An interesting thing that people tend to do is categorize everything. It is as if a key part of understanding something is to relate it to something else and put it into a category. I have to admit that when using only words to communicate, categories can be a useful comprehension tool.

The problem I see all the time is when people try to categorize people. There is no possible way a person can be defined by a single category, unless that category is unique to that person (making it not really a category anymore). Even a list of categories combined together forms only a very limited and very shallow perception of a person. That is not even accounting for the fact that the word or phrase used to identify a category has a different meaning to every person that sees it.

So as an exercise in exploration, I will try to identify several categories that I think I at least have commonality with. I will just list several words or phrases that summarily describe some aspect of me without any detail. I am curious to think how each person reading this list will fill in the details and what their picture of me will be as a result. I doubt there is any good way to compare these varied interpretations using only words, but it is still fun to think about it.

So, here is the list, in the order that they happened to pop into my head:

• Succubus
• Demon
• Lover
• Warrior
• Lesbian
• Polyamorous
• Old Soul
• Nudist
• Sexual
• Female
• Spiritual
• Student
• Engineer
• Orphan
• Strong

I could keep going if I thought long enough, but that is as far as I got in a couple minutes time. Writing that list felt like some sort of psychological evaluation exercise. I wonder what I learned (or should have learned) from it…