TTC02: Labels Are for Jars, Not for People
How to label something when its contents is unclear.
A client recently asked me:
"Am I mean, or am I kind?"
It struck me . . . how strange the question is when you zoom out.
No lizard asks this. No lion wonders about its morality. A tree doesn’t wonder if it’s generous for offering shade, or selfish for taking up space.
But I do.
Humans do.
Most of us, internalize labels so deeply that we confuse them for identity. But in nature, there’s no such confusion. A being is what it is. A lion is fierce in one moment, nurturing in the next. A lemon tree becomes just that, regardless how many times you call it an orange or grapefruit. Identity isn’t up for debate.
So I told my client:
"You’re not kind or mean. You’re a human being having moments. The label is irrelevant. The more important questions is: When are you What to Whom?"
Because in someone’s story, I am cruel. And in someone else’s, I’m a godsend. Fixating on whether we are one adjective or another is like trying to find the “real” color of a chameleon. It’s a trap, one built by the mind.
The World of Duality
Laozi, in verse 2, explains this brilliantly:
When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good, other things become bad.
Everything we name, we split. We divide the undivided.
There is no "tall" without "short."
No "beautiful" without "ugly."
No "good" without "bad."
It's all relational. If you call a flower pretty, it's only because you’ve seen something else that you judged as less so. A maple tree doesn't try to be better than an oak just because it produces syrup. That would be absurd. But this is exactly how humans operate: in comparison.
Worse still, we define everything in relation to ourselves.
Rocks are hard because they're harder than us.
Fire is hot because it burns us.
Trees are tall because we are smaller.
Humans are the metric. We're the center of all measurements. And this self-centric model, useful as it is, also limits our perception and traps us in a false certainty of reality.
I don’t just describe the world.
I reduce it to concepts that make sense to me.
And then mistake those concepts as the truth.
The Danger of Labels
Imagine meeting someone timid and assigning them the “shy” label. Now every future behavior filters through that box. But what if they simply have something going on? Or are reserved around strangers?
We live inside what Laozi calls “the world of ten thousand things”: a fragmented reality built from distinctions, roles, and adjectives.
But is there another way?
From Duality to Oneness
Children offer a glimpse.
They don’t see the world in dichotomies. They haven’t yet learned to split life into "success/failure" or "worthy/unworthy." They cry and laugh in the same hour. They can fight and hug right after. Unfiltered. Unconcerned with identity.
We teach them division. We hand them our mental maps. And we forget that these maps are not the territory.
Can I return to that oneness? Not by discarding knowledge, but by transcending the need to label every experience.
Can I be an adult with wisdom, but see through the eyes of a child?
Laozi doesn’t reject duality. He simply reminds us:
It’s a tool.
Like a hammer.
But not every situation needs a hammer.
Use it where it's useful. Let it go where it’s not.
Practicing This Wisdom
I’ve found a strange peace in letting go of rigid expectations of people.
If someone disappoints me, I remind myself: they are who they are, not who I hoped them to be. It doesn’t mean I accept mistreatment, but it helps me suffer less.
After all, disappointment is often the difference between reality and our imagined version of it. The tighter I grip that version, the more I bleed when it shatters.
Verse 2 ends with a line that hit me different:
“He does nothing for himself in this passing world, so nothing he does ever passes.”
There’s power in doing what you do, not for praise or validation, and not even for meaning, but simply because it’s what you do. That is the way of the sage. Action without ego. Effort without clinging.
There is power is that kind of presence.
And in that moment, maybe I begin to dissolve this mind game.
Final Reflection
Duality is a lens; useful, but not for every situation. Like sunglasses worn too long, we forget they’re tinted. Then wonder why the road looks dim on the drive home.
To ask, “Am I kind or mean?” is to mistake the weather for the sky.
“You’re not kind or mean,” I told my client. “You’re a human being having moments.”
What matters isn’t what you are, but when you are what, and to whom.
So walk the world lightly. Let adjectives come and go like passing clouds.
To act without clinging. To be without needing to be someone. That is the way of the sage
Here we continue the contemplative journey through the Tao Te Ching, with verse 2 from 81.
My approach is simple: absorb one verse per week, live with it, wrestle with it, and then share what unfolds here.
The Tao Te Ching is the forth most translated text in the world. Each English translation reveals a different facet, like turning a jewel in your hand. To honor that depth, I’m reading four versions in parallel, letting them collide, fuse, harmonise.
With each verse, I’ll share the translation that resonates most, along with the personal insights it evokes.