Why I hate labels.
Sep. 24th, 2010 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatRather proud of myself today - I overslept, because I stayed up too late writing that last entry and as a result, I got into bed at midnight and forgot to set my alarm clock. This resulted in oversleeping an hour and a half. I woke up at 7:22. My normal time is 6am. My train leaves at 7:29.
Which meant I was going to miss it. But I knew there was another train leaving at 7:43 and another at 7:50. The subway takes about ten minutes to get to the LIRR train station. Then it's a 10-15 min walk to the station from there. I jumped out of bed, jumped in the bathroom, jumped into my clothes, made my bed, ate a hard-boiled egg, drank soy milk, threw on foundation - stuffed the eyeliner in my bag, brushed my hair, brushed my teeth, threw on socks and shoes, threw my lunch in my bag and jogged to the subway - all within 15 minutes. I literally made it to the subway by 7:35. I got to the LIRR by 7:43. I hopped on the 7:50 train by 7:48. Go me. And whew - quite the workout. It did cross my mind to call in sick, use a personal day, or say running late (but didn't want to use comp time to make up the hours - figured I'd run and see if I could make it.) Also, oddly enough got a lot done today.
Things been thinking about this week...
1. Words. As much as I adore words. I don't like labels or rather the human tendency to label and name and categorize things even if they defy categorization or stubbornly refuse to be named.
Labeling while an understandable human tendency - it's our way of organizing and making sense of our universe, can also be a fatal flaw leading to discontent, fighting and major problems down the road. Why? Because once we put the label on it, we file it away, dust off our hands and say that's that. Without ever questioning if we might have mislabeled it or worse yet, there are no labels.
We just file it away in our mental index and pull it out whenever we see so and so's face, or hear their name. Or someone who fits the same description of that person. ie. If Joe has red hair, freckles, green eyes, and burns, he must be Irish - because Cynthia has those attributes and is Irish. These traits = Irish. And since the Irish tend to love alcohol and are literary - obviously Joe loves to drink alcohol and is literary. That's what you are - I've identified you now and will deal with you based on how you've been labeled in my head.
People, I've found time and again, really defy labeling. You can't pigeon-hole a person. And no one wants to be pigeon-holed, labeled and neatly filed in a box somewhere between A and Z.
For example - I still get annoyed when people call me liberal or Democrat, I'm not always. There are days in which I'm fairly conservative in my thinking. Or in fandom, when people would slice into whatever argument I was posing, by stating well of course you think that way, you are a "shipper". OR that's the problem with "shippers" they can't see past what they like about their favorite character and romanticize them. In short, I've been written off and the person I was talking with has stopped listening or reading, as the case may be. Assuming of course they were ever listening in the first place.
I find myself doing the same thing, sorry to say.
This brings me to the second thing I've been thinking about...
2. A while ago, a man at church described what it was like to talk with the Dalia Lama.
He said when you speak with the Dalia Lama - his focus is entirely on you. He is listening to you with full attention. Without judgment. Without interruption. Just listening to what you are saying.
Then, in another church session, a week later, a woman read a poem about what it felt like to be listened to. When you are fully listened to, the woman said, you feel the way you must have felt when you read aloud your first poem and it was greeted with applause. When someone listens deeply to you, hears what you say and understands...you feel whole, you feel real, you feel present.
It is a great gift to fully listen to another, and yet we do it rarely.
It's funny, you'd think with all these technological gadgets that have made communication faster and easier - we'd be better at it. Yet, if anything, I think we may be about the same. Possibly worse. There's this Biblical parable that I vaguely remember reading called the Tower of Bable...where everyone understands each other, they all speak the same language, but all they do is fight - no one listens, so they are cursed with the inability to understand one another - becoming a true tower of Babble. If that doesn't work for you - there's a great song...that starts with a lyric...everybody talking at me...
