Several weeks back, I made the declaration that the more labels a person adopts, the harder it becomes to be a person and know who you are. Multiple labels saddle a person with mental struggles that become physically exhausting. Each label comes with social responsibilities, cultures, and expectations that cannot be shirked as long as a person has adopted that label.
For example, I am a dual-service disabled veteran. Thus, I carry the cultures, expectations, and responsibilities of sailors and soldiers. Consider what the expectations of a soldier are, and that image is part of the identity and societal responsibilities for being a veteran soldier. Being disabled carries societal expectations, both mental and physical burdens. Consider the Marines, and every Marine is a Marine for life! You graduate basic training and earn the title Marine, and you will ALWAYS be a Marine! Again, that title and label hold societal expectations voluntarily onboarded, and never will a Marine lose the attitude and social expectations of Marines.
The same is true of every single label a person voluntarily chooses for themselves. The label will attract specific people into your social circles, but only as long as you willingly live the life expectations of that label. Each label selected will form identities and mental challenges to meet the social expectations, a heavy burden indeed!
In a recent Tik Tok video, a person proudly declares more than 50-labels, preferred adjectives and pronouns, and identities. The video lasted more than 3 minutes, and I felt sorry for the exertion this person will face every minute they have these identities onboarded. Another person watching this video declared that the subject claiming their labels was mentally ill; I agree with that sentiment. Why; because the subject will never know who they are because of the noise of the labels, which includes the social pressures, the responsibilities, and the expectations. I do not know the name of the person in the video, I would not share that video due to the privacy respect I have for others.
Who are you?
Even though current society in 2021 declares confusion between who and what a person chooses to be, not what are you. For example, I do not like, nor do I onboard, the identity of disabled. I am NOT disabled, handicapped, injured, and working on healing, but NOT disabled. Consider the power of words for a moment.
The transitive verb “dis” means to show disrespect, insult, or criticize. As a prefix, “dis” is defined as the opposite of something, depriving someone of something, excluding someone, or expelling someone. Thus, a disabled person is either being disrespected, insulted, or criticized, deprived, excluded, expelled, or is the opposite of able. Frankly, when we are made aware of the etymology of words, we are then more aware of why people choose to adopt or not adopt certain words and labels. Do we understand this problem of labels just from an etymological perspective?
Regardless of plasticization, words hold power over the mind. Words become identities, thoughts become things, and research supports that labels hurt mental processes and can permanently scar. Yet, who and what a person chooses as their identities are not considered a problem in current society or a mental illness. People’s choices reflect their identities to attract those in socially accepted circles.
Thus, who are you? Who do you choose to be? Are those identities sufficient? While not as important as who a person is, the last question ranks a close second. How many identities can you physically onboard and live successfully? As a fan of simplicity and a follower of the KISS rules, as detailed by Murphy, the god of perversity, I keep it supremely simple to protect my energy levels and allow my identity to shine through. Having only a few identities enables me to select social commitments, restrict the mental noise and exertions, and hold myself accountable to a few identities to grow as a person.
Returning to the Tik Tok video subject and their 50+ labels, identities, and preferred pronouns, we must ask, what is sufficient? A follow-on video by this person reflected the physical exertions from conforming to identities and social pressures. Worse, this person had onboarded several more labels and identities. They reflected the mental illness and physical drain caused by trying to live up to all the label responsibilities. An extreme example; unfortunately, no; the pressures to onboard labels and identities have grown exponentially, mental problems are too significant to quantify, and they are growing.
Not just in America, the confusion about who a person is, the identities, and their inherent loads, have become a global phenomenon. What are the mental health professionals doing; causing harm by not discussing the physical and mental exertions of onboarding too many identities. It is up to the individual and parents of minor children to understand and help learn and teach simplicity in labels allows growth as a person, not more identities, but less. Fewer identities provide freedom for growth, identity exploration and empower mental health, leading to improved physical health.
