What is a linguist?

What is a linguist? Why do I call my blog The  Linguist  on  Language? Why did I call my  book
The Way  of the Linguist? 
Every so often someone comments on my blog about that fact that I am  not a linguist, since I
have not studied linguistics. 
So let me  be clear. I have read a few  books and articles about linguistics. I am  not interested. I  do
not find the  hair-splitting  and categorization of the phenomena  of  language that takes place in
linguistics  to be interesting.  It certainly does not help me  learn languages. 
So why  do  I call the blog The  Linguist  on Language? Because I use the term "linguist"   in the
sense of the first definition provided by the Oxford dictionary. I believe we are all potential
linguists.