I wonder sometimes how people read on the internet. Do you scan? Do you print off posts to read later? Or do you scan, and then go back and read in more depth on screen? And do you carefully read a full post before you answer it - or do you respond after a quick perusal and usually at something that just leapt out at you. Maybe it made you happy. Or maybe it pissed you off. Yet, after you respond and go back to re-read the whole post, in its entirety and carefully - you realize with more than a little chagrin, that you completely misinterpreted the post. You read it to fast. Or you just read a portion of it. Like maybe you are reading this post and the words, church, Bible, and conservative pop out at you and these words make you crazy and you quickly write it off - file it under stupid religious stuff. (Not saying you are...just providing an example.) Speaking for myself...because that's really the only person I can speak for, I know I do these things. I know I read posts too quickly. That I often respond to comments and posts without carefully reading them first. The immediacy of the internet makes me careless. I was better with letters - which I carefully read and carefully responded to - taking a few days. Here - the communication is instantaneous.
And we talk quickly now. Abbreviating words. Abbreviating thoughts. Just to fit them into 240 characters or less. Responding to a text or twitter in five seconds or less. They even had a contest once on how fast people could twitter or text. But if you read the messages...they resemble babble.
You'd think with the ability to send a message half-way no, wait all the way around the world, in the blink of an eye - we'd do a better job of making certain we understood it. Writing carefully is important, true, but are we reading carefully? I wonder. I wonder if half of our fights would have been solved if we stopped and actually listened first. Fully listened.
But listening is hard work and requires a lot of energy. And the world is firing messages at you right and left...after a while you just want to block it out or set up a filtering system.
3. All this week I've had people telling me what to do, unasked for advice. What to watch, what to like, what to buy, what to think. One co-worker burst into my cubicle to state:"I heard through the grapevine that you spent an atrocious amount of money on a new computer." I stared at him for a moment, after jumping sky high - due to being startled. (Stupid cubicle doesn't have a door, and my back is to the opening.) "Uh, not really. I just bought a Macbook Pro.." He shudders in revulsion. Me: "Oh, I guess you don't like Mac's." Co-worker, "no, I like them fine, but you spent far too much." Me:" Uh not really, it was the same amount I'd spent on the dell (and I had to buy that twice because someone stole it from me the first round)." Co-worker:"Speaking of, what are you doing with the dell?" Me:"Using it as backup." Co-worker: "backup! Well, if you want to get rid of it.." Me (figuring it out finally - he wants my dell):"If I want to get rid of it, I will let you know."
Sigh. I really don't see how it is anyone's business what computer I get or how much I spend on it.
Look, I want to tell people, we aren't the same. We don't have the same needs, wants, or desires.
I don't spend money on cars - I hate them, so don't own one. But I'm not telling you not to own a car. I want a computer that I can play vids on, surf my livejournal and do a newsletter on without it slowing to a crawl. I want to write on it, post pictures, and maybe do a vid. I play on my computer. I also want to download itunes without it taking an hour. I'm not interested in a cheap machine that will crash in two months. And it's not like I'm going to buy more than one anyway.
I just want one computer - a lap-top, that is easy to use, doesn't require a lot of tech stuff,
and has great technical support. I got exactly what I wanted - after asking a lot of questions first. Butt out!
I hate procedural dramas that aren't character centric there's a reason for this - what intrigues me most is "why" people do what they do. I like character's who have a bit of mystery to them, that I don't know why they are doing what they are doing. If I am told from the very first episode why the character is doing everything - in some cases within the first five minutes, I'm no longer interested. You took away the one thing that intrigued me. Some people are interested in "what", some are interested in "where", some in "how", and for me? It's mostly "why". Although it's really a combo of all four, like it is for everyone else I suspect...except for me, the why tends to take precedence. Human motivation fascinates me. As do human emotions...in particular why we feel the way we do, not the scientific or biological explanation (although that is interesting too) but the causal relationship - the trigger. I find human psychology fascinating.
And I like interacting with people who do not necessarily share the same tastes, perspective or views that I do. It keeps me honest. It challenges me. I like to be challenged. This does not mean I like to fight or enjoy conflict. I don't. It raises my blood-pressure and if I get too upset, I can't type or sleep. Ew. No. I love intellectual debates. To argue, but not to argue - no to discuss. To play with an idea, twist and turn it.
