h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sad to hear about you being depressed. I know there is a lot to be depressed about in the current world, where the daily news is more surreal than a lot of what science fiction could come up with.

Don't worry about lack of deep thought from your side. Even if it is not deep from your exacting standards point of view, it is still deeper than a lot of what's out there otherwise.

A satirical news website I follow has some trouble following up with anything more ludicrous than what was actually happening in the news, but I did like their article stating that President Trump signed Murphy's Law retroactively, starting January 20th.

I agree with you that it is good to have all different kinds of people in the world to learn from. I do not like the way that people apparently need to have a label of what they are all the time, because in my opinion, everybody is unique. (so you'd need 8-and-a-bit billion labels to do that correctly).

Well said Caiman.

I think there is a place for labels, but they do need to be used with care - I like the idea of labels being like name badges, rather than as something other people assign to people (like 'failure' as DG says) A name-badge type label can help people to find communities with specific things in common, to share understanding and to learn from similarities and differences. Different badges would be relevant in different contexts (I'm not a fan of wearing all badges at all times, as you say, like 'bring your whole self to work' schemes, as I prefer to choose what I'm focusing on - eg sometimes I am Disabled Employee Supporting Disabled Colleagues, and sometimes I'm Employee on the Telephone so my Wheelchair isn't Visible).

Hey, thanks, both of you! Your Deep Thoughts cheered my Deep Thoughts up enormously.

Caiman, you're right - there's so much more to people than those labels. If people would remember that about each other they might also remember that there's always a way around a disagreement.

And Sasha, I get your point, too - that there are aspects of ourselves we use when we interface with other people in different settings. And maybe that nametag is all the other person can use from you right now. That's something we can use when we teach or write and ask ourselves which of our selves needs to handle that job?

I was suddenly reminded of this metaphor from Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which Captain Picard analyses an artefact that they just made up. But it's a good one: we all have worlds inside. That's why people are precious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIRQF8PPvUU

Glad I could be of help cheering you up.

My whole family consists of individuals that are hard to label.

My daughter has always been herself, but during the first years of secondary school she had trouble fitting into the crowd of identical skinny jeans / black top / ponytail 'don't stand out' classmates.
Then, three years and some adolescence later, half of her class has decided they must 'identify' themselves. The generic result: When in doubt, tick the transgender box. She does sometimes get a bit tired of the added complexity of keeping track of all the current pronouns and first names of her friends.

"we all have worlds inside" - that is an excellent metaphor from ST:TNG

I am biased, but I do think there's a lot to be said for non-binary as an identity, as a tool to help people break free from 'this is for boys and that is for girls' and find new interests - good luck to them all (I was fortunate that my parents and schools didn't set expectations on me because of the label on my birth certificate, or even because of my disability, so I was given a wide set of choices/experiences from which to decide what I enjoy best even before I had the vocabulary to describe the self-awareness I developed since the age of 2 )

There are definite limitations to labels - like the example 'there's no such thing as a fish', because when you go past the broad category, you can find things that are commonly called fish but which have more differences than similarities in narrower categories.

I forgot to mention - here's an article that popped up in my social media yesterday "James Baldwin taught us that identities can help us to locate ourselves. But they trap us too" http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/james-baldwin-taught-us-that-identities-can-help-us-to-locate-ourselves-but-they-trap-us-too/ar-AA1C9YpV?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=80e9523b3b5e4577b38fc3cf19dc0dd7&ei=86

I like it. 'Baldwin began to grasp that identities are necessary fictions helping us locate ourselves in the world but also trapping us within it.' Very true! Cool dude, James Baldwin.

About the teenagers: my generation of teenagers in the 60s were accused of trying to be 'different' by all being alike. That was not really accurate, no matter what it looked like to outsiders: sure, there was a faddishness about the clothing, as always - mostly because teenagers don't usually have that much to choose from besides what's in the shops, even if they're head shops. But there was an honest attempt to draw a wider circle, and my friends and I appreciated it because my friends were always the 'odd' kids and now we felt less odd.

If today's kids are learning to shake free of stereotypes and gender-role categories that are imprisoning people, then I'm all for it. Of course they get tangled in pronouns and such - that's the way teenagers work out these trends. After all, they're going to be the ones to inherit the fallout of whatever culture wars are going on. Let 'em talk among themselves, they'll get there and surprise everybody.

I just had a flash memory: all of my classmates up on stage at the end of the talent show in 1969. Me pounding away at the piano. And everybody singing 'Aquarius' to raise the roof. Nobody knew what to do with us, either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCXSA_biSw4

Still waiting for peace to guide the planets and love to steer the stars.

I have the happy hardcore version of Aquarius in my playlist. Does that count?

We'll see how/what the teenagers turn out to be. I still have hope.

Since you mention 'pounding on the piano'... I still have to get the message through (to my son) that when the score says Fortissimo, this can be scaled down for training purposes, to appease the neighbours and increase the service life of our piano (it survived some 60 years so far)

When I was in high school - at the same time that I was doing the aforementioned vigorous playing of 'Aquarius', plus a more soulful rendition of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' and such - we had a choir director who was a jazz pianist in his free time.

Now, this director, who was a large, athletically-built guy, was too impatient to allow the accompanists to play the vocal parts for practice. He stood at the instrument and hit the single notes loudly and stiff-fingered and HARD.

We had to have the piano tuned before every public performance. The school administrators complained about the expense.