finite

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Island Blog – The Trouble with Labels

I would say, and have said, how much I hate labels. Let me explain. The first time I met them, there were four, written down and explained by an author whose name escapes me. At first, it felt reassuring to discover I was thus labelled, at some big business meeting, somewhere, way back when. It was exciting, because it was as if I had finally discovered me, the who of me, and it explained a lot – why I never had my endless questions answered, why I was the LOUD in the room, how I could walk into any gathering like a new adventure just arrived, startling everyone, and, unfortunately, receiving glares and go-aways from those in the other three categories.

Over many long years, with that label pinned to my chest, I have spent time breaking it down, because it was so finite, and that sort of blockage is anathema to me. Life and people are a flow, ever changing and adapting, so that labels, fine on something you want to buy, are little short of irrelevant when it comes to human beings. When I look back at the definitions of each of the four tyrpes of human, I can see myself in every one of them, at times, when required. Let me list them, if you don’t know what I mean:-

Choleric – strong-willed, passionate, direct. Melancholic – introvert, sensitive, suspicious.

Phlegmatic – neat, diplomatic, reliable. Sanguine – extrovert, optimistic, talkative.

I am all of these, when I need to be. I believe we all are. How would we not be all of them at times? One label does not define any one of us. Take People Pleasers, for example. Does anyone want to be stuck in that set of chains? Of course not. I can happily relate to my passion for making sure others are happy. I am sensitive and observant and can make a room of mis-matched humans into a happening, a melding of unlike minded souls, just by choosing the right music, the right time to say something, the right time to say nothing and just to listen, the right time to move towards a soul alone and to engage with gentle questions. All this does not label me a people pleaser, and leave me there because I, like you, am moving on. Life is swerving us, compromising our decisions and choices, picking away at our incomes like seagulls on chips, and we are adapting because we are strong and resolute. We are passionate but suspicious. We turn out neat, can be diplomatic and reliable, as we can also be strong-willed, optimistic and sensitive.

What we are, if a label is ever required, is dynamic. I, and you, I’m guessing, have denied self in the interests of others and the situation. We have been determined and strong-willed when a situation requires a leader and we are that leader. We have been introvert at times, extrovert at others. We have flexed and moved, stopped and turned to stone, elevated another, then thought that one through and grown wings for ourselves. We are passerine.

This merry season is a challenge for so many, perhaps for us all. Moneyed up or not, there is pressure. Please remember how far you have come, through (very possibly) many ghastlies, and who you are now. Not one label, not two, not twenty two. No labels. We are extraordinary humans, able to twist in any storm, able to guide others to safe landing. We are quiet and we are the voice that saves the day. We are passionate but able to hear another’s opinion and to consider. We are neat but don’t judge those who are not. We are suspicious but not of everything and everyone. We are always reliable, doing every task whether someone is watching or not. We are talkative but can laugh when someone says Shut up. We are all of this.

Someone recently asked me my advice for the day. I could only think of one thing.

Keep moving, watching, listening and learning, and, above all, recognising and saying hallo to every single person you meet along the way. They just might need it.

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Island Blog – Authentically Mongrel

Talking last evening with a delightful friend, she challenged me about someone I labelled. Then, later, I challenged her back. Both of us, at each challenge, paused for thought. So much that dribbles out of our mouths comes from learned opinions, until, that is, we are challenged on a single word, a resolution, a definition, a dereliction. This child is…….this man/woman is…….my father was, my mother is. He can’t fit in because he is……….She is just a……… and so on. We were taught these labels by those who influenced us at an early age, and, without thought, we continue the line.

So, let us think. Let us notice. So very many of us, gazillions, I reckon, have felt out of the uniform kilter, like our underpants are showing and everyone is laughing, or judging, or turning away in disapproval. Crowd thinking, or Coward thinking. If you are like me, all you want is inclusivity, gentle acceptance, the chance to learn whom another really is, what makes them tick, because I know they have a story that isn’t mine and through their story, I can learn to be the best person I can be. Surely I am not alone in this? The current, and understandable (sort of) culture of fear around invasion on all levels, the one that throws we Ordinaries, into a big old D I Lemma, is here, whether we fight it or engage with it. We cannot stop it, and nor should we, because there is learning here, there are stories, life experiences, if shared, that can juxtaposition our ingrained thinking. We can lift above what was considered THE RIGHT WAY. I won’t fiddle in a yelling crowd. Nobody is listening to the new music in such a place, but I do believe that if just a few among the gazillions refuse to label and, thus, to marginalise, to exclude, there is hope for this blood-stained world of ours.

I spent my sentient childhood knowing I was different. Not a fitter-in. I knew not the language to speak myself out, and thereafter to stand strong, too swamped in middle class beliefs, in how girls should (SHOULD) behave, whom is acceptable as a boyo, what is okay to wear, etc. My folks I judge not. They were of their time and, with four pretty girls, they were probably fraught as hell, and for years. So I was ‘just’ a rebel’ and without cause. And, that is true. I just reacted to any confinement with an energy I could not understand, nor process. So, I was labelled. There was a relaxo parental breath around that. Difficult, is one word I remember. In other words, I wasn’t their fault.

