Labels Work for Clothes

How would you describe an orange to someone who has never eaten one? (Hint: there's no right or wrong answer). Despite that, it doesn't keep us from trying I guess. 

As my hearing has faded I spend a lot of time watching TV with subtitles, 'captions' is the current favored phrase. I always smile when whatever show I'm watching has music in the foreground or background because the captioning is akin to the taste of an orange. 

I'll see phrases like 'moody,' 'dark,' or 'jazzy,' (that one is my all-time favorite) and try to imagine what someone who can't hear (unlike me, who is someone who doesn't listen) makes of the descriptions. Strange days indeed.

But descriptions and labels as a form of shorthand can be helpful at election time when like so much else in life, used in moderation. Too much thinking can come to no good end for some of us,  it seems.

Remember in high school with too much homework due at the same time, you'd grab a Cliff's Notes version of one (or more) of the mandatory reading assignments and rationalize it with 'what's the harm?' Let's face it, it's not like they made cheat sheets for trig or chemistry like they did for Tolstoy, right? 

I look back and realize some (or more) of my English teachers had to know I was dialing it up and phoning it in. They figured, correctly I'd argue, that the guy getting the short end of the deal was me since I was depriving myself of actually enjoying and learning from some of the best of 20th Century American Literature. Probably still not caught up.

And that's the danger of the label and the drive-by analysis. All ducks are birds, but not all birds are ducks. If you can reduce the world in which we live to a one-word political perspective in how you will be guided, and or how you will lead if chosen, I have a very different word to describe you and it's a lot more accurate than you'd like. I cannot believe you just clicked on that link and now you're angry at anyone other than yourself for so doing! C'mon...

My point: nobody eats just chocolate ice cream, or just vanilla, or just any single flavor at all. We see the world through a perspective developed by everyone we've ever met and ever known. We are all of those people, just not all at the same time. We are the most complex organism on the planet, the crown of creation (with apologies to Marty and Paul) so it's silly and stupid to limit yourself to one-dimensional thought, especially in a world as complex as the one in which we are living. 

We owned all the tools ourselves but not the skills to make a shelf with. The Never Ending Now becomes a prison and not a sanctuary. Too late, we recognize the face of the jailer as our own.

-bill kenny