Funny how every life experience demands a label these days.
In healthcare and fitness circles, complex physical conditions must first be reduced to a pathology with a trendy sounding acronym. That “disease”, and I use the term loosely, astonishingly happens to be best addressed through the use of the products they just happen to be selling.
The marketplace is replete with coincidence.
Besides the frequent “good” or “bad” unsupported qualifications bantered about, every health or fitness issue must be associated with an ominous sounding label.
No longer can you have a pill that treats a symptom. That medication must treat a disease or condition that can be built into another sinister acronym. This accompanying drama is a coy marketing device designed to motivate and intimidate.
Fear is obviously a powerful marketing tool.
Mis-labeled
Social scientists and academics have been tinkering with different labeling conventions for a long time. The “what ifs” of human behavior are almost limitless. The studies of buyer behaviors when exposed to different colors, shapes, words, sounds, etc. have been a staple of the retail industry for decades. There is money to be made in pushing people’s unconscious buttons to make impulse buys.
Whether in a physical environment or a virtual one, people are social creatures and respond to certain words and ideas in society. Retail understands this.
So does politics.
Science and Dogma
Social constructs build connections that may or may not be supported by proof. They are just ideas to be entertained until no longer needed.
Classifications exist only in human thought. Nature does not subscribe to labels. Nature just does what Nature does.
Look around. Natural disasters abound. Fires, floods, pandemics, and death exist. It is people who assign meanings to these events. We like to second guess Nature, but such thinking changes little of the outcomes. Nature doesn’t care much about our labels and reminds us of that fact every day.
Weighing In
People tend to take themselves a bit too seriously – especially lately. To operate in the natural world, it pays to be humble and question ourselves, as well as the world around us.
Be skeptical and examine assumptions. Belief in a biological theory is not enough.
Be willing to be wrong. Just because something sounded like a reasonable explanation, does not make it so. Trust but verify. Always.
As mentioned before, I prefer to be wary of qualifying statements about things being good or bad. Such qualifications do not naturally exist.
We know that labels provide an illusion of human control over the natural environment. Stepping back from such assumptions can provide us with a clearer vision of what is truly around us.
As we live in a natural world, it can be nice to see what is around us. Nature is awesome pretty much all of the time without any need for labels.
“Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.”
― Toni Morrison
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