Writing Submission (non-fiction)
Any feedback/edits highly appreciated. My main concern is if I'm lowkey losing the plot and how to make it flow better. Thanks!
The taxonomy of everything
It is an inherently human desire to sort and categorize. We are primed from childhood, intently placing triangles and squares into their respective holes. As we age, we get better at distinguishing circles from squares and squares from rectangles. We notice faces, smiling or frowning, and we then come to understand the emotions that accompany those visages. We categorize anything and everything from feelings to food. There is rarely a thing in this world that resists a label, and if one does happen upon such a rarity, it is a deeply human act to name it immediately.
We rarely deign to let things meander within the realm of obscurity. Our brains are designed for pattern recognition, and it brings us great comfort to sort the inconcrete into neat piles: boy, girl; inside, outside; up, down; left, right; black, white. It is within these gray areas that an uncertain, uneasy feeling exists. We find that sometimes, it is harder to let things remain as they are and let the chips fall where they may.
This need for control extends beyond our daily lives; it is embedded in our subconscious and projected onto the physical realm. We organize ourselves into lists that aid us with our interests and responsibilities: the reading list, the to-do list, and the playlist, to name a few. Curating our own internal spaces reflects our personality: What am I doing? What am I consuming? What are my interests? We give our top ten, our blind ranking, and our stars out of five. It feels satisfying when those around us accept our categorizations. We categorize those who agree most with us as friend, best friend, lover. Cultures different from our own feel strange to us because they are not the traditionally accepted norms we have been conditioned for. There is one way to act and another not to.
However, there do seem to be some universal truths, like that fresh grass is green, though it can be debated in some sense. Who is to say we all aren’t color blind, except for the people we label as color-impaired? Our biases inherently shape our perception of the world around us. Some of us rank ourselves in terms of the world around us as a form of social hierarchy: she’s prettier, I’m more successful, he has more money. This is not a constructive way to live.
The act of resisting the overwhelming urge to sort and file is an opportunistic moment to learn some of life’s most valuable lessons. You learn to listen rather than to judge. In the ambiguous, you can learn about others: how a worldview shapes a single viewpoint. Following one path in life doesn’t automatically assort you into a box you can never escape. Your career, your hobbies, your taste, your style, all amalgamate to who you are: you are a singularity. Don’t be afraid to be miscellaneous.