Inside out

Insider or outsider? I’ve always felt that I am an outsider, but is that how I’m seen? Or am I really part of the museums establishment in Scotland? Though I never aimed to be or wanted to be, and though I can’t see myself as The Man, maybe that role is now mine. So we become by the passage of time not who we are but rather who we are perceived to be, and the perception becomes for everyone else the reality.

Same as it ever was - yesterday’s mouthy Young Turk is promoted to old fogey. Ah well, this is how the profession is renewed, and the young, as I remember well, must have something to rebel against, something to give a purpose to their professional existence.

So where does that leave people like me? Here doesn’t feel like the establishment - it’s always felt like the periphery. And I can’t deny I’m happy here, but nonetheless it seems I am indeed The Man - at least so Frank says. Of course, that could just have been the drink talking.

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