The most unlikely of places.

Personal identity is commonly viewed as an externally driven phenomenon that offers no individual recourse, a conglomeration of inputs from the superficial to the soulful that describe a person’s essence. Occupation-based assessments are a good example. The first topic of most conversations between the newly acquainted is what one does for a living. The answer, tellingly, is usually framed as, “I am a blank.” Can these four words come anywhere close to defining any human being?

Of course not,...