears elsewhere on this site comes from here: from memory, experience, and a life lived among others, often under their watch.
It started in a specific place, at a specific time—under a set of conditions it didn’t choose but had to learn. It was named early and understood before it had any say. It learned how easily a life can be judged from the outside, and how hard it is to live within those judgments without resistance.
Sometimes, those definitions pressed harder—when larger forces revealed themselves in personal ways. In institutions, expectations, and the quiet negotiations of everyday life, choices were made—some quietly, some with consequence. The path that followed wasn’t entirely chosen, but it was lived, and it shaped what came after.
What remains is a certain focus: how identity develops, is reinforced, and evolves over time. The writing emerges from that focus. It does not resolve it.
Work and life are different, but they can’t be separated. What is written elsewhere returns here.
Donald Proffit is an author and educator whose work grows out of a lifelong engagement with creativity, ethics, and the complexity of being human.
