We all know what God said to Moses when asked for identity, name, label, or etiquette: “I am who I am”.
One can not label the Truth, because the Truth is eternal, and unlimited, infinite. Putting labels is the same as setting limits. We want to categorize/classify someone/something to build the structure of our worldview, while searching for quick understanding, like in a sports game, the result is the label that sums up the entire one or two or more hours of battle between two opponents. Knowing who is a better team or player by reading the label seems like real knowledge, it does not matter one can not explain why a certain team won, whatever positive is said about the winner seems true. Focusing on the result is like a judgment, fixing the reality in time giving no chance to make a mistake, chasing the goal (desire) over the path (iteration to perfection). The result becomes a heavy burden for the one who lost.
What matters is the path, the learning curve, the experience, finding the solution, and the belief that we can achieve the goal if only we stay on the path: disciplined and patient. We can not know when/if it happens but we hope/trust it happens.
Every top athlete after years of practicing, understands the focus should be on the game, doing what is right most of the time, and hoping for the best. Bruce Lee's, “be like water, my friend” means accepting reality and doing our best, not changing the reality but ourselves, that means being flexible, as opposed to stiff or sclerotic.
Labels work the exact opposite, they fix, define, and put boundaries, like judgments. Rules/discipline on the other hand work for us to help us stay on the path of least resistance and acquire the virtue we desire. Virtue leads to freedom. We hardly feel there are rules when we become who we are, free. But labels enslave and categorize into buckets for comparison: more or less, the winner or the loser. They are superficial, the appearance of reality.
This is why a person without belief/hope and enslaved seeks labels/etiquette more than Truth to reach freedom from those labels, but higher in ranking. The label feels like a flag we wave around in front of everyone’s eyes, confirming status/the reality, like a badge on the general coat the more you have them the greater man you are. And sometimes we do whatever it takes to get the result fixed the way we want without letting fair play, but using control over others. We make judgments based on labels: comparing what is more or less. And that seems rational to do to a person who believes in labels.
So if God is who he is, who are we then? We are creatures, those “who are not”, but have a choice to become who we are, unlimited in the way He is.
We have not called ourselves into life, we can not control the end of our life nor can we control who we can become, all we can do is respond properly to every circumstance we find ourselves in just like an athlete who fights for the highest possible ranking but can not control the outcome other than controlling him/herself (self-control). Without love for the game, for the path, nobody would choose to become a competitor if there could only be a few of them on the top. Yet, people pursue their love for the sport despite uncertain outcomes, because it makes them true to their desires, supports their growth, and makes them more alive. We do not choose our desires they choose us.
Life is not a competition with others, we do not become less if the other person becomes more because what grows us to become who we are is the Spirit of Truth, an unlimited spirit. There is enough Sun for everyone, it can not be exhausted.
What deflates us is when we think we can grow ourselves: self-direct, self-determined. The more labels we need to attach to ourselves the more rigid and inflated we become. That always ends in stealing from others, and competing for finite resources because not connected to infinity. Because we are those who are not we can not create what we have not been given. Turned away from the source we feel anxious, and plagued by fears.
Just like the water seeks the way following the path of least resistance, so is our path of least resistance to follow the Truth. But that feels counterintuitive to those who seek safety, pleasures, and quick results; lack patience, self-control, and discipline. Surrendering their life to the false feeling, to lie, never thinking it through. Every lie has a sweet bite but bitter consequences.
The Truth is not our enemy but our food, that grows us into unlimited territory and makes us become who we are, those who can not be defined, godlike.
I can not self-determine nor self-direct my life, this is where many Hearts stumble upon, that they need to follow the Truth (rules) while they would rather self-direct, judge, and turn the world upside down rather than change themselves, control others rather than self-control, and quick fix rather than practice patience and hope.
What is easier to control the world or yourself? Controlling the world must be harder, the work that will never pay off, a complete lack of sanity, and sanctity. So that is the path of the most resistance, these people who rule the world work hard, but they do not take nice summer breaks. Bill Gates admits this here. In other words, if they can not control their Heart (self-control) they must control other people so that there is no contrast between them and the world. They desire to turn the world upside down the way they stand too (triangle upside down or incurvatus in see).
