A Journey of a Thousand Names... Pt. 2

...when we last left our heroes...

Battling bad guys and labels everywhere.  Or depression.  That's right.  How depression and labeling go hand in hand, and how I am going to impart the secret of happiness.  

Not going to happen, but I do intend to delve further into labeling.

Flash back to when I first starting staying at home.  I was depressed.  Seriously depressed.  I started reading books about happiness principles.  There are a lot of books out there on positive psychology, but it wasn't until I picked up "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle that something in my head clicked.  I do not recommend this book.  Okay, that isn't true, I do, but only if you come across it yourself and want to read it.  I do not recommend this book to friends and family because it is a piece of work that will either resonate with you, or you will think is a bunch of BS.

The ancient Chinese saying: "When the pupil is ready, the teacher will come."

I was ready.  An excerpt:

"Mother, father, husband, wife, young, old, the roles you play, the functions you fulfill, whatever you do -- all that belongs to the human dimension.  It has its place and needs to be honored, but in itself is not enough for a fulfilled, truly meaningful relationship or life" (p. 104).

And:

"What really matters is not what function you fulfill in this world, but whether you identify with your function to such an extent that it takes you over and becomes a role that you play" (p. 90).

There is no truth in the role.  The role you play is arbitrary.

Oh dear Lord.  My brain started a moving and a rocking and a rolling.  I knew about this, I've read about this before.  But where?

In 2008 I started a master's program in English Literature at St. Mary's University in San Antonio.  The head of that program, and the head of my thesis committee later, was one Dr. Gwendolyn Diaz.  She is the kind of a person that I stand in awe of, and not a little bit of fear.  She is wicked smart.  She speaks four languages, she just breathes intelligence, and, she is very postmodern.  

For definition; postmodern is a movement in literature, history etc. that moves the focus from the hegemony (read: white, male) to the peripheral (read: everything not white male).  Another aspect,  the one that came back to me while reading Tolle, is the process of questioning absolute truth.  Absolute, 100 percent, truth.  I actually used the word "true" in my last entry, and I have regretted ever sense.  Because of Dr. Diaz's influence, and the vast amount of reading I did under her tutelage, I am convinced that absolute truth does not exist.

What does this mean?  Well, it's meaning is a slippery slope.  Basically, I think that everything is an interpretation of the viewer.  I'd like to say that I was the brilliant thinker behind that concept, but really, it is all Jacques Lacan.  Without going into a lecture of Lacan (which is a rabbit hole, indeed), his basic premise is that language creates a space between what an object is, and what the viewer sees as the object.  Definitions that are influenced by experiences, thoughts, processes, and language.

Example.  I say "black cat."  Every single person in all the world will have a different idea of what a "black cat" is.  Sure.  A cat that is black, but how I see a black cat, and how someone else does will be different, if only just slightly.  Not one person in all of the world will have the same definition.  Not. One.

Thus, the lack of absolute truth.  If every person sees things differently, then everything is different.  God.  Something that most people would say was an absolute truth.  But you ask people who, or what God is; those definitions are going to be very, very different.

Absolute truths are just labels that we have assigned.  We assign meaning to words, ideas, conceptions, perceptions.  Everything has a label (role) assigned to it, and for every person this label is different.  

Back to Tolle.  Labels.  Roles.  Absolutes.  How can my identity be governed by a label that's only consistency is that it is perceived differently by everyone.

Makes the mind whirl a bit.  

After I got over being dizzy, I wondered:  if those things that I use to label myself with, that cause unhappiness, are so arbitrary, why the heck am I doing it? 

Jumping around to Buddhism now.  Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche: "A lot of our suffering in life comes from our conceptual mind and it's habit of trying to categorize and put labels on our experiences... Think of how often you've had a conversation where you've assumed someone was judging you in a critical way... For 24 hours, you carried this storyline around in your mind, and it tortured you... Your suffering was self-created by the labeling mind."

And around and around we go.

So.  Recap.  Roles belong to humans, but you should not become the role.  A role, or a label, is not an absolute truth because absolute truths do not exist.  When we assign labels we cause suffering.

Labels suck.  Or do they?

My son is Batman now.  It is several hours after the Hulk episode.  His mood has improved with juice, toast, and a dose of morning cartoons.  His mask is in place and his cape flows behind him as he runs down the hallways.  "Me Batman!" He announces, fighting an imaginary villain.  I watch him being Batman and I am inspired.  His role playing, his person, is playing this label.  He is using the label to create fun.  He is having fun by being a label.  He is not defined by the label.  He is not defined by the role.  He is just having fun being Batman.

The ol' light bulb going on?  You bet.

We are all defined by the labels given to us and the labels we take on.  We live in a society that defines people based on the roles and the labels they have tattooed on their persons.  From where I stand now (and I am always moving, so this might change) I don't see how you can live in society and avoid being labeled or assuming roles.  Part of the human dimension, Tolle says.  But, I don't have to become that role.  In fact, becoming that role leads to unhappiness.  And the roles are whimsical.  Imagination.  Definitions that we have created.

Change the definition.

Change the way you interpret the label. 

Heck, I can have fun with it.  I can run down the hallway with my cape bellowing behind me.  SUPER SAHM!  I am going stitch that on my new red spandex supersuit.  

Or not.

Because, honestly, I struggle with labels all the time, the chief buggerboo being SAHM.  I

am not entirely okay with the term SAHM still.  I can talk brave words.  I can spout out all this research I have done and conclusions I have come to, but I still fight with the SAHM label, and others that assign me a role in society (weight, athleticism, gender etc).  And that makes me think of Rinpoche.  Don't label.  Others will label.  Others will assign truth to your roles.  But do I have to?

Can't I leave that all on the side of the road.  Shed it like a second skin.

Yep.  It would be awesome if I could.  I am not quite there.  Sometimes I catch a glimpse.  I feeling of lightness when I realize that I am none of those things that I listed waaaay back at the beginning of this long diatribe.  I am just me.  Bones. Skin. Brain. Heart.

And then I get a kick in the gut.  An old school mate getting her PhD makes a comment: "Oooh, you decided to have kids instead of pursuing your doctorate..."

Bam!  Self talk: loser, slacker, STAY AT HOME MOM!!!

Yep.  It gets me.  Even though I know it is just a label and it means nothing.  It trips me up.  Makes me doubt and feel depressed and terrible.  Even though I know, intellectually, it is an arbitrary label assigned by society.  I have methods to battle it (another entry down the line).  For today, and the purpose of this entry, I just have to remember that no one (not my family, friends, husband, son or that stupid school mate) or nothing (not that terrible advertising industry) can tell me who I am.

Fighting the good fight.

Super MOM!

For today.