Pigeonhole

Each label slowly leaches away the individual until the profession itself becomes a prison of one's own making.The résumé problem is equally stark. Ask someone to describe themselves and the pigeonhole ritual begins almost automatically—occupation—nationality—age—education—where did you go to school? Notice that every one of these is merely an administrative category, and none of them answers the question of a unique identity. The Material Sludge and the system clones love labels because labels simplify bureaucracy, yet bureaucracy has never possessed the capacity to describe a living being. The trick up the sleeve of the free-range avatar is the continual expansion of cognition. Categories are temporary conditions—the pigeonhole is a static identity. The new reality is that everything alive changes, and so too should identity and life trajectory. After all, the pigeonhole was invented to organize paper—not human beings. Yet somewhere along the way, humanity decided that the pigeonhole was also suitable for organizing people, reducing living beings to pawns in someone else's game—one of civilization's greatest tragedies.The pigeonhole is a black hole of identity and should be avoided like the plague. Create your own pathway, for identity is never discovered through compartmentalization—it is forged along a personified trajectory.