By Any Other Name…
Narrows Botanical Garden
June 12, 2022
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
Shakespeare, of course
Roses got me thinking things. Their yonic layers evoke all kinds of rumination. Like why are younger generations so desperate to allow a word to embody them?… to enthusiastically grant supreme power to words? As if their identity is contingent upon others knowing it, grasping it quickly?
To save them the discovery they’ve yet to understand through experience, and to quote my high school self who grew up in the best generation (as evident by the residual traits, interests, values and non-snowflakeness), “Labels are for soup cans.”
A word could never, should never, capture the complexity that is you. This incessant need to define one’s identity for others exemplifies a cringy neediness I find kind of pathetic. Is the appearance and acceptance of said identity perhaps more important than, say, just being your authentic self? The authentic self exists whether you broadcast it to all, whether anyone knows or not. You are a million things–all of you.
In my day (LOL) you didn’t want acceptance. You rebelled from the establishment and didn’t complain you weren’t part of it. Your tribe showed your values–misfits of all races, gender identities and sexual preferences. Rebellion from normies allowed the diversity quite naturally, not with force and showmanship, as did being deeply thoughtful and open IRL–traits that epitomized Gen X. Hyper-sensitive but not offended–maybe ever. We felt and experienced things deeply. And being called shallow or a “poser” were the worst insults.
Now that’s all there is: shallow posers who are wholly unaware of how much they don’t know but, worse, don’t even mind. Their music stinks, their movies stink, their media stinks because it is all created for those with the emotional range of a child. A child who whines about everything and to whom the deeper meaning is lost, a child who needs to be protected with warnings and fine print. Or it is exploiting nostalgia, dumbing it down for the newbies.
I am so many ways that has no names, so many withins and in-betweens. I wish not to deliver myself to you in an instant, a word in which I know not the context you contribute to its interpretations. How you can run with it your own way. Aren’t I a victim to this interpretation, your perspective, shaped by an infinite quantity of previous interactions—each having nothing to do with me; each capable of distortion let alone its compounding. And yet, we declare our teams let their cookie cutter trim off all that skews the shape you expect.
No. I’m a countertop of cookie dough, unincorporated, unevenly distributed, subject to earthen elements and just as fickle. I am me. And that’s the only word I’ll declare.
Can’t we embrace the rich complexity and the beautiful spectrum that is an individual? Can a namesake encompass you; can it encompass anything? Does everything we “are” have or need a word? I say no.
I’ve recently learned of an intellectual movement I appreciate: heterodoxy. But how absurd we need a movement in thinking critically and for ourselves… not allowing a collective identity (a word!) dictate our thoughts and feelings on a myriad of topics.
This is what the roses brought to mind. Do you disagree? Then respect diversity in this most important form: perspective. And discuss. It’s a pretty revolutionary act right now.