Labels on things and items work well, it gives recognition to quality, breeds familiarity and helps classify. They come quite handy and hence have become the norm now. But these labels when given to humans, although trying to achieve the same purpose, are derogatory because they hurt feelings, and unlike non-living things, homo sapiens have been blessed with emotions. Moreover, unlike these non-living items -intentionally produced at differential quality levels at the very hands of us humans, to cater to the wide spectrum of demographics and emotions; controlling the so-called “judgeable characteristics” of humans, does not lie within the whims and fancies of mortal powers. Even the behaviour, unique to each human, is essentially an unconscious byproduct of the context the human was born in, again out of pursuit of human control. And we more often tend to forget this, and end up hurting each other’s feelings and disrespecting the cosmic intelligence that created this diversity amongst us humans, an absolutely necessary precondition for the survival and functioning of this mortal world.
However, as the omniscient buddha has already told us, accepting an insult or comment or even a compliment, remains our choice. And we can choose to not take words to heart, by choosing to ignore them. There is, although, another way as well. And it came to light to me, when I was asked a weird question, by a friend.
The friend was curious to know – why was I called a tomboy – a label conferred on me by, as far as I can remember, my cousins, relatives etc, when I was in my final years of schooling. Being a curious cat, that I was, I googled it, understood it. But it didn’t bother me, because I had the understanding that being biologically female need not be associated with appearing feminine as well – as luckily, the genotypes carried by my two X chromosomes, were not linked to the expression of the phenotypes like softness, shyness, fragility, constant need of a XY chromosome, or dependence on anyone else all the time – and rather were a result of acculturation. And more fundamentally, because I loved who I was and my personality, and I never felt the desire to possess those society defined ‘girly’ qualities, which to me were undesirable.
And being a biological female did not mean that she cannot be strong, independent, opinionated, fierce, sound, logical, outspoken, brave and yet silent. The question, by my friend, hence, definitely stirred up some visible anger and irritation. Yet, the conversation did not end there. I was asked to define, what I meant and understood by “tomboy” which to me seemed like a useless exercise, not because I did not know it, rather as it was unimportant to me. And since it was a redundant exercise to me – where people labelled others, for characteristics that seemed misplaced according to them, I gladly played along, just in order to stay away from baseless and meaningless conversations. And yet, here I was, on that fateful day, trying to avoid a conversational debate, that I knew might cost me some respect for that friend.
Since, these labels we often tag onto others, just like the ones on those beautiful things and items, are removable, easy to be peeled off, leaving behind no marks, if taken off properly. Otherwise,.. they do tend to leave on lingering stickiness, that does eventually wash off, but in the process might make us emotionally entangled, by the mere attachment that it had with us, that we aren’t letting go, as we hold on to it, refusing to put in the effort of removing it – the strange, uneasy act of sitting with ourselves, asking why we react, and whether we need to, and what, if anything, it truly does to us, until we give it the attention and our reaction. Just like the fact that unevenness causes fire only under friction, and remains harmless when smoothened with acceptance.
And just as the friend ruminating over my tomboy label kept on trying to provoke me into a probable rant or complaints that I might be harbouring, we approached the crossing. And my repeated claims of unbothered-ness and my irritation from the provocation, made me realize, that this entire exercise remains fruitless when the ears that it falls on, do not heed the desire to put on someone else’s shoes, in order to respect the journey of the other and acknowledge the reasons that made it so. Or maybe simply because they do not have the intellectual and emotional maturity that is needed to do so.
Contemplations 