We like things in neat and cute labeled packages. We like to categorize, identify and understand. We need control, organization and predictability. That is how we are designed, we are designed to label, identify and associate with things that we understand. Sadly, if we don't understand something, we ignore it, alienate it, deny its existence, we get scared. The truly scary thing is, sometimes when we get scared, we condemn it.
But what happens if you're so stuck in between that you can't be labeled? You're hard to label? Too complicated to label? what then?
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine approached me. She asked, "I wish i know the feeling of being over-confident, over-perasanness" were her exact words. Here i am, Mr. Perasan, immediately thought she was indirectly saying that i am "over-confident, over-perasan" replied, "It is a great feeling, you can be who you want to be and not care about what other people think." (attempting to make myself look good, if in fact she was referring to me.) It is not until we start talking further on in the conversation that i realized my friend is insecure. Trying to do my part to engage in the conversation and making her feel better i said, "We as a society like to label ourselves so much that we tend to stick to one extreme, in your case, being insecure or being over-confident. If you're not able to feel over-confident, then you immediately think of yourself as being insecure. What we fail to realize is that we exist better when we're in between. When we don't put a label to everything. We don't have to stick to only one extreme, why not just be confident? That way you won't have to feel like you have to hide in your little shell of "i suck" or even burst out every second with "i rock suckas!". No one likes a show-off." Being in between, in my opinion, is being in a state of balance, where you have just the right amount of the good stuff and the bad.
I'm a little surprised that society often claim that the idea of "being in between" does not exist. It is actually quite laughable to me because i don't understand where that view comes from. In some situations, when we don't choose, when we remain in between, others would say things like "that whole being neutral, being balanced, being in between thing does not really exist, being in between? C'mon man." Personally, i feel like "being in between" plays into a large spectrum in our lives as a whole. As a society, we like to put things into little boxes and say that, "you know, this is this, that is that, there's nothing in between. You're either this or this." BUT THAT'S NOT HOW LIFE IS. It is a large spectrum and i think we can all agree that everyone is different and special in their own way. On one hand, you do have the two extremes, and this way of thinking is unavoidable.
Take sexuality for an example, you have the gay/lesbian people that would never think of sexually touching someone of the opposite sex, and you have the straight people, who would never think of sexually touching someone of the same sex. These two extremes have such different ideas, beliefs and feelings that they become bigots to their own sets of ideas and beliefs -so they disagree and condemn each other. But what of those in between? The bisexuals? Often times you'll hear straight people say, "Bisexual? nah this dude's gay." and the gays would say, "Bisexual? no honey, you one of us. Lets dance to Madonna." (Ohhh the stereotypes. I don't mean anything by it, it was just a joke. Let the record be shown that i do not actually think that all gays dance to Madonna.) But what most of us fail to realize that, there are so many people in between, and again in this context, just because someone is a little bit in between does not mean that they're gay, it does not mean that they're straight either. THERES A HUGE SPECTRUM OF PEOPLE AND EVERYBODY HAVE DIFFERENT FEELINGS. You can't classify somebody's feelings and say, "well you're gay, because you're this and this and this". There's no certain criteria, your feelings is just part of who you are.
I think that this is one of the biggest problems we have as a society in which that we try to label people and it just DOESN'T WORK. In context to my friend earlier and sexuality, the whole idea of labeling is the reason why there are so many people, such as she, going through these kind of problems because they simply don't know that they can be in between. We give them these things and say, "if you're this and this and this, you're insecure. you're gay" and "if you're this and this and this, you're perasan. you're straight". We really give them no room for in betweens and there are a lot of people that are in between. I think as a society we shouldn't persecute people for being in between.
But what happens if you're so stuck in between that you can't be labeled? You're hard to label? Too complicated to label? what then?
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine approached me. She asked, "I wish i know the feeling of being over-confident, over-perasanness" were her exact words. Here i am, Mr. Perasan, immediately thought she was indirectly saying that i am "over-confident, over-perasan" replied, "It is a great feeling, you can be who you want to be and not care about what other people think." (attempting to make myself look good, if in fact she was referring to me.) It is not until we start talking further on in the conversation that i realized my friend is insecure. Trying to do my part to engage in the conversation and making her feel better i said, "We as a society like to label ourselves so much that we tend to stick to one extreme, in your case, being insecure or being over-confident. If you're not able to feel over-confident, then you immediately think of yourself as being insecure. What we fail to realize is that we exist better when we're in between. When we don't put a label to everything. We don't have to stick to only one extreme, why not just be confident? That way you won't have to feel like you have to hide in your little shell of "i suck" or even burst out every second with "i rock suckas!". No one likes a show-off." Being in between, in my opinion, is being in a state of balance, where you have just the right amount of the good stuff and the bad.
