Limitless
Reading provides an escape for me that few things match. Through the never ending learning I can engage in through a variety of nonfiction works out there, to the astonishing stories and worlds authors create through their fiction stories, and, in the most rare but spectacular occurrances, there are nonfiction works I’ve read that have taken me on a journey I narrowly assume to be only found in fiction works, like with Robin Wall Kimmerer or John Green or Barbara Brown Taylor.
Right now, I’m in the midst of a few books. One of them is Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry. The fiction story itself blends humor, mystery, and a lightness. But, within the story, Henry has dropped a few tokens of wisdom, quite seamlessly so, that have really stuck with me.
One of them is from a conversation between two of the book's main characters, Hayden and Alice. Alice is trying to describe her parents to Hayden, and she thinks to herself, “I search for a word that encompasses all of it. Of course there isn’t one. That’s the deal with people. They’re always more than one thing, and a lot of times they’re even a collection of contradictory traits.”
In a world where there is limitless information at our fingertips, I think we’ve become all too accustomed to being able to understand things and define them. In the world of mental health, we have the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which aids in diagnosing patients. This naming can provide a lot of solace and comfort to people experiencing a mental health disorder, as it can allow them to properly treat and cope with things.
Even beyond a mental health diagnosis, I often see an enjoyment in a variety of personality tests: Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, Clifton Strengths. I think there is a piece of us that sighs in relief to know that we are “definable”, that we aren’t so unique and abnormal that we fall off the spectrum that these tests define. And, I think it’s also a bit like looking at a photo of ourselves. We never see that side of ourselves, as we only see our reflection in a mirror, so there is something that causes us to pause when we see ourselves as others do. I think personality tests are a mirror of our personality. They provide us a glimpse into what others may experience of us. And that can be alluring to read about and see.
But, I think sometimes that “defining” tempts us a bit too much. I think sometimes we yearn for a box to fit into because it feels nice, neat, and orderly. But I think, more so, that a key part of humanity is this spectacular, messy, disorderly, uniqueness to each of us. That can’t be defined by one word, or even a few words. Where contradictions arise whenever we begin to hone in on a brief description of ourselves.
So, perhaps this is, in and of itself, a contradiction within us. On the one hand, we like descriptors for ourselves, whether that comes from a diagnosis or a personality trait. But on the other hand, we hold a limitless nature that we can never fit within a box. Not because you're too much, not because you're too abnormal, but because you're human, and there will always be more than one thing that defines you.