Delayed gratification is seen in psychology as a cornerstone of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a humble Heart: a heart that listens. Empathy is thinking about how other people might feel, and understanding in the Heart because you have experienced those or similar feelings. A hardened Heart does not feel other than fear of losing power /status in this world, never amazed and never afraid (of living a lie).
Labeling is the way those hardened Hearts exercise control over reality. We lack air, we suffocate and think those efforts must be rewarded by the others like a victory.
Hardened Heart feels life as a threat, seeks safety, and looks at other people as competition, and Truth as a death sentence to the empire they have built. They would rather die to be right than know the Truth because the entire pyramid of labels they built could collapse. This is a sinking cost fallacy, the fear of being wrong is so strong that it keeps them enslaved. How do we know they are addicted? Because they can not stop hoarding, whatever they do: money, pleasures, labels, work, power, or even prayers. There is a lack of moderation in everything they do.
Labels kill the fear of living a lie, the only rational fear in life we should live by. Being guided by the labels, and their appearance rather than substance we live a lie thinking those labels have been checked by others for substance, shifting the blame onto the other.
It is far more engaging to listen to what a person says than to make quick judgments about the person. When we lack arguments, we do ad hominem attacks like these: mentally insufficient, or foolish, without giving a minimum argument that proves the point. Labeling for that purpose is a perfect invention to fix the problem of possibly being wrong. Labeling is the same as not listening or judging. After the judge has made a decision he does not listen anymore.
Ego stands for edging God out. Imagine a sunflower that turns away from the light, making a suicidal move because thinking the Sun controls it, and it must be free from the Sun, on its own, while only through the sun does it grow.
We are those who are not. We need the Truth to become who we are like a sunflower needs the sun.
Since childhood, we are wired to become “someone”. To build ourselves up, we follow the procedure of becoming a person of value. We attach labels in the process: education, marital status, profession, hobbies, interests, religion, age, diseases, etc. We define ourselves, and others help us too, sometimes gladly for money, like when you go to a doctor and he finally gets you a nice diagnosis for life or makes a mistake so you become a patient. We love labels so much that in those thirty minutes of visiting a doctor, we accept yet another label to be called a patient (from Latin: sufferer). As labels act like a self-fulfilling prophecy from a normal healthy person one could suddenly turn into a lifelong sufferer.
Labeling theory was first acknowledged in sociology, and the power of labeling can be like imprisonment. Once you are attached to a label or diagnosis, it shapes your Mind. They work like a self-fulfilling prophecy if a person believes in them. Those who believe in labels love to collect labels themselves: constructing their self-image. We become “who we are” through the labeling process that we think we have control over.
So labeling works like judging/making a decision when we want to know what is right and wrong, and where the Truth lies we just look up the result/label. We need understanding, but without listening, seeking the equation between evidence and the result, thinking, experimenting, and doing some work. Reading the label fixes for all of that. Just like Eve wanted a quick fix, to be wise and enjoy the fruits simultaneously without ever breaking a grey cell.
We love that godlike position to judge: this is true and this is not, this is possible and this is not, like picking up from the buffet what we like and what we dislike at our preference, not bothering that we lack self-discipline, and patience to test the hypothesis against experiment or witnesses. If we can not hear the witness/neighbor how can we hear the Truth?
We do not seek the Truth but self-determination. When we listen more to our wicked Hearts than our neighbors, we play mini Gods. A neighbor is anyone who crosses his path with us in life, it could be just a street passenger, not just a real neighbor.
It takes a lot of practice to tell the right move on the chessboard in a few seconds, yet this is how fast we spit out our judgments in the form of labels. With no skin in the game, we think so, while our gut or Soul is tortured with yet another small/white lie.
Self-determination or self-direction is a lie, we are the ones who are not and should become who we are by embracing the path of the Truth. This means hearing what is true even when it comes from someone we do not like or have no time to listen to. Cherry picking in life is self-direction.
