CategorizingWhere do you fit in?

As I've stated a little bit before in the comments on my post on paranoia, people have a tendency to categorize everything. This is a tree, that is an animal, those are definitely clouds. And even among ourselves we tend to put people into categories to greater or lesser extend. Chav, geek, posh, whatever.

Why I want to talk about this is because a lot of people have a problem with this. They do not wish to accept that they belong to a multitude of people with similar behavior that can, in fact, be seen as a category of people. Now, this is perfectly normal behavior, as no one wants to think of themselves as predictable and simple.

And we aren't.

Any category we belong to, for whatever reason (star sign, income, age, mental stability, etc.) is not a description of who we are, but just to define part of us. A label to help us differentiate between facets of people. And we all do this. Why do we name different terriers instead of calling them 'small yappy dogs'?

And yet we are.

Actions cause reactions. That is all we are. We act and react on everything around us and we are not unique in this. As you can predict actions (or rather reactions) of people, based on experience or research, there must be some part of us that is not unique. A lot of it, in fact. Why else would advertising work?

So, which category do you belong to? The accepters or the resistors?