How Labels, Ideas, and Identity Quietly Corrode Reality
Relying on Labels to Understand the WOrld
Most everything in human society has a label, from the barcodes on food products to social roles and conventions. Used as descriptors, containers, and sense-makers, labels are the facets of language that are supposed to define a person, place or thing.
Our minds really enjoy this methodical form of making sense of the world. It helps us to feel more in control, like there is structure to our existence. We’re most comfortable when we feel we’ve amply explained things; that every effect is the outcome of a cause, all conclusions are explained through laws, and the whole of something can be described as like this or like that.
Yet where there is containment, there can also be constriction.
Words and symbols and assumptions integrate so seamlessly into our mind-spheres that in general, we’ve forgotten how arbitrary they are. Trace their roots, and we find that every language is manmade. They’re only so ubiquitous because we’ve agreed upon their contents. Hence, an objectively worthless green slip of paper can now be valued at $100. And oh, how some individuals would lose their minds over watching that slip of paper burn in a fire!
This is the conundrum we’re in. Labels are convenient, even useful. Yet our minds have latched onto them with such conviction that we no longer recognize the unspoken unity beneath it all.
How Labels Keep Society Running
Labels keep us in line when thinking of a specific person or city or species or sweetmeat. They’re how we differentiate between, say, Papá (Spanish for “father”) and papa (“potato”). And on a broader, more complex level, innovation in modern society depends on common language. The interchange of ideas would be as clear as mud without it.
Information is the foundation for innovation. Without labels and symbols, the complicated systems we’ve created would crumble into disrepair, or at least become dizzyingly disorganized. We depend on their coherency for societal coordination and cooperation, whether that’s for structure, safety, accountability, or commercialism.
Consider these everyday labels:
That lemon is organic. This package contains hazardous materials; proceed with caution. Here is the nutritional breakdown of this particular canned soup. Speed limit 55 km/h. If a letter needs to be returned, this is the address to which it should be sent. 500mg Azithromycin was added to this IV. This camisole costs $7.99. Stop at this sign. If you’re disembarking the train, be sure to mind the gap.
The benefits of these messages are clear. In the case of the IV, having a dosage log is useful; it informs nurses so they keep to treating a bacterial infection instead of causing liver damage. Stopping at an intersection is what keeps millions of people from getting pancaked in traffic every day.
So what’s the rub? When do our agreed-upon symbols go a step too far?
The Trick of “Certainty”
Some labels move past function and into classification. Again, our minds are crazy for categories. We sort and define and establish laws because we like to have things “figured out.”
One I’ve personally been working through is the tricky trap of nutrition. If I glance at a food wrapper and find that whatever is inside contains a sugar content in the double digits, it automatically becomes “indulgent” and therefore evil. The mind assumes the role of a judge, compartmentalizing information into faulty rules. Thus, because certain categories have been activated, a nourishing snack can become a moral battle.
The trouble is that we never attain complete knowledge. Human perception is limited to the narrow intake of the senses and is colored by personal trauma, social conditioning, and cultural values. Therefore, any “certainty” is a myth. There’s no saying, for example, that my snack from above actually contains 11g of sugar. The number is as arbitrary as the name of the food itself, at least at the consumer level. (Unless one was so determined to pull out a microscope and scalpel.)
So the rub is that, when we take our labels and attach them to people, groups, or ideas, we are compartmentalizing society. It’s an attempt to make our place in existence feel more “managed.” Or in other words, less unsafe.
The Power of Social Labels
Let’s feel out a few common labels assigned to other people:
If that guy’s wearing nail polish, he’s definitely gay. Republicans (or Democrats, Christians, Buddhists, Stoics) are the only ones who can be right. That teenager is such a drama queen; she’s constantly crying over something. A full-grown adult working at McDonald’s can’t be anything but a loser. Your hobbies and beliefs make you a cultist. That woman is an extremist for supporting her cause. Asking for help would make me seem needy.
How disgusting it is to be a feminist. A hippie. Disabled. From the Middle East. A fascist. A communist. Fat. A tool.
Take a breath. See what that did?
These labels are powerful enough to stir emotions, if not incite a full-blown reaction. The words and phrases are charged with negative connotations that not only create a sense of separation between people and communities, but also put every human being into an identifier box, falsely solidifying their position in the world. (Oftentimes to “prove” they’re inferior in some way.)
Based upon whatever labels are associated with a person, we tend to make snap judgments about whether we’ll get along. If they deserve to have our attention. Whether they should be allowed to have the same rights we do. How they compare in terms of status and success.
Our labels, therefore, establish separateness. In turn, they also perpetuate uneven power dynamics.
When Labels Become Personal Identities
When somebody has decided for themselves what–or who–you are, that “identity” can compound with the assumptions you already have of yourself and shove you further into the box.
In the case of the “drama queen” from above, the social reinforcement of her suffering amplifies the turmoil. Instead of acknowledging Depression as an external factor that arises as a mechanism of an individual’s conditioning and circumstances, labeling crystallizes its influence into an identity.
This is how “I have Depression” morphs into “I am depressed.” Now it’s an entire persona. The Depression becomes easily attached to and embodied, with immense potential for prolonging that person’s suffering because, well, that’s just who they are.
In the context of self-expression, labels damper the breadth and variety of spectrums. Sexuality, for instance, is hugely diverse–and has nothing to do with the stereotypes that are touted in the media, like how “masculine-presenting women are lesbians” and “all men who dress with a degree of flamboyance must be gay.” People who follow the principles of a vegan diet are another example of a population that has been marginalized into a strict sliver of a vast spectrum, stereotyped as “soft” hippies who hug trees.