Identities
As a pre-teen, I struggled with the concept of my identity. Religion was a curse, my family was worse, and I did not know who I was, thus strangling what I could do or become. I got jealous of how my sister could get away with breaking the rules and thought I should be a girl. I struggled with wanting to be a girl for several years as I learned who I was and what I wanted to be. If this problem occurred right now, professionals would counsel me to adapt and change my body through drugs and surgery, compounding my identity problems. Yet, what helped, was getting to know me!
I had several people help me form an identity I could be comfortable living with as I explored my options, fought to understand my role and purpose, and embraced my potential. It took time, lots of time. It required patience with myself, a moral code I could live in, and a desire to learn—all of which I had to develop from scratch. My identity is forged in the fires of adversity, for the consequences of my choices during this time played a role in how I went to school, what I chose to learn, and where I found employment and socially accepted company. Some of those consequences hang around even all these many years later. Some consequences I have been able to live long enough to survive.
Worse, as I have learned more about myself, my identity has changed, bringing with it consequences of change. Music, movies, humor, education, and more are part of an identity that forms a life. Choices bring consequences; how we value those consequences (e.g., good/bad, profitable/unprofitable, etc.) will determine our eventual destiny towards understanding who we are, so we can become what we desire to see in the mirror. More lessons I had to learn, then and only then, could the value of religion be discovered, the value of family understood, and honor and pride and commitment to self appreciated as an identity to live. Crucial to this growth and development, I know when to cut social ties, drop music and movies into the trash, and I am imperfect in changing, but I have some lessons I would see others learn to avoid pitfalls.
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- Commit to learning using the question, “Who am I?” as a core principle to discovery.
- Allow yourself time to think, ponder, and consider before committing to an identity. I always wanted to be a soldier, but I loved the ocean. I did not understand the value of these paradoxical options, and by rushing headlong, I had to learn an identity after living that identity. Arduous path; know first, then adopt an identity. Let me try and simplify that with my favorite axiom, learned as an Emergency Medical Technician, “Never take your body where your mind has not traveled first!”
- Comfort is key. If you are not comfortable, your conscience tells you something is wrong. An identity should require physical strain and mental confusion. Yes, you can delude yourself for a time/ Ultimately, your conscience, spirit, intellect, whatever you call your inner voice, will break through and tell you your identity is not mentally acceptable. If your identity choice is not comfortable, it will affect your physical health negatively.
- Never stop learning; learning leads to change, and change is good!
- When in doubt, turn to lesson two, give yourself more time before committing to an identity.
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I love hard rock, big hair bands, and southern rock. Steel guitars, banging drums, and headbanging to an excellent beat are an identity with power. But headbanging gives me incredible headaches. Too much rock and roll, and I cannot think clearly, and the ability to control my thinking is paramount to me. Do I adopt the headbanging identity or not; sometimes, I am all in for a solid rock fest. Mostly, I listen to the inner voices and moderate my music. See, lesson two continues to hold power and lesson four keeps me thinking how much longer will I affect my identity with an uncomfortable identity with physical pain.
Choose carefully, evaluate often, and allow yourself the freedom to grow by not onboarding labels without due consideration. Please, consider your gender and biological sex as integral to your ultimate destiny and comfort. Before you are comfortable in your skin, you have to be comfortable in your mind! If you want to explore identities, explore, but explore smartly and be cognizant of the social responsibilities, expectations, and cultures inherent with an identity. Observe those with those identities closely for the consequences of thier identity.
I cannot betray a confidence, but I have witnessed how traumatic experiences can be the impetus for forcing an identity change. A close associate went to a party, had a mickey slipped into their drink, and woke to a new reality. The consequences of other people’s identities can negatively impact your identity, especially if you do not know who you are!
I have never been comfortable with the hard rock, headbanging social aspects of rock and roll identities. The illicit drug use, the promiscuous sexual encounters, and the extremes in living frankly scare the hell out of me! But, I love the music, and I love much of the wardrobes in this identity, even though I will NOT wear makeup and cannot play a musical instrument.
