I am a VATA-METAL-MONKEY-CRAB…is things like that supposed to be contradicting?
At school I was a Basket baller, who joined the skaters 3 times a week and when not currently ‘working’ as a gymnast I been joining a Punk concert on Friday nights and a house party on Saturdays.
I tell you, my friends were really confused about that and even got angry with me – why?
Because there was no way they could label me and label is important. A label suggests you have something you can grasp.
They appear like something clear with actions and reactions that can be perceived and that can be expected.
It gives them what they call security in their own insecure life, and with me confidently shovelling them off their brown horse of perception they been sitting on they found themselves in constant struggle when hanging out with me.
People liked me, no worries there, but all I did was scaring them to death when hanging out with the fattest boy in class or bringing the Goth girl to a Student Party.
“What do you hang out with that lumberjack?!” They were asking and I shrugged my shoulders, thinking they might have been talking in Chinese to me coz I didn’t understand a single word they been saying.
My immunity to labelling even got me ending up chatting with a homeless person one evening on the market, who showed me his bank account and his tickets to Australia, telling me that all he needed and all that makes him happy was in the single bag he was carrying and himself.
Another funny thing I came across with labelling was, because I wasn’t thinking in labels I never tried to put anyone in labels either, which ended up in total confusion und lead conversations at parties or meetings into following scenery:
Person A: “So, what job do you do?” (Glaring at me as if there was the possibility to find Cape Verde somewhere on my forehead)
Monkey Me: “Oh, I am just a guest at this party, I don’t work here.”
Person A: (laughing, obviously already thinking I was retarded) “Oh no, hahah, what I mean is, what kind of degree do you have? You study?”
Monkey Me: (already distracted by the chocolate buffet she had spotted next to them) “Is that something to eat? Oh, I know a good Pizza place, just around the corner, I reckon they’re still open, you fancy going down and grab one?!”
Boooyah!
And without noticing it there went another potential good friend – if only I knew what he was talking about.
By the way, I lost a lot of people (and gained new ones, and lost them again) due to my incapability to care for their label also.
I got accused being non-caring and totally unobservant!
Can you believe this? Even though I knew how to take a mountain bike in all parts and put it back together!!
Well, I cannot blame them, in their own eyes I really was and all that counted was:
“You never ask about my career!”
“How can you not know what she is studying at Uni?” (by the way, I was only mostly spending my time at Uni when it was lunchtime!)
“Why didn’t you ask about his job in the hospital? Is he a doctor then?”
And even worse:
“The whole day we been together but you didn’t realise I am wearing NEW shorts!!!!”
“Thanks for noticing, but yes, I do have a NEW hoodie!”
“Did you not notice anything different about me? I had my hair cut!” -“Jesus…really?”
And then, the worst thing is when people want to slap a label straight into your face, like they stout a woolly beanie over the head of a 1 year old because they think a 3knots-breeze is bloody windy.
“So, are you a windsurfer then?”
“Oh, I saw you yesterday in the park, are you a Basket baller?”
And there goes the worst:
Monkey Me: “blababala…. and then I decided to go for a quick run.”
Label Policeman: “Oh! You are a runner!!”
SLAP!
KLATSCH! (german word for SLAP!)
There it was, some people just slap you with a lable like: (excuse me here, but it sounds much more fitting putting it in german) weich durchgeklopftes Schnitzel und das um beide Ohren, damit es auch richtig sitzt!
We think that being a label gives us a picture, an idea of a person (and of ourselves) so we can feel save about it. We think it is something we can grasp, but hey, come on, think about this!
This doesn’t give any security at all!
Life is far more complex than this!
I been watching and observing (as I am apparently not a very observant) all you labellers for a while without any judgment and all I could see was that you suffer even more than a non-labeller and you are in constant struggle and tension.
Out of two reasons!
Firstly, when sticking a label to someone you automatically perceive a certain behaviour and mind-set of this person and then, when unexpected behaviour occurs you’re all confused, irritated and insecure.
Your idea of something or someone did collide with the outside world and I tell you what has to happen now.
There is two things that can happen now that the conflict is there and you feel confronted with insecurity and fear.
Either, you amend your idea of something or someone, or you try to amend the incident itself that brought the ‘conflict’ but hey, you know even though you tried to ignore this very ‘conflict’ you still now it has been there and believe me, it will be back for more, like a cocker spaniel puppy will be back for cheese strings!
The second reason why you as a labeller struggle and suffer more is following.
Having put yourself into a label you will forever live the life of a Slave (to your perceptions) and trying to conform to the personality and picture, which that very label comes with.
Who does the label manual? Who does make the verification and calibration in the instruction that comes with a label?
Oh no, it’s not the little people in your belly button that make the blue fluff!
It is society and have a guess who the heck ‘Society’ is?
Its YOU! Every time you chose a label you create and confirm one.
So you want to be a hotel manager? Make sure you drive a Mercedes CLK and have yourself a happy wife and two kids that already go to University by the age of 7 and under NO circumstances, go and use the backyard of the hotel for a belly slide in heavy rain! I know, its tempting… that hill and that perfectly grown grass… you can go home and watch other people doing it on TV.
See what you’re doing here?
You’re repressing parts of your personality for the sake of BEING a label instead of just doing things without identifying yourself with it.
Just because you know how to belly ride a lawn doesn’t mean you don’t know how to organize a conference in a hotel.
I tell you a secret.
I AM not a runner - I do run.
I AM not surfer - I do surf.
I AM not a showerer - I do shower! (Which actually sounds quite funny saying it like this)
You get where I am coming from?
Here is another one.
Working in a hospital as a children’s nurse some time ago I usually heard:
“Wow, he is a doctor!!” Saliva been dripping down their lips and gleaming eyes.
Oh god, it makes me smile, because knowing him personally he was a total prick! He chose only the ill children whose parents had much money and he was beating up his wife at home!
Booyah! Now what?!
He is a doctor! Doesn’t say anything about him, does it?
It only says he went to University, was clever and rich enough to get a degree and knows how to stich an open trauma, but so does my friend in Venezuela. He does know, because he is working as an outdoor guide who has fallen from cliffs.
My friend in Australia does know this also, but just because she cuts her feet on the reef all along when going surfing.
We all learned to label things and people, but it is doing more evil than good - to us and to others.
We enslave ourselves and put us and others into prisons by trying to control life and keeping save from fear.
Life is far too complex to put it into labels and every person we see has so much more to offer than the label we stick upon them.
I think you yourself are far more than just a label.
When you give yourself the chance to discover and create yourself a new, you will find that your personality is like a song!
It is a symphony, made of lots of different instruments and chords and touches all that greatness life has to offer, rather than always playing Chord D (which by the way I found was the easiest to learn on the guitar). Playing Chord D on a Classic Guitar we play and then, out of boredom, we play the same Chord D on an Acoustic Guitar.
And if we are fed up with the Acoustic Guitar, we try ourselves with a Selmer-Maccaferri Guitar, playing our lovely Chord D.
What we don’t realise is, Chord D is Chord D and will always be that very same Chord!
So let go and open up wide and let life teach all chords, instruments and notes of your personality to create your very own unique symphony of life!!!
