The older I get, the more labels I leave behind.
Human beings understand our world through the stories we tell and teach about ourselves and others. We write and speak about the ideas and concepts we were taught and have come to learn and think we understand; the beliefs and traditions we have inherited and either outgrown or deepened.
Within the American melting pot, there is an alphabet soup we use to communicate with (and to understand) one another. The Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer community has their call letters: LGBTQ. The formerly enslaved have been called Colored, Negro, Black and African American. American Descendants of Slavery are now, in some socio-political and academic circles, referred to as ADOS, as distinct from Black African immigrants to the United States and Black immigrants from the Caribbean.
In conversation and debate, political scientists refer to themselves and speak of others as being on the Right or Left, identifying as Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, Radical, Revolutionary, Nationalist or Separatist – left wing, right wing, far left or far right. Partisans vote for either the Democratic or Republican parties, with others standing outside of that two-party system as registered Independents. Fascists. Marxists. Communists. We study and understand history through these ideologies, through these labels, which we don as we move through our life’s journey.
Not so for political observers: we are not political scientists, we are not necessarily tagged with any of those labels; we are just people who watch what happens, who speak and vote our values. We are on the sidelines of political science, as we have not gone to school to study politics nor have we actively worked on campaigns in partisan politics year after year, candidate after candidate. For the most part, we are at home, on the couch, observing from the armchair.
The older I get, the more labels I leave behind; not because they are no less true for me now than they were yesterday, but more because I am leaning into writing, speaking and living my values in ways that harmonize and do no harm to the humanity we all share. My conscious intention is to do no harm. Let that sink in. What a world we would live in if each of us held the conscious intention to do no harm – not in our thinking (about ourselves or others), not in our speaking and not in our doing. Most of us probably can’t even imagine a world in which human beings did no harm to one another.
I am human and I think nothing human is alien to me.
Roman playwright Publius Terentius Afer (c. 195/185 – c. 159 B.C.), in his play Heauton Timorumenos (The Self-Tormentor, c. 163 B.C.), is famously credited with writing this 77th line: “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,” or “I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me.” This line from one neighbor is spoken in response to another’s question: “Have you got so much free time as to concern yourself with other people’s affairs which have nothing to do with you?” Translated another way, the other neighbor returned this answer: “I’m human: nothing human is not my concern.”
As political identities converge into the realities of everyday life in America, one is ever choosing the filters through which one hears and sees. We pick our trusted sources of information and we believe what our trusted figures tell us. These podcasts and social media streamers give us something new to think about and reinforce what we already believe; they either educate or indoctrinate. This fine line is a delicate balance. Are you being educated or are you being indoctrinated?
Age and experience, if you are living consciously, reveal a more seasoned consciousness, a more refined way of being and a more nuanced style of self-expression. One realizes the virtues of honey and vinegar, that one is tastier and more palatable than the other in getting over one’s point of view.
Instruction #24 of The Maxims of Ptahhotep (c. 2375-2350, Ancient Kemet) teaches: “If you are a man of trust/One who sits in the council of his lord/Direct your attention toward excellence/Your silence will be more profitable than babbling/So speak only when you know that you are qualified to do so/It is only the proficient who should speak in council/For speech is more difficult than any craft/And only the competent can endow it with authority.”[1]
Speech is more difficult than any other craft. Just let that sink in for a minute. Speech is more difficult than any other craft.
In our current social media era of Likes, Clicks and Views, upon which new and future business models are now being built and sustained, our use of the written word and speech is ever intensified, as streamers seek to draw audiences to their platforms.
My point here is this: let us learn to speak to each other, with each other and about each other without labeling one another as anything other than human. In this politically charged season, let us learn the spiritual art and practice of discoursing with one another with our humanity trumping (forgive me!) all other labels that might be put upon us and that we are inclined to heap upon ourselves. This is a civil discourse, respectful, courteous, kind even.
If you, in the privacy and sanctity of your own mind, skip to the last day of your life on this earth, to the last minute you will have on this planet, to the last words you will ever speak and to the last thoughts you will ever think here in this realm, which of the many labels you now identify with will actually be the one to carry you into the ever after? Which of your values will usher you into life after everything we know in the here and now?
The older I get, the more labels I leave behind.
I am human and I think nothing human is alien to me.