I'm a little surprised that society often claim that the idea of "being in between" does not exist. It is actually quite laughable to me because i don't understand where that view comes from. In some situations, when we don't choose, when we remain in between, others would say things like "that whole being neutral, being balanced, being in between thing does not really exist, being in between? C'mon man." Personally, i feel like "being in between" plays into a large spectrum in our lives as a whole. As a society, we like to put things into little boxes and say that, "you know, this is this, that is that, there's nothing in between. You're either this or this." BUT THAT'S NOT HOW LIFE IS. It is a large spectrum and i think we can all agree that everyone is different and special in their own way. On one hand, you do have the two extremes, and this way of thinking is unavoidable.
Take sexuality for an example, you have the gay/lesbian people that would never think of sexually touching someone of the opposite sex, and you have the straight people, who would never think of sexually touching someone of the same sex. These two extremes have such different ideas, beliefs and feelings that they become bigots to their own sets of ideas and beliefs -so they disagree and condemn each other. But what of those in between? The bisexuals? Often times you'll hear straight people say, "Bisexual? nah this dude's gay." and the gays would say, "Bisexual? no honey, you one of us. Lets dance to Madonna." (Ohhh the stereotypes. I don't mean anything by it, it was just a joke. Let the record be shown that i do not actually think that all gays dance to Madonna.) But what most of us fail to realize that, there are so many people in between, and again in this context, just because someone is a little bit in between does not mean that they're gay, it does not mean that they're straight either. THERES A HUGE SPECTRUM OF PEOPLE AND EVERYBODY HAVE DIFFERENT FEELINGS. You can't classify somebody's feelings and say, "well you're gay, because you're this and this and this". There's no certain criteria, your feelings is just part of who you are.
I think that this is one of the biggest problems we have as a society in which that we try to label people and it just DOESN'T WORK. In context to my friend earlier and sexuality, the whole idea of labeling is the reason why there are so many people, such as she, going through these kind of problems because they simply don't know that they can be in between. We give them these things and say, "if you're this and this and this, you're insecure. you're gay" and "if you're this and this and this, you're perasan. you're straight". We really give them no room for in betweens and there are a lot of people that are in between. I think as a society we shouldn't persecute people for being in between.
I like doughnuts and cupcakes, does that mean that i have to pick one? That i eventually must only eat doughnuts? I have different views on BN and PKR, does that mean that i will affiliate myself with only BN or PKR totally, probably not. I have my own sets of beliefs and I'm in between.
(What is better than doughnut and cupcake? CUPCAKE-DOUGHNUTS YOO!!)
We make people commit and it just doesn't make sense to make them commit to just one thing. I'm just saying that we should probably keep our minds open on this type of thing. We should realize that there are differing things and that there's a scale for pretty much everything. There's so much "in between" that we shouldn't have to label things as this and that. We should free ourselves from labels. (i'm not saying go out and buy pirated/cetak rompak dvd's, clothes).
You get the idea. I hope.
I'd like you guys to think about this issue, chew it over, spit it out if you don't like it, you can swallow it if you like. (I'd like that too). If you have your own beliefs or if you disagree, i'd like to hear them down at the comments section. If you agree, heck yeah, put that down there too.
P.S Don't do drugs and make good choices. Stay in school. Eat, pray, love. Be in between.
If you're still skeptical, look at Hannah Montanah, she's got the best of both worlds!!
You get the idea. I hope.
I'd like you guys to think about this issue, chew it over, spit it out if you don't like it, you can swallow it if you like. (I'd like that too). If you have your own beliefs or if you disagree, i'd like to hear them down at the comments section. If you agree, heck yeah, put that down there too.
P.S Don't do drugs and make good choices. Stay in school. Eat, pray, love. Be in between.
If you're still skeptical, look at Hannah Montanah, she's got the best of both worlds!!
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