Classified

Why do we feel the need to classify things? 

Don't get me wrong, I am all for organization. My closet is color coded and my socks are sorted by season. But, sometimes I wonder if our psychological need to define and classify, actually restricts. If we must always fit in, how do we stand out? If we must always conform, how do we improve? Categorization like this could be the root of the social challenges we are still debating today. Categorization is the root of discrimination.

People are classified in a million different ways–by race, by gender, by economic status, by geography, by age, by sexuality and many, many more. But what makes a man? What makes a woman? What makes a success? Or a failure? What if you don't fit into any category? What then?

People are people.  That is the only categorization we need. 

No matter if you are gay, straight, transgender, white, black, buddist, catholic, he, she, they, rich, poor, eastern, western, northern, southern, skinny, fat, somewhere in the middle, you are always, first, human. 

Our humanity is our strength. It is the one basis of comparison we have tying us together. It is our one similarity that we must use to unite us. One day, it may be possible to look across a crowd and see only fellow humans. A wide variety of beautiful, different human beings that are all the same in their efforts to live a life.

After all, none of us live alone. We all live together.