By the same token, I like being critical. I like to snark and mock - particularly at my own guilty pleasures. I've mocked my love of comics most of my life. As I mock my love of tv and other, what some may call more pedestrian cultural interests. And I like to gossip about celebrities who I don't know and will never meet. Snark and bash and mock them. Squee. And Sneer. Laugh. And Celebrate.
And yes, I'm defensive and insecure and at times, incredibly neurotic and immature. I'm human.
Not perfect.
And I hate labels, even though I know I use them - and really wish I didn't.
Why, I wondered most of this week, does life have to be so hard. Yet, I know I have it easier than most. I'm reminded of this daily - when I pass the homeless people begging on the streets or sleeping on them. Or accompany the people half-doped, crippled, and in various degrees of emotional and physical pain on the elevator each morning to work. I see the poor, mentally disabled, homeless, handicapped, and disenfranchised every day on the train, on the subway, in the elevator and on the street. Every single day. At home - I walk one block I'm with millionairs, the next - I with the working poor. And yes, I can tell the difference.
And each and every day - every label I try to use gets ripped to shreds. Every assumption I make challenged. I'm constantly being forced to question myself.
It's tiring sometimes. And I just want to block it all out. Which I do. I do. I set up the filter.
Or at least try to.
Which meant I was going to miss it. But I knew there was another train leaving at 7:43 and another at 7:50. The subway takes about ten minutes to get to the LIRR train station. Then it's a 10-15 min walk to the station from there. I jumped out of bed, jumped in the bathroom, jumped into my clothes, made my bed, ate a hard-boiled egg, drank soy milk, threw on foundation - stuffed the eyeliner in my bag, brushed my hair, brushed my teeth, threw on socks and shoes, threw my lunch in my bag and jogged to the subway - all within 15 minutes. I literally made it to the subway by 7:35. I got to the LIRR by 7:43. I hopped on the 7:50 train by 7:48. Go me. And whew - quite the workout. It did cross my mind to call in sick, use a personal day, or say running late (but didn't want to use comp time to make up the hours - figured I'd run and see if I could make it.) Also, oddly enough got a lot done today.
Things been thinking about this week...
1. Words. As much as I adore words. I don't like labels or rather the human tendency to label and name and categorize things even if they defy categorization or stubbornly refuse to be named.
Labeling while an understandable human tendency - it's our way of organizing and making sense of our universe, can also be a fatal flaw leading to discontent, fighting and major problems down the road. Why? Because once we put the label on it, we file it away, dust off our hands and say that's that. Without ever questioning if we might have mislabeled it or worse yet, there are no labels.
We just file it away in our mental index and pull it out whenever we see so and so's face, or hear their name. Or someone who fits the same description of that person. ie. If Joe has red hair, freckles, green eyes, and burns, he must be Irish - because Cynthia has those attributes and is Irish. These traits = Irish. And since the Irish tend to love alcohol and are literary - obviously Joe loves to drink alcohol and is literary. That's what you are - I've identified you now and will deal with you based on how you've been labeled in my head.
People, I've found time and again, really defy labeling. You can't pigeon-hole a person. And no one wants to be pigeon-holed, labeled and neatly filed in a box somewhere between A and Z.
For example - I still get annoyed when people call me liberal or Democrat, I'm not always. There are days in which I'm fairly conservative in my thinking. Or in fandom, when people would slice into whatever argument I was posing, by stating well of course you think that way, you are a "shipper". OR that's the problem with "shippers" they can't see past what they like about their favorite character and romanticize them. In short, I've been written off and the person I was talking with has stopped listening or reading, as the case may be. Assuming of course they were ever listening in the first place.
I find myself doing the same thing, sorry to say.
This brings me to the second thing I've been thinking about...
2. A while ago, a man at church described what it was like to talk with the Dalia Lama.
He said when you speak with the Dalia Lama - his focus is entirely on you. He is listening to you with full attention. Without judgment. Without interruption. Just listening to what you are saying.
