Human
Categories
“Give up
defining yourself—to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will
come alive.”
Eckhart
Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose)
I listen to NPR a lot
while I'm working in my sewing room. Every guest they introduce comes
with a title: Dean of the Law School at Georgetown, Under Secretary
of this or that government office. I sometimes wonder when, as a
species, we began doing this. It must go back to ancient times—with
warlords and ladies, tribal Chieftains, and such. Perhaps even
older—back to the order of dominance in animal colonies. We still
seem to have a need to do it, even when a person is retired and no
longer has a job title—then they become the Former Governor or Former Secretary. It's an interesting feature of human behavior, don't you
think? Even though we no longer present it as a “pecking-order,”
it is the hierarchical structuring of humanity into categories of
importance. Not having a title of some kind feels a little like being
naked in public.
The problem with
categories is that they tend to limit whomever or whatever is dropped
into them. If your title is “President of the Board,” for
instance, others begin to see your role as being the same thing as
you, yourself. Now you are the “President,” and your simple
humanity is erased. All the rest of you—that which is not
“President”—no longer exists, and you must now be contained
within the personality and behavioral norms associated with you
title. The most recent clear example of this, at least in my memory,
was watching Brett Kavanaugh lose his cool during his confirmation
hearings. We don't expect a Justice of the Supreme Court to bawl and
yell in any sort of meeting, regardless of the pressure cooker he/she
is put into. His humanity got the better of his title—which was
unacceptable to some.
Setting aside that
unpleasant example, we all construct categories for ourselves and
others, and then hold court as to whether we are living up to the
requirements of our title. Imagine laying that down, stepping out of
that particular straight-jacket. How would that feel? How about
living without categories and titles altogether—just being
Joe-Schmo, human being. That feels like taking a nice deep breath,
expanding the lungs, and maybe even lifting off the ground a little.
Ah, freedom!
Eckhart Tolle, in A New
Earth, suggests this: “When you interact with others, don't be
there as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious
Presence. You can only lose something you have [your
title, for instance], but you cannot lose something that
you are.” Today, be a simple human being—that most powerful
of all presences.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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