Where identity-addiction pops up more nefariously is in politics and religion. The “differences” we establish and other-fear we perpetuate are the foundation for why we go to war on battlefields, in courtrooms, and even at holy places. Our narrow perceptions of individuals, groups, and ideologies keep out the possibility of understanding, let alone love.
Which is ironic, because when we dig down, it’s obvious just how hypothetical our “selves” really are.
The Philisophical Problem with Identity
To illustrate this point, think of a bicycle. We’re both standing in view of it.
When I ask you to point to the bicycle, you might direct your finger somewhere towards its middle.
“Hmm. That’s not the bicycle, though,” I tell you. “That’s the seat.”
So you might point at the handlebars instead. Or the tires. The wheelspokes. The brakes.
Now the game is getting frustrating (or fascinating), because you’re realizing there is no bicycle. The “bicycle” is merely a concept we’ve all agreed upon.
Similarly, when you point at me, you’ll be singling out my nose, my elbows, or my corduroy-clad knees. Go further and we might pare it all down to blood and bones, neurons and atoms, and eventually space and energy.
At its root, whatever the world was calling “Annette” doesn’t exist. She was just a concept, too.
See? Such is the power of our beliefs. This whole world is a stage show of agreed-upon ideas—no more real than a dream. Yet most of us are convinced of its reality, and some would go so far as to defend it with their lives.
The Ego as a “Separate Self”
To those varying degrees, most of humankind is spellbound by this dream. And it all started back before we could even teeter on our own two feet, when our guardians started teaching us how we should navigate this life.
How we do so is by developing the ego—that sense of our singularity in existence, the factors determining which one of us is “me” and then “you.” Once the ego has really established itself, we become convinced of its perception that we’re each distinctive entities who are at the center of braving this hostile, competitive universe.
The ego is the conditioned mind, which is basically a mental structure built from all the opinions, perceptions, rules, and beliefs we gather throughout life. It acts as the voice in our heads, and it’s constantly analyzing, differentiating, comparing, judging, leveling, and reciting the fictions we have come to believe. Every moment it’s taking in new data (or reinforcing the old) to keep the illusion of the “separate self” alive.
When people identify with the labels of the world, they’re spoon-feeding the ego, keeping it strong with opinions and ideas. This blind addiction to “who we are” fosters an erroneous sense of us– and other-ness, of polarization.
We might be warmer to our family, friends, or immediate community, sure. But to a large degree, the wider world community is lost to being seen as something “out there,” separate from ourselves.
Losing SIght of Interconnection
Speaking of family and nationality, even semantic facts like blood relation and lineage act as limitations. For instance, holding fast to our family names (or castes, ranks, titles) can generate beliefs of superiority and inferiority.
Beyond social consequences, these labels also obscure our remembrance of the generations that preceded us, including all the plant, animal, mineral, bacterial, and prehistoric life that comprises our current forms.
The basis of our existence is energy, not ego. There is not a single life form which is truly distinct from the rest; we are all connected in some form or fashion, like the flames coming through different burner ports on a gas stove. We are flames of that one underlying fire, each unique forms of the same fundamental Life.
Equipped with the ego’s mental positions and a resistance against whatever is decidedly unlikeable, however, we have put cone collars around our own perceptions.
There are no such mind-enabled attachments or intergenerational grievances in the natural world. Ducks don’t differentiate between kin or circumstances like we do. Arguments between two ducks are resolved by flapping their wings at each other. But following the quick outburst of energy, mere moments later, life continues. Their existence is unobstructed by drama, fear, aversion, or hostility; as they float along, there is only pure Being.
Honoring Our Inherent Being
Like ducks, geodes, evergreens, and forget-me-nots, humans are expressions of the underlying forces of Life. We are not just in the world, but of it as well. We are conditioned to believe otherwise, that our identities and definitions are the ultimate means of control and mastery in an unpredictable world, but this is not the case. True liberation lies in the release of our mental boxes, the demarcations between ourselves and others.
Pay attention to the narratives in your head. See where your identity starts, and try to find those sacred moments where the ego is dull and you can feel the nameless obscurity of Life. (Nature is great for this: breathtaking views tend to take away mental babble, too. I find the mountains especially calming.)
When the ego wants to exaggerate its own importance, observe its qualms with a tender inward gaze. Ask yourself why you hold a certain belief. Question where it came from and whether it holds any merit. Did you pick it up from a parent, a schoolmate, or as a reaction to one of your experiences? And what purpose has it served being held onto?
Practicing Label Awareness
We must remain kindhearted in this practice. Waking up from decades-old conditioning is tough, careful work, and it doesn’t help to add judgment to the mix.
In fact, when we scorn ourselves for unconsciously contributing to the world’s social, political, racial, and economic dramas, that is another form of separation. (The ego savors any chance there is to be a judge, even if it’s against ourselves.) There are gentler ways to recognize the interrelations of our personal experience and the outer world. Non-discrimination is important for seeing the world clearly.
When you discover a resistant, reactive, cynical, or uncooperative thought within yourself, breathe in to acknowledge it. Recognize its harms without getting caught up in the pain. Then, as with the flapping ducks’ wings, exhale. Release its energetic hold on your mind.
As the practice increases in frequency and depth, labels will fall away with greater ease. More and more, you’ll experience the whole world anew, just as you did upon first coming from it. This is how we can cultivate an air of unconditional acceptance, welcoming the truth of connectedness between every Life-flame in the universe.
And that, fair friend, is an integral piece for transcending our limitations.
܁₊ ⊹ . ܁˖ . ܁.