Consistency/Inconsistency

A word on consistency and labels: we could do better without them.

This is quite unfortunate since we live in a society of strict labeling: girl, boy, liberal, conservative, Muslim, bible-thumper, secular, middle-aged, black, white, bad student, good student, ugly, beautiful, rich, poor….what’s worse is that every one of these labels assume certain identities and expectations. By labeling, we trick our minds into thinking we know.

In a world with so much variety, variation, and outcome, our mind has no other choice but to compartmentalize. If we were unable divide, organize, and put things in their proper boxes and files, our minds would overload and burn out. But I like to think we are bright enough to further question our own labels and definitions of what we think things are and are not, and who we think people are and are not.

Ralph Waldo Emerson has a lot to say on this topic in his essay, Self Reliance, which I turn to when feeling the pressures of my own labels:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

Consistency (or more specifically, foolish consistency) leads to boredom and predictability, a life where decisions are made based on comfort and expectation. To live like this is to live an untrue life. I wish to live in the moment, and to make decisions based on the context and color of those moments.

We build our identities by the choices we make, the conversation we make. But nothing is ever the same, change is ever-occurring, and each one of us is dynamic, changing dramatically with each day. We become older and wiser with every moment that passes. Each day is a new opportunity, with myriad choices to choose from, and if we wish, we have the power to divert from the known, the labels, and go somewhere new.

Once we understand this, we can shift our view by accepting that we don’t truly know anything (or anyone–even our own self), and take every interaction as its first. We must honor the people around us for their dynamics; we must accept them for their process, not their static label our culture deems necessary.

Being inconsistent is not the same as being hypocritical. The difference is in the intent: inconsistency comes from the unpredictable choices one makes from living in the exact context of any present moment, hypocrisy is claiming to be one thing while secretly adhering to its opposite. Inconsistency is based on truth, hypocrisy from deceit.

So call me inconsistent, because that is how I strive to live my life: truthfully and in the moment.

EMERSON ON FOOLISH CONSISTENCY

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think…You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.”

“To be great is to be misunderstood.”