Are you a chef?
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We are great at labelling. He is a lawyer, you are a builder, she is an arquitect. However, labels are not enough. They are helpful: we can’t work out the world without them.
It would be way too chaotic to understand even the simplest thing without categorizing at least something.
However, they are reductive. If we go only about those labels, we might fail to understand the depth of things, the profound and complex reality that lies in analyzing, listening, deepening. We might even take away the pleasure of discovering.
Nothing is worthwile finding out as everything is already laid out by the process of labelling.
I am a chef. True. But not quite.
I am an entrepreneur. OK. But not only that.
Ah, got it. A cook! I am a cook. Right, but other things too.
A gastronomer? Meh. (I still haven’t quite found out what that label means).
Actually yes, you are a father. And a husband. Proudly.
But what about me, the real me, the other me?
And so on.
So are we the sum of our labels?
In a way we are. But even then, you’d agree that things are not that simple.
What kind of cook are you? What kind of chef?
Things could unfold quite a bit if we start answering these questions on top of summing up all those labels we are.
C’mon, don’t be so complicated Marco, you are a chef. Just admit it.
Sure.
I think:
Things change, you change. It’s complicated. Things can change in a week.
Even right now I would struggle to define myself fully. And not because I am a particularly complicated person.
I just think everybody is. Everything really, is.
But the world wants to know. We generally don’t like complicated.
The modern world demands a fast identity from us, a quick reel, a short bio.
Perhaps the biggest fear is that by accepting a label we will be defining ourselves in an irreversible way.
We are now telling the world that what we are is defined, definitive and final.
We cannot be anything else anymore.
To avoid this, we must know each other better, it takes time, effort, interest. Patience. Most people don’t have it. I often don’t.
But I really do think it is a better alternative to labelling and ending up in a world that is less complex, less diverse, less profound.
Less beautiful.
