From the beginning of our lives, we are categorized; then, taught the comfort and solidarity of this categorization, we learn to categorize ourselves. To be left without a category, or in the wrong one, brings discomfort and lost identity; to achieve one brings relief. Allow me to demonstrate.
The categories we get assigned at birth exist because of grand social and political systems. The first thing that happens when we enter this world is the proclamation, "It's a girl/boy!" And we are thus categorized into one or another gender. Those who are assigned the wrong gender, or who don't fit neatly into these two groups, feel uncomfortable in their identity and often get ostracized if they choose to live their own sense of the truth. Another category we receive instantly is citizenship. Now that belonging to one state or another has become, essentially, a global requirement, to be born without citizenship of a certain state allows a certain feeling of drifting, of not belonging anywhere. And to be incidentally born in one place or another then confines us to a very different type of life; this is why some people choose to attempt to birth their children in different countries.
Once massive social and political categorizations such as these are assigned, we reach a stage of life in which we begin to socially categorize one other on micro levels (though these often become recognizable even outside of our own circles). These are governed largely on perception of attire, temperament, and personality, and lead us to be placed in certain cliques, into groups of possible friends. These categorizations are often based in part on our socioeconomic classes, and often also on our race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.
But the majority of us sense that these categorizations are not enough, that people don't understand us, that we don't understand ourselves. We recognize in all of our introspection that we are not only the way we are perceived, that there is something in the individual person that transcends.
And what has been our answer, to make us feel as if, finally, someone truly understands us, as if we finally fit, as if it all makes sense? More categorizations. This is of our own doing: personality tests. Many of the bios we write on our social media pages have come to list our Myers-Briggs types, or, more recently, our enneagram type. Some people even use astrological systems in which they don't fully believe to discover personality categories in which they do believe, only to place themselves in a group.
By neatly sectioning off our personalities, we find a sense of belonging with some group of people or another. And these categories speak so well to our very inner thoughts, our senses of the world, that they seem right. And they often to help provide guidance for our career searches, our relationship navigations, and even our self-understanding. But their significance stops there.
All of these categorizations are not bad in and of themselves. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, they can even be helpful guides as we navigate our interactions and choices. But they should never make those choices for us. They oversimplify us.
We cannot be categorized. We are fascinated by the categories in which people get placed in the dystopic futures of science fiction novels. We respond to these cautionary tales by considering which of those categories we would be put into. We are so in love with the idea of fitting into a group that we allow ourselves to be simplified.
If you choose to identify with a group, that's wonderful. But don't turn your life into a playing out of exactly what that group is proclaimed to do. You are still an individual. You are always an individual.
And every true group has acknowledged the diversity of the individuals in it.