Humans think they are smart so usually they want both ways, like Eve, to be smart, wise, and know the Truth but not give up on self-determination ( I did it my way). Wisdom comes from fear, fear of God. Fear of lies is never an enjoyable position, it is brainstorming and looking for evidence, going through fear of being wrong even when you are not, or finding the mistake, admitting the problem, and finding the solution. It is not a stroll in the park, but the only way to grow is to analyze mistakes. To feel them and hate them.
The truth is always in the equation: if the company values its workers, the CEO would not have 400 times higher remuneration than the worker. The way one treats his workers will treat customers as well. But socialism took this truth and put a lie on it so that it means we are all equal. We all are not equal nor should be, but we should treat one another as equal until we have evidence we are not. Crony Capitalism made a caricature from the huge difference between us like that four hundred times salary. The Truth is always on a narrow path, in the middle of all the lies.
Listening to other people as one would listen to yourself is the equation of the Truth. And that means everyone who comes across our way, not just those who we like. If we do only what we like we are like Eve, there is no self-discipline. To drink from the well of the Truth one must give up on self -righteousness. This is the precondition for objectivity, to give credit where it should, not taking care of who the person is, or what labels he/she has. The moment we think the Truth came from within us we stop listening, we are self-sufficient, and in the liar’s mode: hubris took over. Immediately we start labeling ourselves and everyone around us, comparing, and competing for who is right and who is wrong.
Life is not a project we work on, but a mission we have been called into for the sake of others, not ourselves.
We love shortcuts and judgments so that our Minds can rest in “peace”, not having to think and make a decision, looking for the evidence. We discard what we do not like as if liking is what makes something true or false. This is why so many times you will hear that the Truth hurts. The Truth is heavy, it is why we need food that makes the Soul strong to be able to handle the Truth, and love the weight of it, instead of the lightness of lies that weaken her. We all know about empty calories, such are lies.
Probably one of the best descriptions of this situation is one with ten virgins: five wise and five foolish. The foolish virgins were virgins too, they had the appearance of virtue, but no substance. The label of a virgin was enough for them. When they ran out of oil they immediately asked for help. And wise virgins sent them out to buy the oil for their lamp. This is how they used to solve all of their problems in life by buying other people solutions when in need, never thinking for themselves, and never understanding what is true and what is not. So they went, to the last moment thinking that labels work, that not having an oil can be fixed with money.
Truth can not be bought it can only be experienced. Understanding comes from experience. This is what being blind with eyes open wide means, it has to move your Heart if not you stay numb to whatever appears in front.
Foolish virgins extracted too little oil out of their problems to spread light, or good news until the groom arrives. They have been used to buying solutions from others. Paying a steep price for a lie is the same as supporting the liar. Nobody can afford the lie, it is too costly.
There is a Latin proverb: nomen est omen. Or the name is a sign. For example, Joe Biden, one should have known is average Joe. I am joking but the Truth has a lot of wit if one pays attention to names as signs, yet we rarely use that wisdom. Why do we often forgo these simple signs yet trust with all our Hearts the labels?
If labels are all we put our trust in we are judges in Heart. We do not have that “godlike” feeling for things/gut feeling from our Soul that whispers quietly but confidently in the moment of a decision, we are too rigid and stiff just like those labels are. While Truth is the spirit and inspiration.
St. Paul once said: “ letter killeth spirit giveth life”. There is no life in labels but in the Spirit.
Laziness to think, to listen, and to seek equations makes us susceptible to lies. Recognizing which number is greater or less is not knowledge, knowledge is adding two plus two to make it four not five. It is not that complex, but the complex part here is to give up on our will, to modify the Truth to our likes. To discipline the Heart for loving the food that gives life to the Soul.
If we are never afraid to be wrong and never amazed by the Truth we anchor ourselves to labels, and we are behind the curve, just like the foolish virgins. We should be afraid of living a lie, even a single one. It is not important to be wrong in front of people, but in front of the Life creator because that is when we shrink, and lose time and opportunity to grow and become who we are (triangle upside down)
Because lies are best hidden under labels and on the surface. It is no wonder why they rush to give Nobel prizes to people like Barack Obama, or the inventor of mRNA vaccines Katalin Kariko. They live off of those labels.