Then, in another church session, a week later, a woman read a poem about what it felt like to be listened to. When you are fully listened to, the woman said, you feel the way you must have felt when you read aloud your first poem and it was greeted with applause. When someone listens deeply to you, hears what you say and understands...you feel whole, you feel real, you feel present.
It is a great gift to fully listen to another, and yet we do it rarely.
It's funny, you'd think with all these technological gadgets that have made communication faster and easier - we'd be better at it. Yet, if anything, I think we may be about the same. Possibly worse. There's this Biblical parable that I vaguely remember reading called the Tower of Bable...where everyone understands each other, they all speak the same language, but all they do is fight - no one listens, so they are cursed with the inability to understand one another - becoming a true tower of Babble. If that doesn't work for you - there's a great song...that starts with a lyric...everybody talking at me...
I wonder sometimes how people read on the internet. Do you scan? Do you print off posts to read later? Or do you scan, and then go back and read in more depth on screen? And do you carefully read a full post before you answer it - or do you respond after a quick perusal and usually at something that just leapt out at you. Maybe it made you happy. Or maybe it pissed you off. Yet, after you respond and go back to re-read the whole post, in its entirety and carefully - you realize with more than a little chagrin, that you completely misinterpreted the post. You read it to fast. Or you just read a portion of it. Like maybe you are reading this post and the words, church, Bible, and conservative pop out at you and these words make you crazy and you quickly write it off - file it under stupid religious stuff. (Not saying you are...just providing an example.) Speaking for myself...because that's really the only person I can speak for, I know I do these things. I know I read posts too quickly. That I often respond to comments and posts without carefully reading them first. The immediacy of the internet makes me careless. I was better with letters - which I carefully read and carefully responded to - taking a few days. Here - the communication is instantaneous.
And we talk quickly now. Abbreviating words. Abbreviating thoughts. Just to fit them into 240 characters or less. Responding to a text or twitter in five seconds or less. They even had a contest once on how fast people could twitter or text. But if you read the messages...they resemble babble.
You'd think with the ability to send a message half-way no, wait all the way around the world, in the blink of an eye - we'd do a better job of making certain we understood it. Writing carefully is important, true, but are we reading carefully? I wonder. I wonder if half of our fights would have been solved if we stopped and actually listened first. Fully listened.
But listening is hard work and requires a lot of energy. And the world is firing messages at you right and left...after a while you just want to block it out or set up a filtering system.
3. All this week I've had people telling me what to do, unasked for advice. What to watch, what to like, what to buy, what to think. One co-worker burst into my cubicle to state:"I heard through the grapevine that you spent an atrocious amount of money on a new computer." I stared at him for a moment, after jumping sky high - due to being startled. (Stupid cubicle doesn't have a door, and my back is to the opening.) "Uh, not really. I just bought a Macbook Pro.." He shudders in revulsion. Me: "Oh, I guess you don't like Mac's." Co-worker, "no, I like them fine, but you spent far too much." Me:" Uh not really, it was the same amount I'd spent on the dell (and I had to buy that twice because someone stole it from me the first round)." Co-worker:"Speaking of, what are you doing with the dell?" Me:"Using it as backup." Co-worker: "backup! Well, if you want to get rid of it.." Me (figuring it out finally - he wants my dell):"If I want to get rid of it, I will let you know."
Sigh. I really don't see how it is anyone's business what computer I get or how much I spend on it.
Look, I want to tell people, we aren't the same. We don't have the same needs, wants, or desires.
I don't spend money on cars - I hate them, so don't own one. But I'm not telling you not to own a car. I want a computer that I can play vids on, surf my livejournal and do a newsletter on without it slowing to a crawl. I want to write on it, post pictures, and maybe do a vid. I play on my computer. I also want to download itunes without it taking an hour. I'm not interested in a cheap machine that will crash in two months. And it's not like I'm going to buy more than one anyway.
I just want one computer - a lap-top, that is easy to use, doesn't require a lot of tech stuff,
and has great technical support. I got exactly what I wanted - after asking a lot of questions first. Butt out!
