Image by Steve Keys
Life flows and changes – and can be unpredictable too!
People like to classify and label. We like to try and fix things in time and place – often finding the unpredictable threatening and change difficult.
When this contrast is seen it is common to advocate going with life – flowing and changing when needed and welcoming the unpredictable. It is even quite common to regard classification, labelling and predictability as the opposite of life, i.e. death.
I don’t think the situation is quite this simple.
Firstly a little philosophy. What people do is part of life too. As far as we know living things all classify the stuff around them – at least into food and non-food, higher life forms also having other classifications – dangerous or not, part of my group and part of another group of my kind. People are especially good at this – there are even people spend their working life on classification (in the worlds of philosophy, zoology and computer science). So all these things that people do I think should be regarded as just as natural for us as other creatures doing the food-not food classification.
On to the practical.
Classification, even crass and rough labelling, can be useful. It is certainly true that the label is not the thing and leaves out much, but sometimes this doesn’t matter and other times it is important to do this. For instance, you are driving along and something appears in the middle of the road. This is not the time to try and determine exactly what this thing is – a person, cement pole or piece of plastic. The classification ‘maybe dangerous’ is probably enough. (Later if it is a person then this may well be relevant – they may need first aid for instance.)
Predictability too has its place. Being reasonably confident that people will stick to driving on the usual side of the road is likely to improve our experience rather than harm it. Having codes of courtesy for greeting can help us sense how the other person is – so that we know what level to engage them on. In this way the predictable helps us to adjust to the other and helps us be more flexible.
The Problem
The problem as I see it with labelling, classification and prediction is that we can lose too much of life. The labelling, classification and prediction work – they make our life easier, but they can also lead to boredom: to relating to the label instead of the stuff itself; and frustration: spending our time in the futile attempt to remove the unpredictable from our lives.
The Solution
The only solution as I see it is to get in touch with the stuff. This can be anything that we label. It could mean being alive to how we don’t know everything about a friend (or even the spouse we have lived with for many years); in an art it could mean being alive to the viscosity of a pigment or the way stuff resists a chisel and hammer. It could be becoming aware of the words that we utilise to convey our meaning.
The most difficult stuff to get in touch with is what is most familiar to us. It can be hardest to have a different conversation with our closest friends (I have had the experience of being different with a friend and them asking, “What are you on?”). Artists often develop ways of introducing new things to freshen up their practice (painters using a piece of Masonite or their fingers instead of a brush), musicians playing a different instrument to their usual one.
The upside of this difficulty is that getting in touch with stuff – and the extra liveliness this brings to our lives – is always close to hand. It sounds silly perhaps, but looking at a familiar piece of furniture (climb under it, turn it upside down, see how it goes together) or spending time tasting our food, can add joy to life.
When we get past the labels, and feel how we relate to this singular person or object, that we can feel joy.
Here are some things to try to help you get in touch with labelling and going beyond it.
* Write down the labels for the things you can see immediately around you. Choose a few of these labels (say 3-6) and make up different labels for these things. (For instance for the label “the floor” I could substitute “anti-gravity device”, for “a chair” I could substitute “small bench”, “firewood”, or “precious object given by grandma”.
* Try labelling people you know. If you were to give them a label that would convey who they; are what would this label be? Try to limit it to three words.
* Take time out from a familiar activity to examine what it is you are doing and using. To examine what you are doing try slowing it down, this is usually enough to help us be more attentive. To examine what you are using try having some time out – you can even organise a signal (if you work at home you can use a timer, or use a coffee break or toilet break) as the signal to stop and pay attention to this thing (whatever the thing happens to be).
* In relationships it is helpful to try out new activities. Going somewhere new, swapping tasks or tweaking the usual roles a bit. (For big changes it may be necessary to negotiate the time and place).
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Tags: classification, joy, labels
Hi Evan
It seems my own experience of this labelling has many opposites. My relationship with things and activities and ‘changing things up is a way to add liveliness, interset, an avenue to new creativity – all things that provide openings and openess to new adventure or experience.
An example is having worked for food catering businesses. As one result, I was willing and enthusiastic about trying cuisine of all types. A second result is I have a short list of only four food items that I will not eat, everything else I’m willing to try if I’ve not. Having a broad experience provided fun, experimentation and freedoms of all kinds.
On the other end is the relational aspect, which I think is much more tricky. It is true it can be fun and exhilerating to be be with someone or be someone that is never the same way twice. I’ve done it and I’ve known others with the same ability. Yet, the labelling of these states are not often positive when observed in many situations.
For instance, going to the same job everyday that has the element of sameness, unavoidably. Infusing the atmosphere with a sense of fun one day when everything is supposedly urgent or needing to be taken oh so seriously is often not well received by a boss or co-workers that are used to having you sit at a desk and do your job quietly as expected.
