Everything I believe about relationships you can learn from (500) Days of Summer.
I can't even go into it.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
#4 People who try and categorize and label everyone and everything
I'd like to take the time to quote one of my favorite movies, Se7en.
While in conversation with John Doe, the brutal serial killer, Brad Pitt asks him,
"I've been trying to figure something out in my head, and maybe you can help me out, yeah? When a person is insane, as you clearly are, do you know that you're insane?"
To which John Doe replies, "It's more comfortable to label me as insane."
Brad Pitt retorts, "It's very comfortable."
I'm sure I know what you're thinking. What? No funny scenario today? That's right. If that's what you're here for, you might as well throw your electronic device out the window, write a farewell note, and attempt to recreate the suicide of April 5, 1994, for the true design of this blog has completely eluded you. But for the rest of you, those who possess an I.Q. greater than your shoe size, let us get to the pertinent substance of the above quote. For all you instant-gratification-loving people out there, I can summarize the purpose of this post in one sentence:
People attempt to label what they cannot understand.
For some reason, the majority of this generation needs to know everything, and they need to know it now. In a world based on the internet, nearly any factual question can be confirmed through it. So consequently, the need for instant and confirmed knowledge is a man-made priority to nearly everyone.
Something that a third-party observer will never understand, however, is what makes a man a man. And the natural coping mechanism, is of course to attempt to label what they don't understand. Labeling someone in your brain, (insane, depressed, terrorist, anger issues, hippie, asian, emo etc.), is dismissive. It relieves you of the duty of staring something straight in the face that is different, and that you can't fully understand. And several people cannot handle that. So let me make something perfectly clear for you:
To yearn for complete understanding is reasonable and natural. The inability to handle the idea of personal incomprehension is not.
Compare that to the Christian idea that we should strive for perfection. We as humans will never reach the point of perfection, but regardless, hundreds of millions of people strive for it. They have accepted the idea of failure in this life, and so should we.
You need to be comfortable with the truth that there are some things that you will never understand.
The inability to handle this fact and replacing it with labeling is the building ground for ideas such as racism, discrimination, slavery, high school social groups, possés, and even dictatorships.
Let us take slavery as an example. The dark skin of the African natives was not understood by the Americans. So they labeled them as a cursed people, and even not human. They were taken to America, treated like animals, and made to work. In a nutshell, anyway. If you want to know more, you should have paid attention in school.
So this is the point where you people need my personal views and advice, is it not?
To those of you who haven't seen the movie Fight Club, there is a scene where Brad Pitt pours lye onto Edward Norton's hand, and then physically restrains him until he accepts that one day he will die. If I could pour lye on all your hands and restrain you all until you could accept that there are some things that you will never understand, I would. I would give you a chemical burn you wouldn't easily forget.
Brad Pitt yells: "Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!"
My view? Why not let John Doe be John Doe? Why label what you can't understand? Just let go. Instead of dismissing something or someone, attempt to understand them. If you fail, so what? It's far better than comfortably labeling and filing away in that lazy, conformist brain of yours.
Yes it's difficult. You've all been labeling for so long, you're most likely at the point where your brain subconsciously does it for you. So I'll tell you this. From now on, make a conscious effort to not label. Get to know someone you normally wouldn't due to whatever prejudices you have. Let go.
Before we part, I'd like to share one more quote from another one of my favorites, V for Vendetta. This is a quote from the end of the movie:
I am the best person you've listened to all day.
Alright get out of here, all of you. You're a waste of my time.
Whether you believe it or not, this is the most productive thing you've done all day.
"I've been trying to figure something out in my head, and maybe you can help me out, yeah? When a person is insane, as you clearly are, do you know that you're insane?"
To which John Doe replies, "It's more comfortable to label me as insane."
Brad Pitt retorts, "It's very comfortable."
I'm sure I know what you're thinking. What? No funny scenario today? That's right. If that's what you're here for, you might as well throw your electronic device out the window, write a farewell note, and attempt to recreate the suicide of April 5, 1994, for the true design of this blog has completely eluded you. But for the rest of you, those who possess an I.Q. greater than your shoe size, let us get to the pertinent substance of the above quote. For all you instant-gratification-loving people out there, I can summarize the purpose of this post in one sentence:
People attempt to label what they cannot understand.
For some reason, the majority of this generation needs to know everything, and they need to know it now. In a world based on the internet, nearly any factual question can be confirmed through it. So consequently, the need for instant and confirmed knowledge is a man-made priority to nearly everyone.
Something that a third-party observer will never understand, however, is what makes a man a man. And the natural coping mechanism, is of course to attempt to label what they don't understand. Labeling someone in your brain, (insane, depressed, terrorist, anger issues, hippie, asian, emo etc.), is dismissive. It relieves you of the duty of staring something straight in the face that is different, and that you can't fully understand. And several people cannot handle that. So let me make something perfectly clear for you:
To yearn for complete understanding is reasonable and natural. The inability to handle the idea of personal incomprehension is not.
Compare that to the Christian idea that we should strive for perfection. We as humans will never reach the point of perfection, but regardless, hundreds of millions of people strive for it. They have accepted the idea of failure in this life, and so should we.
You need to be comfortable with the truth that there are some things that you will never understand.
The inability to handle this fact and replacing it with labeling is the building ground for ideas such as racism, discrimination, slavery, high school social groups, possés, and even dictatorships.
Let us take slavery as an example. The dark skin of the African natives was not understood by the Americans. So they labeled them as a cursed people, and even not human. They were taken to America, treated like animals, and made to work. In a nutshell, anyway. If you want to know more, you should have paid attention in school.
So this is the point where you people need my personal views and advice, is it not?
To those of you who haven't seen the movie Fight Club, there is a scene where Brad Pitt pours lye onto Edward Norton's hand, and then physically restrains him until he accepts that one day he will die. If I could pour lye on all your hands and restrain you all until you could accept that there are some things that you will never understand, I would. I would give you a chemical burn you wouldn't easily forget.
Brad Pitt yells: "Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!"
My view? Why not let John Doe be John Doe? Why label what you can't understand? Just let go. Instead of dismissing something or someone, attempt to understand them. If you fail, so what? It's far better than comfortably labeling and filing away in that lazy, conformist brain of yours.
Yes it's difficult. You've all been labeling for so long, you're most likely at the point where your brain subconsciously does it for you. So I'll tell you this. From now on, make a conscious effort to not label. Get to know someone you normally wouldn't due to whatever prejudices you have. Let go.
Before we part, I'd like to share one more quote from another one of my favorites, V for Vendetta. This is a quote from the end of the movie:
"Sex and Race, because they are easy, visible differences, have been the primary ways of organising human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labour on which this system still depends.
[In contrast] We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen, or those earned. We are really talking about Humanism."
In spite of our time shared here today, many of you will try to label me as a result of this blog. Due to that you cannot fully understand either me or what I have said today. Oh let's see, what am I? Indie, conceited, intellectual, radicalist, visionary, revolutionary, dictator, Satanist, theological thinker? Maybe I rely on movie quotes too much, maybe I use too big of words. Maybe I have no patience for people who label.
So many things, and yet nothing at all. So I'll tell you what I am. I am the best person you've listened to all day.
Alright get out of here, all of you. You're a waste of my time.
Whether you believe it or not, this is the most productive thing you've done all day.
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