Titles

I've been thinking a lot about titles lately, and by lately I mean for like the past ten minutes. We live in a world that embraces titles, man, woman, American, Christian, black, white, doctor, so on and so forth. I think that titles are a way for us to feel connected to other people that are in the same groups we put ourselves in, I mean it's kind of like when I find out that someone else likes Cactus Cooler as much as I do. Now I can talk to this person about how great the pineapple is, or maybe how incredible the orange is, or how crazy it is when those two get together and fuse into pure awesomeness. Either way, this person and I now have a connection and we can relate to each other through this.

While some people may find that to be a silly analogy, ( okay it is ) it's still something we do. I mean when I was in Europe, while I totally dug the accents ... Something made me feel comforted to hear an American accent.

The more I thought about this, the more I started to realize that this may be what's wrong with the world ... okay, there's a lot more than just that wrong with the world, but I think that this may be one of the core issues.

See, when we obsess over these titles what we're really doing is obsessing over our differences, cause while my love for Cactus Cooler may connect me with a few people, it will most likely distance me from much more and this can be said about any title we slap onto ourselves.

The reason we have so many troubles in the Middle East is because we label ourselves Christians and Americans and they label themselves Iranian or Afghany and Muslim before either of us label ourselves HUMAN. They think we are immoral heathens and we think they're radical terrorists, and that's where we leave it, no chance for any type of relationship. Now that's kind of an extreme example but I think we use this daily in other smaller ways. Interactions with the fast food employee, bank teller, solicitor outside of the grocery store, homeless man on the corner, these people aren't people to us, they are those things I just labeled them, and nothing more than that, and if we don't have any of those things in common with them ... the chances of us connecting with them is remote, and I think that's where a lot of our problems come from.

What would happen if we allowed the people we randomly come in contact with throughout our days become real people, instead of just a title? I can only think of good things.