The labelling becomes much like you describe, questions like are you crazy? What happened to you? Along with it the perception you won’t be able to do your job because things are funny today and no one else is paying attention to their jobs either because you caused a disruption to the norm, expected.
There is also in relationship the element of safety and reassurance. Being able to count on a parent’s care, love, stability. Moving too far away from that can and does frighten children. I think that definitely carries over into all adult relationships or at least some elements of it.
I unfortunately have encountered people that society labels dangerous or ‘crazy’ because of just such demonstration of very differnt personas. Are they? So experimenting in that kind of direction sometimes has the related occurrence of being thought of in ‘that way’, not necessarily a label one would want.
There is a lot to learn I think from this act of labelling and in particular its social applications and how we each navigate our world as a result. Biggest question for me seems to be the navigation between original expression, safety and not. Commonality is safe. Originality is then not?
Boy oh boy Evan! Hard article!
Thanks Barbara,
Your comment is as real and articulate as ever.
Yes, others’ labels (of us and our behaviour) can be a real problem.
Sometimes people are dangerous and us labeling them as such is important for our own sakes – and perhaps other’s sakes too.
I think it is very important to give children a structured and reliable place that is safe and nurturing – from what I’ve seen they want this and they thrive in this kind of environment. I do think it applies to our adult relationships too. Suspending the rules for a bit by agreement I think can be done safely and provide fun and freshness. I think that it is probably important that it is done with the agreement of those affected.
Thanks for your comment. Feel free to comment further if you would like to, or feel that I have missed what you were saying in some way.
Evan,
No you didn’t miss my point. But for one moment, let’s go back to my office job example.
You said it would be best having agreement with another to suspend ‘rules’. Brings me to the question, are there unwritten rules that work doesn’t include fun? Using your own labelling system, I’m almost certain of it. Work is work in the world today, has been for thousands of years. Therefore work is not fun. Fun is fun. Or fun is play.
But often work situations have the built in tediousness. Even a small effort to break the tension, does exactly that. It gives impressions that one is not ‘on the job’. Or it allows others observing to sense the little bit of freedom when laughter is heard.
Is it a necessity to go to a boss and say, well, today is the day we laugh at a joke or maybe, God forbid, we laugh at how seriously we’re all taking ourselves? Kinda negates the spontaneity or the lightness that ensues at the little bit of that surprises. If the boss would even agree or concede. You run right into issues of control. Self-control, the boss’s idea of control, company rules, expectations of the society to be a contributing member and more.
So maybe work ‘isn’t the time or place’. But it is often work that holds the tension and a place where so many spend the majority of their time. I do think it is the societal labelling already in place that would be hardest to budge. Of course I’m not saying that work need abandon getting things done, but rather allowing natural and/or necessary breaks without a ‘plan’ or permission, taking into account the individuality present in each person and moment.
For if you’ve ever worked in a job situation like this, planned outings or activities, the agreement by employers, to have fun, intended fun, are just work with different clothes on. And are often more stressful in attempts to keep work personas separate from ballgame personas.
Bottom line, that’s why I found this article a bit difficult, it took me places that were tough. The imagination of where it could and really could not be used. Imagination doesn’t have agreement rules, does it?
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea. I’m just wondering how many like me are out there to have it be ok as an option once in awhile where it might be most sorely needed. And beneficial. For I have no doubt the freedom afforded would be nothing but beneficial to all concerned. We’d probably be reading less articles about stress levels.
Touched a nerve, Evan…
Hi Barbara,
I think that work shouldn’t include fun is the big unwritten rule about work (eg that appalling phrase ‘work-life balance: what do we balance against life – death?).
One attempt to formalise this is ‘dress down days’ – we have these in Australia don’t know about the US. It’s usually a Friday and people dress less formally. It is a very small thing but it does make a small difference. Bringing any change at all in this arena is incredibly tough.
My guess a lighter and more fun approach more prevalent in those who have left the corporate world and started their own businesses (even if they are now large businesses). There are now studies showing that the softer side of things is important in terms of the bottom line. (The intriguing thing I think is that this hasn’t altered corporate culture – all the rhetoric about doing what it takes to improve the bottom line and so on is just wrong: if these people really believed this they would be emphasising friendly and relaxed workplaces). Usually I think change when it does come is from consultants – whose efforts really become being about people being respected and listened to (and having the institutional supports for this).
Work is where most people spend the best part of their lives. My hope is that bloggers at least can develop a slightly alternative culture.
These are my thoughts, hope they make sense. If I was a billionaire I’d set up a foundation that gave people the money to do what they loved and helped them find a way to support themselves doing it. I think something like that is desperately needed. I guess I’m going on and on – as you can see you’ve touched on something that is close to my heart.