Eve desired to discern between good and evil, and this is exactly what she got, we always get what we desire with all our Hearts. But it should better be the Truth.
If we are who we are, then it is not under our control who we are, it is God’s will. We surrender to the Truth completely. We are like a vessel, what we breathe in, we breathe out. If we breathe in a heavenly spirit, we light up the community, or an earthly spirit from below, we suffocate our Soul as the one around us. The ultimate stupidity is to say no to the light like a sunflower would say no to the sun. This is what the father of lies did. So yes one can be smart and utterly stupid simultaneously. Satan is so much more clever than we are but made the stupidest choice one could ever make: saying No to the Light with a full understanding of the consequences. Lies have no logic.
Love neighbor, as you love yourself, means not to love everyone around you more than yourself, but equally. The truth is in the equation always. If you trust yourself and not the other humans, you live a lie, and vice versa, if you trust an expert and not yourself, you live a lie. To live in the Truth is to choose one correct answer, all the rest are lies:
Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you.
For on him the Father, God, has set his seal."
So they said to him,
"What can we do to accomplish the works of God?"
Jesus answered and said to them,
"This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."
All the work is in believing in the Truth and fearing lies, fearing that someone or something is stealing your oil and keeping you in the darkness. There are no other rules in life than those two that Jesus left us with:
acknowledge you are NOT the Source of the Truth, live/love for the Truth with all your being
Love your neighbor as you love yourself, not more, not less. Seek the equation in everything. If you can not find the equation immediately, that is normal, do not give up. It is wisdom, fortitude, and counsel that develop in your Soul and help find the equation.
The society that worships experts lives in fear, the society that worships Truth lives from faith.
The direct consequence of how much we are slaves to the labels and etiquette, of categorizing people is the chronic lack of faith:
Nobody could help those men, even Jesus was amazed at the lack of faith. This is when we know the facts/ labels, nobody can make us believe that a carpenter could heal anyone, we know his past, his origin, and history, his labels. And Jesus knows the strong power of label imprisonment.
“ Isn't this the carpenter?” translates so well to those people who look for labels instead of the Truth.
They could not care less what the carpenter was talking about, whether it made sense or not, they could not be impressed under any circumstance with what he did, they had already made their judgment. And labels do work even in Jesus’ case as the self-fulfilling prophecy. He could not do much. This is the ultimate mistake of being a judge, that you attach labels and categories like a verdict to another person, becoming simultaneously stiff and superficial yourself, hardened like a dead man. Never amazed never afraid.
See even Jesus, who is God, could be amazed by either a lack of faith or a great faith.
People who follow the Truth are therefore never judgmental, stiff, or categoric about anything other than lies. They understand that making an oil for the lamp is their responsibility it can not be outsourced for money. The oil is the Truth we extract from our problems, it is why Saints wanted to bear other people’s problems rather than take solutions from them. Understanding can not be bought it can only be experienced in the Heart.
Jesus did the same, he took on himself our problems and extracted the solution for us.
We have to be light in this world until the end, or the groom won’t recognize us. To the last day, we must bring the light, good news to the world, this is our mission in life, but we do not become less because of it, but more. It is labels that make less of what we are. We are not the sum of the labels we are who we are.
CONCLUSION
All we have to do to grow is be like a sunflower, that turns to the Sun. We can not do both, turn towards the Sun and Earth at the same time as they are on opposite sides. Doing the thing in the middle is what foolish virgins tried to do: appear to worship the Lord but in reality rely upon other people all the time.
Labels make us think we can, be a Christian and a mob leader and whatever we like to identify as.
The freedom to do whatever we want has a steep price tag: eternal death. Those who pay that price, make you pay their steep prices too.
But we should never judge and always hope that it is not over until it is over and that people can change. Hope against hope.
We are those who are not, we are not to be trusted but tested. But our Soul is designed for heavy lifting, extracting Truth from the lies.
“I am who I am” is more than enough to be. This solves the feeling of not being enough, all the insecurities and fears and leaves us with the only rational fear: fear of God, or fear of living a lie.
"The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.", French Catholic novelist Leon Bloy