In reading the comments to the last post on labels, I learned several interesting things. Apparently, as a general rule: people don't want to be labeled. I don't see them as a bad thing, not until you are tasked to create one for yourself, or if that is the ONLY measure by which you quantify and define the people you meet.
For me, the labels are simply a shorthand. It's not perfect, never was meant to be. But just as some surnames come as a result of professions of forefathers ( Cooper, Baker, Smith ), sometimes a label can carry something positive forward.
I think that we tend to rail most against the 'idea' of being labeled, as if that simple word or set of words will then define who we are and confine our possibilities to a little box. That in some way, a label will haunt you, or discourage you from exploring options. And, when one is given a particularly heinous label, it can ( and often does ) make you rethink your approach. Or it does for me.
Lately, what amuses me is the "troublemaker" addendum that has been added to references about me by different groups. See, you get those sorts of additions when you either refuse to play the reindeer games, or are questioning an opinion that someone holds so clearly as a spoon fed belief that their little brains explode from the contradictions. And the fact that I, as most sentient beings should do, am able to and open to reevaluating my position and ideas about any one thing am not above saying "I was wrong" or "I never saw it that way" is somehow an anathema to their views on the world, so much so that my admission of my mistakes is a personal and direct attack that somehow will send their world spinning into oblivion.
It's amazing to be so powerful and omnipotent. I assume dictators get that same rush. Then I realize, I'm really NOT that important. I am someone who simply enjoys learning and evaluation and discussion. And I like people who enjoy the same things. I understand that ideas simply are - and that there are no crimes committed when people discuss ideas and options. But, things do break down and go all pear shaped when people start to dissemble and deny, or start to judge and limit ideas, behaviours and people simply because they can't engage in a similar manner. Oh - and when they can't remember what they did or said a week, a month or a year ago ... and how it directly conflicts with what they are saying now. And get angry when that simple issue is pointed out.
See - labels, to me aren't the issue. It's the people who are all too involved with or concerned with stuffing me into that little box covered with their determinations and labels. I don't think that you can neatly package anyone, tick off all the boxes that is them, in a single adjective.
And, somewhere in there - if you are all to concerned with rebelling against being labeled rather than seeing if those labels can somehow, in some small way, effect the way you do things or approach people ....maybe they could be seen as something helpful?
It's how I'm trying to see them.
First of all if you are being labeled a "troublemaker" it's by people who don't want their own bullshit exposed. I still read here and there and am amused by thieves acting like injured parties.
ReplyDeleteThey're gonna be fucked up for life so good on those dipshits they're welcome to be that way.
On a more general level while I agree labeling is something that doesn't necessarily diminish anything. That being said, there are times that it may make a person compartmentalize someone and not delve more into the core of the person. Many times in my life I've been surprised when scratching beneath the surface of a person I've found things past a label that surprised me. Commonality at their core even if we're different in the way we go about our daily lives. Core beliefs the same even if we have different ideas on why we're all here.
Those things are little treasures that I enjoy and to a degree why I resist labels generally and go more to what the core of someone is, because I know from my own experience I've labeled people and passed by people based on those perceptions.
>inserting eye roll emoticon< :)) Troublemaker? Someone, somewhere hasn't taken the time to read for content then. If it's in r/l, I obviously couldn't and would not speak to that, because in r/l we're ALL troublemakers to a degree. Labels, schmabels. It's just society's way of understanding something they either don't want to explore further or are too lazy to understand, IMO. Keep on being yourself, because in the end, isn't what we think of ourselves what really matters?
ReplyDeleteTroublemakers are really only people who don't go along to get along, right?
ReplyDeleteI mean, that's what my mom used to say. I usually listended to her.
"It's amazing to be so powerful and omnipotent. I assume dictators get that same rush. Then I realize, I'm really NOT that important."
I love these sentences. Sometimes, I usually remind Akasha that seriously, none of us are really that important to most people. But, in some places on the net 'we' are all 'we' have so we go to extremes to keep a persona on ourselves and a label on others. What a shame, right?