the affect/effect of labels

first off that this whole tirade came about because I was thinking about the implications of calling myself a dork

secondly I must note that I've been having trouble deciding between affect (to influence or cause change) and effect (as the result of a change) because on some level both fit, I want to talk about how labels cause a change and the result that occurs because of them. And I realize that one may be more appropriate, but in this moment I cannot figure it out.  (I did however finally learn the difference between lie and lay and understand how the past tense of lie being lay confused me, which then led to not being sure whether to use laid or lain...)

Anyway

So as of late I've been on a mission to fully allow myself to be me. Whatever that may mean, whatever form that may take, however that may change over time, but most importantly learn to love myself whatever form 'myself' may be. And in doing so I have several times run full into the brick wall of a label. I KNOW labels have always had an impact on my life, not always negatively, but still causing some problem, particularly when realizing it doesn't entirely fit, But now I can't seem to ignore it.

I understand why we use labels; it's a way of describing things, a short hand to trying to understand something. In reality all words are labels. They are ways of conveying something without getting to know all of the subtleties of it, which is necessary because quite honestly if we stopped our lives to try and understand all of any one thing we'd live our whole lives trying to learn every millimeter of the first crib we were ever placed in and never seeing beyond that. In honesty, it is not needed to truly know everything beyond labels because you'd never be able to do it, and it doesn't really matter to you. Does it make that big of a difference to know every millimeter of a chair when all you want to know is if you can sit in it? ok maybe you want to know if it's comfy, or if you can recline, perhaps if the color matches the room you want to put it in. All of which further label the chair. so I guess this is the important thing to remember, labels are not the problem as much as believing any one, two or few labels completely describe all that something is and the belief that that something will never change.

Another danger that has become abundantly clear to me is that the labels themselves aren't necessarily detrimental, calling a chair red, in of itself has little effect other than possibly giving more information, but it's the judgments that enviably follows where the danger lies. Ok so the chair is red. All of a sudden several things happen, we get an image of what we consider red (which is not always accurate, I mean I may think fire engine red and you may think more maroon) and then we make some sort of judgment about it. The judgment might be whether we like or dislike that color, or it might even be as benign seeming as color doesn't matter to me, what I want to know is it comfy. All of which then change how we think of the chair.

I think the like and dislike of a label is somewhat obvious in what it means to the thing being labeled, and will get back to it, but for the moment I want to point out the danger in the seemingly benign of deciding that color doesn't matter to you and wondering if it's comfy. The danger lies in being so willing to cast off labels in favor of the ones we care about. Every label is trying to capture a bit of the entirety of something, we should not ignore the fact that it is red, but not define it solely by its redness. I understand it not changing your opinion of it, doesn't make you like it any more or less, but we shouldn't forget that it is part of it. The way that I don't pick my friends based on their hair color, but I accept and see that they do have different colors and that they may change, doesn't change whether I love them, but on some level it would be a disservice to not see it either. It is so damn painful to not be seen as you are. Every label is a little step closer to trying to understand, if we discard some we limit and limit the total descriptors to only a few and we have start then putting things into bigger and bigger groups further away from what they are. When it comes down to it, we are all of the same stuff and all each our own at this moment in time at the same time. Each label can be used to narrow down everything to one thing, but we must never forget that it can change and that there aren't enough labels in the universe to narrow down all that one thing really is. Once you put things into classes it's easy to believe that all in a class are the same, they aren't. They have commonly held things, but even these commonalities may not all be exactly the same. Two people classified as soccer lovers does not mean both love soccer in the same way or for the same reasons, nor does it mean that they have more in common with each other than another person who doesn't love soccer, but loving soccer is part of each of them and should not be discarded because it is part of who they are.

Now the liking and disliking of things, there is so much power in that. The concepts of good and evil, right and wrong, better and worse have made us lose sight of really knowing all of anything. We're told to try and be a certain way because it's the 'right' way and we often feel bad about ourselves when we're not that way. Now I'm not saying I don't believe in right and wrong, I'm not saying we should throw all judgments of any kind out the window because not only do I not think it's impossible but I think there is some danger in that too. But what I am saying is I hope we realize how much these judgments can change us and the world and that they have a lot of power from keeping us away from being ourselves and most importantly loving ourselves.