I hate procedural dramas that aren't character centric there's a reason for this - what intrigues me most is "why" people do what they do. I like character's who have a bit of mystery to them, that I don't know why they are doing what they are doing. If I am told from the very first episode why the character is doing everything - in some cases within the first five minutes, I'm no longer interested. You took away the one thing that intrigued me. Some people are interested in "what", some are interested in "where", some in "how", and for me? It's mostly "why". Although it's really a combo of all four, like it is for everyone else I suspect...except for me, the why tends to take precedence. Human motivation fascinates me. As do human emotions...in particular why we feel the way we do, not the scientific or biological explanation (although that is interesting too) but the causal relationship - the trigger. I find human psychology fascinating.
And I like interacting with people who do not necessarily share the same tastes, perspective or views that I do. It keeps me honest. It challenges me. I like to be challenged. This does not mean I like to fight or enjoy conflict. I don't. It raises my blood-pressure and if I get too upset, I can't type or sleep. Ew. No. I love intellectual debates. To argue, but not to argue - no to discuss. To play with an idea, twist and turn it.
By the same token, I like being critical. I like to snark and mock - particularly at my own guilty pleasures. I've mocked my love of comics most of my life. As I mock my love of tv and other, what some may call more pedestrian cultural interests. And I like to gossip about celebrities who I don't know and will never meet. Snark and bash and mock them. Squee. And Sneer. Laugh. And Celebrate.
And yes, I'm defensive and insecure and at times, incredibly neurotic and immature. I'm human.
Not perfect.
And I hate labels, even though I know I use them - and really wish I didn't.
Why, I wondered most of this week, does life have to be so hard. Yet, I know I have it easier than most. I'm reminded of this daily - when I pass the homeless people begging on the streets or sleeping on them. Or accompany the people half-doped, crippled, and in various degrees of emotional and physical pain on the elevator each morning to work. I see the poor, mentally disabled, homeless, handicapped, and disenfranchised every day on the train, on the subway, in the elevator and on the street. Every single day. At home - I walk one block I'm with millionairs, the next - I with the working poor. And yes, I can tell the difference.
And each and every day - every label I try to use gets ripped to shreds. Every assumption I make challenged. I'm constantly being forced to question myself.
It's tiring sometimes. And I just want to block it all out. Which I do. I do. I set up the filter.
Or at least try to.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Reading & replying
Date: 2010-09-26 12:04 am (UTC)Re: Reading & replying
Date: 2010-09-26 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-25 03:16 am (UTC)And I think you are smart to hold on to your old computer: I still have my Gateway laptop with Windows98, because it plays a bunch of software (old games and stuff) that have never (yet) been rewritten to run on modern computers (stuff becomes obsolete way too fast IMO). I'll bet you'll find some need for your old lap top, or not.
I agree w/you about labels, even though I (obviously) label stuff constantly. It becomes a short hand. I'll feel that this is fine arts, this is commercial arts, and this is illustration which bridges the gap between the former two.... In fact it is all artistic expression and all valid, but the short hand makes it easy to discuss, while at the same time limits the discussion.
Anyway, congratulations on getting to work on time in spite of over sleeping... and I hope you can sleep in tomorrow!
no subject
Date: 2010-09-25 03:35 am (UTC)Just read a rather disturbing blog by Elizabeth Moon - that caused a huge kerfuffle in the sci-fi Wincon community. It's the blog post she wrote after 9/11. I don't know if you've heard of her? She's a sci-fi writer. I read one-two books by her in my early 20s, that were co-written by Anne McCaffrey. I didn't think she was all that good and didn't pursue others. Her post is oddly the counter-point to my post on 9/11 that I wrote that day and a perfect example of what I blogged about in the post above - as is the firestorm that erupted around it.
Here's the link: http://e-moon60.livejournal.com/335480.html
(Warning it is very long...and could raise your blood pressure. Also demonstrative of how people can make asses of themselves by relying on labels and generalizations.)