Life is a journey; travel safely using the axiom, “Never take your body, or anyone else, anywhere your mind has not already traveled.” Think, ponder, consider, and then act confidently.
© Copyright 2021 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
On Friday, an email crossed my inbox regarding how to write better and weasel words. The term “
Regardless of delivery through speaking or writing, create the time to edit. Create the time to plan and prepare, rehearse, and carefully edit to communicate powerfully. Stop stooping to being a weasel; you are better than that and deserve to allow yourself the ability to achieve through communicating ideas more clearly and powerfully!
I love words; I was taught from a young age three invaluable lessons:
Consider a term oft used to describe the political left, “Social-Justice Warriors.” Long have I asked my political left-leaning colleagues what this term means, how it applies, and the veracity of the term as a description of societal action. Breaking down the term, we find three definitions taken from Dictionary.com:
Thus, to extrapolate meaning from the definitions, one would conclude a social justice warrior is “a person in society, looking for the social administration of law, who has experience fighting for the proper administration of law.” Yet, the definition from the dictionary for this term is 180-degrees different and is termed derogatory, “a person who expresses or promotes socially progressive views.” Those rioting and looting in the streets got there because a social justice warrior enraged the community on an issue that is racist, one-sided, and emotionally driven. Lest it is forgotten, the term being applied to the people driven by emotion to launch protests that become mob violence is derogatory in nature, critically disrespectful of the person calling themselves a social justice warrior. But, the social justice warrior carries this title as if it were a compliment and a badge of the highest esteem.
A recent attack by a social justice warrior regarded the inability of poor black people to have government-issued photo ID, and that without that photo ID, the poor black person would be disenfranchised in exercising voting rights. My response was that holding any person down by race was racist, and the social just warrior preceded to become unhinged. Let us be clear, anytime a person’s race is the sole reason that person, or group of people, cannot take part in something, is racism, and the person espousing that opinionated garbage is racist.
From that day to this, I have been attacked for not seeing race, not being sensitive to the race of others, and refusing to allow a person’s race to be an excuse for poor performance, bad language, and infantile public and private behavior. I remain unapologetic; I am not a racist! I hold myself to the highest standards publicly and privately as my first obligation to society. Without regard to race, color, creed, etc. I hold others to the same standards. I am willing to teach and remain willing to learn as my second obligation to society.
I quickly learned that if any other race of person employed “Ebonics” they were told to speak properly, but there was a pass for black people. When I pointed out this was racism, I was sent up on charges for being disrespectful to see the Commanding Officer. In the US Army, I was the only white person in my squad in S. Korea. I was never invited to squad parties, social get-togethers, or allowed into training. I asked why I was being excluded and was told it was because the squad leader did not understand white people. The command structure supported the exclusion, and I was left without support as a new soldier in the US Army.
In the name of racial equality, America has been taught since the early 1980s that words create problems, and some words cannot be used by “white people.” This behavior is inherently racist and spreads the problems of race, not improving racial relationships. During President Obama’s reign, America learned that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are racist. Fluffernutter sandwiches are racist. But, this is not so, they are sandwiches, food, and delicious. Yet, through plasticization and a social justice warrior, suddenly, a staple of millions of people is now “off-limits” and cannot be consumed. My local sandwich shop had to stop selling a peanut butter honey spread on bagels as a sandwich option because the owners feared being picketed.
Improving communication is all about knowing and using language succinctly and precisely, and then supporting proper social behaviors through courage and tenacity. There is no reason the grocery store, the restaurant, and other social and community gatherings should be an atmosphere of foul deprecations, excuses for small minds to emotionally lose control, or for adults to imitate the worst childish behaviors. Standards promote freedom, and the US Republic is all about personal freedom through responsibility and accountability for one’s self.
DNC-Consulting 