 I don't really know where to go from this, I'm having a bit of a classical psychological dialectic. On the one hand I believe that everyone should to some degree decide what is right and wrong, what works best for them, what they can live with at the end of the day, And yet on the other hand is the recognition that there needs to be some level of order, some agreed upon rules, in terms of how our action affect others. Everyone should have the right to decide what works for them, but somewhere that right stops in how it may damage another. It's somewhere in between and not a clear line, not a black or white. I try to not hurt people in my pursuit of my own happiness, but sometimes that's impossible. I try to weigh out causing the least amount of pain, but know I have to keep my own pain in mind as well. Also what others may perceive as damage I may not deem my fault or not a flaw in what I’m doing. I don't think my kissing another woman with consent is truly detrimental to anyone (except of course if I'm in a monogamous relationship where we agreed we wouldn't kiss others and I am in fact kissing another, but then it’s a different factor at play) or is really anyone else's concern, particularly people who don't even know us. But at the same time I'm concerned with a pedophile. So I guess, in my best judgment there's a line of ability to consent at play. I'm all for truly consenting adults to do whatever they want with one another. But we do need to be aware of how we impact others and need to keep that in mind when we're deciding whether something is right for us to do.

back to the liking, disliking... We try so hard to fit in, to be part of the group, to be loved, that we sometimes lose sight of ourselves. I've been aware lately of my self-talk. I didn't use to think anything of calling myself a dork or a geek or crazy or silly or any of that, but recently I've noticed how with every label comes some judgment. And some of these judgments don't make me feel great about myself, or somehow feel limiting. I need to be careful with the judgments of myself and how they can detour me from accepting and loving myself. I enjoy learning, I enjoy classically classified as nerdy pursuits, which is fine there is nothing wrong with that, but it can be a disservice to myself to use words that can feel demeaning. And by the same token these words like gay, queer, nerd and on and on can be taken away from the oppressors who originally used them to degrade another and be used by the oppressed as a rallying point, the formation of their own group, can give them power and sense of belonging they so need. So I guess it's important to try and not use labels to degrade ourselves and keep in mind once again, that a single label will never describe all of any one of us.

I also strongly believe that these self judgments should be used as a way of deciding what we may change in the future, such as I didn’t like the way I felt when I yelled at someone who I don’t feel really deserved it, next time I will try a different tactic that might feel better. But my hope is to move away from trying to use these judgments as anything but trying to better navigate my life, I don’t want to waste so much energy belittling myself because I didn’t do what I later realized was not what I’d like to do in the future. I need to accept the past without shame only lessons.

which brings me to my last point at the moment (finally lol this has become much, much longer than anticipated, not good or bad, just unexpected) how hard it can be once you add a label to yourself to change it as well as get people (ourselves included) to realize that this label is but one of many.

For example early on in school I was labeled 'smart' which had all sorts of impacts on me. The majority of the students and my peers seemed to deem this a negative on some level and basically ostracized me on some level, the teachers and my parents seemed to think this was great and tried hard to encourage me, a minority of my peers (often ones labeled similarly) also thought it good and we turned it into a rallying point of our own group. Now part of me was in conflict as to whether to try to fit in with the bigger group or hold tight in my smaller group. Now within the smaller group there were further labels and always some level of worry as to whether I fit in there too. I often felt smart enough to be considered among them but didn't quite fit in many of their worries of grades and success. So strangely I tried to fit in the majority on some level by not doing my homework and showing that I got 'bad' grades like many of them, but it didn't matter I was labeled as smart and I like to learn they never even noticed my grades and I could never be one of 'them'. And yet I didn't quite fit in with my smaller group because I didn't focus on working hard and getting good grades. I was somewhere in no man's land, the majority never really saw me, they saw the label, and my friends while I love them dearly, and they did accept me with open arms and did mostly see me, caused me to still feel on the outside because I was still different (as we all are, I know, but I didn't understand then).