Thanks. It was silly of course..I should not have stayed up so late writing about a tv show. LOL!
no subject
Date: 2010-09-25 09:37 am (UTC)I still have trouble discussing 9/11, obviously I wasn't in NYC but it still feels like an unhealed wound to me... but blaming all followers of Islam? Being upset about a Mosque... really? I thought we were better than that.
And I need to get back to sleep (it is only 4 am here)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-25 03:17 pm (UTC)I still have trouble discussing 9/11, obviously I wasn't in NYC but it still feels like an unhealed wound to me... but blaming all followers of Islam? Being upset about a Mosque... really? I thought we were better than that.
I think it will be unhealed wound for a very long time. The difference between people who live in NY and those who don't - is we see the actual wound every day. All I have to do is look out my bedroom window to see the space the Towers used to stand.
And while visitors to NYC visit Ground Zero like tourists - I've had to walk by it for interviews, to go to work, to volunteer, to meet friends, to socialize, to shop, to go to a baby shower and a wedding, etc. There are still faded newspapers with pictures of it in a junk store's window on my block. I couldn't escape, no one in NYC can. It sits on our city like a huge blistering boil that we can't quite pop and we don't know what to do with. We are trying to deal with it - not always very well. ;-)
I think much of the problem is this is an "emotional" issue. And people don't always think rationally when emotions are involved. We have a tendency to fall into the easy trap of attacking the person/individual and not the argument. Osma Bin Laden by stating that this was not personal, it wasn't him personally doing this, but really part of his role in a much larger religious based crusade - the Islamic crusade - ended up causing people to think - 9/11 wasn't JUST because of Osma, but really
a hit by Islam. The news media did not help matters - by showing that message 24/7 and showing footage of Islamic countries celebrating the attack. (I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people in those countries were not happy about 9/11 and thought it was horrible, but the news media wanting the story - showed an opposite message and fanned the flames.)
That's the problem - the media isn't interested with providing information - they are interested in making a profit. What story sells? They don't check their facts any longer. They don't have time. So the information we get is garbled and slanted.
It's not different than a Muslim deciding all Americans or all Christians are bad, or all the people in Gainesville Florida are just because one deluded Christian preacher decided it would be a bright idea to burn the Koran on 9/11. And many people in other countries did make that generalization - "oh America hates us - see.." But it was just one man. That's the media's fault. If they had not picked up the story, even ignored it...would it have mattered what the guy did? By picking it up - they gave him power more power than he deserved.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-25 05:37 pm (UTC)I've gotten so that I end up believing the reverse of what the TV news people say: they show me Reverend Wright saying "God damn America" hundreds of times and I figure: 'well obviously he only said that the one time, if he had said it more than once then they would have more than one clip'.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-25 10:14 pm (UTC)Agreed on the media. Living in NYC - I personally know people who work for the media. One guy at church who works for a news organization said that it sickens him - but he sees it every day, they aren't interested in reporting the news or communicating what is happening, but in finding a story that will sell and make ratings and a profit. Journalism has flown out the window. The only news source that doesn't appear to do that is a local station only available via Time Warner Cable - called NY1. It's less sell the story obsessed than the others.
And my Dad who recently visited an old college friend in Chicago complained how the guy sounds like a sound-bite from the various editorialized news channels - ie. Glenn Beck, Fox News, et al. My father was annoyed that his otherwise intelligent friend doesn't question, doesn't watch McNeal Larer (PBS - sp??) or seek information and just buys what Fox News says. Fox News who doesn't fact check and relies on internet bloggers of all people for it's information. And we all know how reliable bloggers are. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 12:57 am (UTC)it terrifies me, how many people get their news from Fox(!), but then of course I've already confessed to you that I get most of my news from Jon Stewart (along with Rachel Maddow and a few things that I pick up online), which I'm sure would terrify all those Fox News watchers. lol
no subject
Date: 2010-09-25 03:48 pm (UTC)http://coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/1085067.html
(Lots of links - actually that post is the reason I hunted the blog down to see what the heck they were talking about.)