#744: I Am No

I am no psychologist.
I often find myself in my fiction
writing scenes in which characters
say, either out loud or as a thought,
that they are no something or another.
I am no psychologist.
I can’t be using that phrase in every
single book that I write.
I am no historian.
That would be like a songwriter
repurposing lyrics for different songs,
the same words appearing on different
albums, or a painter whose every single
painting included a boat or a toad.
One might call that animal a one trick pony.
Or, one might say it’s simply a tick, a kind
of writer’s Tourette. I am no doctor.
Did I stutter? When I taught English
my colleagues and I would often ask
students who were reading several
pieces by the same poet or fiction
writer to identify a writer’s obsessions.
Mine seems to be for characters to
declare what they are not.
I am not that. Don’t accuse me
of being one of those, because
I am not. I am no.
I am no psychologist.