For another example, when I was little I knew I didn't fit the 'norm' or majority as far as things like gender and sexual orientation were concerned (among other things) I further felt like an outsider AND for this society often told me I was wrong and bad. When I was small I felt a lot of pressure to change some of my appearance to fit what I ‘should’ be in terms of being a girl, I grew my hair long because I was tired of being made fun of and also having the question are you a boy or a girl and the inevitable judgments that followed because it wasn’t obvious. As I got older I started thinking of myself as a bi tomboy. I was attracted to boys and girls, and a more masculine acting girl. Later I was pressured heavily by my first very serious girlfriend to proclaim my lesbianism (as we were going to be together forever and since from that moment on I was going to be only with a woman I must be a lesbian, oh how naive I was) and after trying to get me to occasionally wear more girly things (to prove I was a woman dating a woman) accepted that I was simply what she called butch. Then after that relationship ended I went back to being 'bi' and now 'butch'. A few years later I was loosely seeing a trans-guy, suddenly gender became a HUGE factor. For his own sanity he felt the need to make me act as much like what he considered feminine particularly in the bedroom as possible. He couldn't accept how attracted to me he was when he didn't think I acted like a girl and what that meant to his definition of himself. I once again (stupidly) tried to make myself fit his idea of what he wanted, once again denying myself what felt good to me. At some point in going to the Pride Center I realized how hard it was on some level to be 'bi'. No one said anything of note to make me feel different but I didn't feel like part of the majority again. (I know a lot of this has to do with how hard it is in society to be gay and because of it it becomes a rallying point and being bi can be seen as some to not making the choice.) So I kept my interest in men a secret to most, but this felt horrible. And I was also confronted with how many lesbians further label themselves into different degrees of femme and butch and how one treats another changes drastically based on what one thinks the other is. I agree I fit much of the requirements that could give me these labels, so I don't fault anyone for this, but I also realized that bi and woman and butch didn't quite fit me either and that these labels had been something I had been struggling with, particularly with how I felt the need to "fit" them. (I also feel the need at this point, to point out that many of my friends and family thought I was a lesbian and were unaware of my attraction to anyone other than women and unaware of my pull away from the label 'woman', all of which stems from my stand point that if I label myself I limit myself, but by not labeling myself and not being open with all of who I am I left myself open to their label, which given incomplete info weren’t completely accurate.) At some point in a meeting I heard a term that seemed to fit better than any I had heard before, 'pansexual'. I can be attracted to men and to women and to those that fall somewhere in between. I don't really think of gender as binary and don't limit myself based on gender. So this then leads to the gender issue. I consider myself genetically and anatomically female and have absolutely no desire to change that, I don't consider myself a man in a woman's body, but by the same token I don't really feel like I'm classically female in most ways except anatomically. I also don't really feel 'butch' either because I find it somewhat limiting more so in what others perceive as 'butch'. yes I like to wear men’s clothes because they feel more comfortable to me, but I prefer women's underwear. Also just because 99.99999 percent of the time I prefer men’s clothes doesn't mean I don't sometimes want to wear a dress or skirt or high heels and I don't want people to act like it's somehow weird or wrong for me to do so. Just like maybe I might seem somewhat masculine doesn't mean I also don't have classically feminine qualities and doesn't mean that I only date girly girls. So in honesty I'd prefer to not be pigeon holed. I have no real problem if someone describes me as 'butch' as long as people use it more as an additional descriptor among many and accept that I may not fit their definition entirely. Just like I don't mind woman or pansexual or any other label, but don't look at the label and think you know all of someone and don't assume it can't change. It's all able to be fluid, all some shade in a continuum that has the potential to change.

I guess I am most comfortable with the single label of I am me and what that means changes and I'm still trying to figure out all that that means, but it's all that fits.  And I want to spend my life trying to understand.

(and no it never had anything to do with a whale penis anyway)