And, yet, my mouth can still label. Although I don’t like it at all, swipe at my lips and twitch my head in fury as I hear what I just said, I cannot deny it flowed out into the evening. And how do I feel? Initially smug. Oh god, God, gods, that is so not who I am now! Hmmmm, respond the god, God, gods, and I don’t blame them.

There is a lot of something around resolution. In music, I know it well, when even a naughty musician adds an extra bar, or fricks about with an elongated ending, and, (I’m avoiding the But), it is all about finding the warm security of the finite, of the landing, and of putting an end to this thing. In my young days, nobody wanted to stand out from the safety of the crowd, and, everybody wanted to stand out from the safety of the crowd. We were longing to be mongrels. We didn’t want the middle class confines, even as that life gave us security and privilege. In my day, to conjoin (OMG) with those who were not from our ‘level’ was anathema. Not to us, but we were wild, and, I am happy to say, even in our years, we still are, but now we have learned to speak, to stand, to rejink what we say, we will not judge, we will not, we will not and, more, because of the way we have learned our lives, spat out old beliefs, and found our own voices, we will stand and fight for inclusion and acceptance.

Authentically Mongrel. Did I just label myself?

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Island Blog 138 The X Factor

 

 

 

originalityTalking today with my whale-watching son, we discussed, as we cleared out his garage and carted dross to the local tip, music and originality.  He told me that there is nothing really original, as there is a finite number of notes on the keyboard and, therefore, a finite number of possible chords.  I felt my heart flutter at the very thought, me being a fully paid up member of the theory of Originality.  I say to him, if there really is no chance to be original, why do any of us get out of bed of a morning?

But that wasn’t quite what he meant.  He was talking complete sense and truth.  What happens beyond the understanding of that truth is a very different thing.  Park that for now.

Another subject we discussed over a delicious dinner at Cafe Fish (don’t ever miss out on that opportunity) was that of relationships, my very favourite subject.  I talk to myself about them all the time, but it is so uplifting to find a co-discusser who is also interested and who is also a man.  Might be a first!  He is 30 years younger than I but has an eye on this tricksy subject and a way of looking at it that I, sealed up in my own history and experience, might have missed.  We spoke of those that last and those that don’t and of why, although nobody outside of any relationship can ever, should ever, decide they know why or how one fails and another doesn’t.  It is pretty damn easy to play judge and, when we do, and we all do at some time, we might consider our own, and how clever we are at them.  Or not.

Now un-park that earlier thing.

What comes into play with a musician, a song-writer, a business owner, an artist, a wife, a husband, and I could go on forever with the list, is Originality.  The only thing we can ever bring to her table is our own originality, and, in doing so, we can change everything.  For example……..there is a clever, gifted, silversmith, young, newly graduated and about to hit the world.  No experience of anything to do with street wisdom beyond the decision not to go out alone at 4 am in a lycra bodysuit and 6 inch heels through a dodgy part of town. He, or she has this talent, this achievement, but has little or no idea how to walk it out in a way that will guarantee success and profit, long term.  It is all down to the self in this, the Originality and, most importantly, whether we honour that and use it, or not.  We all have it.  We don’t all use it.

Hmmmmmm.

If we listen only to the facts, that tell us there is a finite number of chords, of keys, of chord progressions, of dance moves, of colours mixed, of lives lived, then we might just keel over right now.  But we don’t do that.  We go on, believing, albeit very privately, that we just might have that something that changes everything.  But now we have another problem.  We watch television and movies and we set ourselves lower than we should as a result.  Every story is glamourised and idealised to the point of impossibleness.  How can we ever match up?  We don’t look like this star or that, with their perfect body parts, tans, choices, homes and luck.

To stick with something, in the inglorious (second meaning in the dictionnary) hours, when nobody is clapping or even watching, and to keep going…… now that is Originality. To work consistently, through the cold and the wet, to resist the naysayers who question our sanity and who come, like greeks bearing gifts, of trojan horses, of quick fixes, of a quicker route to the treasure chest, to make ourselves go on, following our own heart belief…..this is Originality.

To give up in the face of the inner voice that keeps asking……Who are you to think you can rise up to meet your dream? leads only one way.  Every single time.

Don’t listen, don’t watch, don’t falter.  Originality has chords and notes and moves and moments that build into something that, one day, people will revere.  Our job may be menial.  Our home may be simple.  Our life, ordinary.  But, wait a minute, this is all of us.  Those who appear to have it all are just like us.  We all have in our hands, whatever our situation, that chance to change everything. We just have to rack up and dust off and step up.We need to say Here I am, and not There I was.

Not one of us is perfectly formed, according to the world.

And yet, every one of us is exactly that.