Label you, label me

I've been dancing with this idea for a few days ... lots of people have had different ideas and questions.  But really - it all comes to labeling someone or something.  See - I think that we have a need in our lives to have some neat little package that explains just what something is.  We have a word that both describes and others are able to understand for things:  when I use the word 'table', everyone has an idea of what a table is.  


But then we get into people.  And the labels become more like a loaded die, there are many connotations and emotions tied into words that describe what a person is.  See - I can use mother, woman, lover, blonde, caucasian, short-ish, slim-ish .. the list goes on.  But, just what those words mean to everyone else - what you get as a 'mind image' and your reaction to that image are all going to be different.  


Then we can talk about that famous phase in our lives where we used things to express our 'individuality':  the teen years.  How some cloaked themselves in long bangs or black, donned 'shocking' ( to our parents ) clothing and accessories, maybe even wore our underwear on the outside.  And if you looked around - you would find at least one, and usually several other of your peers expressing themselves and their individuality in exactly the same way.  


So, if there isn't something that truly just defines WHO you are - how is it that we are all often far too comfortable and content to try to fit the labels others give, or strive to emulate the ones that we find are most comfortable for us to adopt as some sort of personal mantra? We've all seen the people who seek to convince us of their superiority and good fit to a label .. those who are constantly and consistently telling us how wonderful, sexy, smart, enlightened, researched, open minded, whatever positive you find.  And we have seen people who truly are those things, and they are far more content to just exist quietly - letting their actions and selves just BE the word. 


It all sprung from a set of posts from the Urban Dictionary - put your name in, and see what comes up.  But, mine - wasn't there.  Oh sure - sound the same but spelled differently .. and about seven million entries for Ashley and all of it's spelling variants - but none for mine.  So a suggestion was posed - that I write my own.  And you know what - it's damnably difficult to do.  Because it means either completely expounding on every word so the connotations are removed, or accepting labels as they come - with connotations.  And then - what about the pieces that aren't so wonderful - those pieces of me that I am still trying to organize and either change or decide how their outwardly negative feel ( to me ) can actually be something of use and value?


And - overcoming my initial knee jerk reaction to being labeled in the first place.  


I know they are handy.  I know that we all have this internal shorthand that puts people we encounter into little outlines - that we sort them into 'not interested' to 'has potential' to 'impressed' and all of those other little spaces that keep our need for having some sort of communal language to define one person to another.  It's my table theorem.  That someone can say of me ____ -- and immediately everyone understands.  Or at least is close to the same idea. 


And, it's far easier to admit that while I don't like being labeled - I want to have one that is so accurate and feels so right that everyone who hears it has a similar idea.  


And then - it dawned on me.  I had one of those.  A few simple words that said it all. 


I am human.