It was incredibly sad to read about the shooting of various US congressmen, their staff, and other colleagues a few days ago in Virginia. Besides being yet another in a long list of (mass) shootings in the US, it is another reminder of the stark divisions that exist in US society. And although we’ll never know exactly what motivated James Hodgkinson to shoot all those people last Wednesday, we do get some glimpse into his mind by what he said before the shooting and what was found in his pocket.

Before James began shooting he asked a bystander whether or not the players on the field were Republicans. After he was shot dead by a policeman a note was found in his pocket with a list of names of Republican congressmen. So you could say – and you would echo what the media, politicians, and most commentators are saying – that this is a politically-motivated shooting. And yet by saying this you will be missing the mark completely. James didn’t take a loaded gun to a baseball field in Virginia to reduce the number of Republicans in congress, or to change the politics of Washington, or to press his own political agenda, but rather he went there to shoot his inner emotional demons that he labeled as ‘Republicans’.

Labels: Benefits vs. Dangers

Labels – a powerful tool that our mind uses to categorize, recognize, store, and retrieve. And unfortunately, a tool that all too often gets used to create an illusion of reality that we rely on like a crutch. The moment we forget that the labels in our head are simply a way for our brain to quickly file things, we start living a dangerous illusion that leads us away from reality and into a dark world of nameless empty souls that fill our lives.

 We all use labels. There’s nothing wrong with labels in themselves. The danger lies in using a label as a crutch, or an excuse, to not take responsibility for our lives. So when James Hodgkinson placed the label ‘Republican’ on Steve Scalise (one of the people he shot at the baseball field in Virginia), he actually placed the label ‘Republican’ on his inner pain and projected it outside of himself so that he didn’t have to take responsibility for what he felt. Emotional pain is incredibly hard to deal with because it doesn’t bleed, doesn’t show, and you can’t close your eyes to avoid it.

 And it’s not just the people we read about in the news shooting other people that use labels. People that work in the media use labels, people that work as politicians use labels, and you and I use labels. And it is our own personal use of labels that creates the divisions that we see in our personal relationships, our families, our workplaces, and in society as a whole. Whenever we use labels that create the idea of ‘us’ and ‘them’, we create division, isolation, and anxiety. You know how it feels: When someone places a label on you it kills your uniqueness, your dignity, and your freedom to express who you are. Labels kill your humanity.

 Using Labels Responsibly

And so it is up to us to take responsibility for using labels wisely. Labels are there as a tool for quickly organizing and filtering, but never ever mistake a label for something real. Whether it is the label ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘boyfriend’, or ‘girlfriend’, or it is ‘manager’, ‘president’, or ‘boss’, or it is ‘Jewish’, ‘Muslim’, or ‘Catholic’, or ‘Republican’ or ‘Democrat’, never ever forget this: you’re talking about a unique person, with a name, a heart, and a vast inner world that you will never ever be able to condense into a single label.

 It’s time for a change in the way we communicate with each other in the media, in politics, in business, and at home and on the street. It’s time we used people’s names; and that we assign actions to people instead of ideas, movements, organizations, and cultures. It’s time for a revolution in thought and heart. It’s time that we break through the illusions we’ve created for ourselves that shackle us to the labels on the outside, and we see the world for what it really is: a sea of humanity expressing itself in all of its limitless beauty.