An Obsession With Neat Little Boxes!

This afternoon, I was in town during what turned out to be a particularly heavy downpour... which happened to peak just as I pulled into the Safeway supermarket parking lot.

Not wanting to get soaked between the car and the store entrance, I sat in the car for a while, allowing my mind to drift, as a result of which I ended up contemplating something I'd experienced a very long time ago.

When I first arrived in the US (in Texas) from Denmark in early 1981 it took no more than a couple of weeks before I had been labeled both as "a communist" and as "some kind of faggit."

I wasn't so much insulted by it as I was baffled. You see, I was 20 years of age and those particular observations/allegations had never previously crossed my path!

The "communist" part was based on no more than the fact that I was from Denmark, and the person making the declaration (sincerely) believed that the Scandinavian countries were all communist. The "some kind of faggit" comment was based on my having a different accent and not engaging in a bunch of "male posturing" and "d1ck swinging."

I look back at that time with almost 45 years of hindsight and can now recognize that one of the major points of culture shock or cultural differences I came across — much of which continues to hold true — is that here in the US we seem to have a much greater need to put people, things and ideas into neat little boxes... than people seem to in the rest of the world.

I arrive at this conclusion in part from observation, and in part from my own experiences in returning to Denmark — and also visiting other friends around Europe — and noticing how many of the ostensible labels that have been assigned to me (and that I more or less unwillingly wear for convenience's sake) don't even seem to come up in normal conversation when I'm back in Europe.

Now before anybody gets their shorts all tied up in a knot let me hurry and point out that I'm not suggesting that one way or the other is better or worse; they're merely different.

What I find interesting and potentially slightly paradoxical about this seeming need to box people and ideas here in the USA is the notion that we take such great pride in "the individual" and "rugged independence" and yet we're surprisingly uncomfortable with any idea or person we can't handily shove into a neatly predefined little box.

I see it sometimes in the very simplest of ways when I watch people get uncomfortable talking to me about politics when I confess that I'm neither a Republican or a Democrat. It is almost as if I'm not allowed to not fit into a specific political box. The fact that I sometimes blend ideas from both sides together causes outright consternation...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not outright rejecting classifications, I'm just rejecting them in the instances where they don't fit and somebody insists on stuffing me into an ill fitting box rather than allowing me to exist freely outside the existing framework.

As the rain let up and I headed in to do my shopping, I wondered if this near obsession with "categorization" is actually marketing related.

After all, virtually everything we do is somehow colored by marketing and product placement, and that becomes very difficult to do, absent "demographic packaging." And if you don't fit the package... you're a problem.

Just something to consider.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

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Created at 2025.11.17 23:59 PST
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