the era of categorizing ourselves
on niches and transcending easy definitions
note: this is a repost from a blog I posted in december 2023. it is one of my favorite ones, and I posted it when I had only a handful of subscribers. it felt like the kind of topic my new subs would resonate with! <3
One day as I was reading David Bowie’s artist bio on Spotify, as you do, I stumbled upon a phrase that made me pause. “Throughout his career, he evaded easy categorization”, it said. It made me pause for two reasons: one, because it’s true. And two, because this simple characterisation unlocked a pattern that had been sitting at the back of my mind for a while now, waiting to be unpacked. It appeared everywhere: in the media I enjoy, in the quotes I relate to the most, in the music I like, in the people I most love getting to know, in myself.
I am currently reading The Trial by Kafka, a book that’s very different to anything I have ever read, and have been doing a little deep dive into Kafka’s life and especially his personal letters. His personality was complex, ambivalent, definitely hard to describe. His works have been called to countless interpretations, claimed by different groups as testaments to their own beliefs. This description captures it best: “There is evidence in both the works and the diaries for each of these interpretations, but Kafka’s work as a whole transcends them all. One critic may have put it most accurately when he wrote of the works as “open parables” whose final meanings can never be rounded off.”
When I think of these open parables, of work that transcends categorization as his did, I come back to this quote:
Well, the problem persists. Not only that, but we have found a way to make it more prominent and difficult than it was when Kafka was around to write in his diary about it.
Social media makes it feel like you need to categorize yourself somehow, to ‘pick a niche’, to fit within an easily digestible definition. If you want to be supported, rather than hindered by digital tools and opportunities, it feels like the easier you are to grasp, the more people you will reach. ‘Pick a niche’, choose one side of yourself to display, and stick to that in order to help people understand who you are and why they should care.
I work in social media and have used it for over a decade to reach like-minded people and share my interests, and I love what it facilitates- but it never feels quite right. Presenting who I am in a way that is formatted to be easily digestible and definable is of course impossible; and the more passions and interests you have, the harder it becomes to even know where to start. It is so difficult to try to translate that into a digital box that, if you do it right, can unlock countless opportunities and transform your life. It also goes the other way around: we fit everything into ‘cores’, aesthetics, categories. Our generation has taken that to a whole new level, finding a need to create boxes that people can easily fit into: you have gym girl! coquette girl! tomato girl?! Why do we have such an urge to be easily defined and categorized, when it goes so against our nature? Is the insatiable need to belong ever so simply met?
To me, a lot of the very best things transcend and evade categorization. One of my favorite books is Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman. It is a biography of Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, told as a series of anecdotes from his life. The reason why I love it is because Feynman is one of the best examples I can think of, of someone fully evading categorization; simply pursuing genuine childlike curiosity and living life as a series of experiences, going after everything that interested him. When he wasn’t making breakthrough discoveries in physics, he was playing the bongos and accompanying a ballet, drawing and painting, learning to expertly crack a safe, playing in a Brazilian samba band, and more.
Yes, reading about someone who is fully devoted to a singular craft or passion could have been interesting as well, for different reasons. But while Feynman is known for his contributions to science, reading about the way he led his life as a multi-passionate person that pursued his inspiration to no end is a lot more enjoyable. Maybe because to me, that sounds like a life well lived. Maintaining genuine curiosity about life and following my inspiration is such a big priority for me, because it turns your life into a series of fulfilling and exciting experiences. Even if something is so far beyond the things you ‘normally do’, there is absolutely no need to define yourself that easily and close yourself off from things that do not instinctively match that. The reason why I loved reading about Feynman so much is precisely because he didn’t fit into an easy category.
The author and poet Dakota Warren started her book, On Sun Swallowing, with a prologue that describes it as a “collection […] which endeavours to affirm the validity of the gloriously twisted enigma one is. Relish in the duality of being a hard-soft thing. Dismantle dichotomy and exist as yourself, deliciously undefinable.”
Easier to grasp does not mean better; and more difficult to define often just means more engaging, more exciting, more interesting. It is a lesson I try to keep front of mind whenever something makes it feel like fitting in a box is the best way to go.
Dakota Warren’s prologue turns the indefinability into a good thing - I think it is 90% due to social media that we sometimes feel it is a problem. It’s not. It lives in my favorite books, my favorite stories, my favorite people. The quest of interpretation is a good one. Existing in our multifaceted nature means to naturally evade categorization; complexity is rich, as the resistance to simplification is beautiful.
you managed to put into words a thing i’ve always been thinking about our new “social media society” and it is simply perfect the way you explained how reality began to feel since the internet has reached people’s lives, which has now become a fine line between the what-ifs and the could’ve beens. more people should realize that the line can actually be surpassed and once you’ve done that you’ll be able to really find yourself.
This is something I think about a lot. I experience the “boxing in” trope quite a lot as a director in the film industry, people love to categorise. What has struck me in recent weeks is that when an artist dies, people tend to look at their life from a birds-eye perspective, as pattern seeking as we humans are, we search for a through-line in things. The variety of interest can make sense in hindsight. Virgil Abloh is a great example, Richard Feynman too. Great piece! Time to get more hobbies.