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Do you categorize people as you see them?

I saw a man with red/purple pants and brown loafer shoes and I thought, "hipster," "trendy." And from there spawns a conversation in my head about how I'm not trendy and all the reasons for it. (If you wear colored pants--awesome! I would wear them if someone gave them to me.)

I see all sorts of people and spontaneously categorize them. Its not something I do consciously. I do it before I realize I'm doing it. I learned in one of my anthro classes that we categorize/stereotype so our brain won't explode with new information as we go about life. I'm not sure how this applies to people. Maybe its a knuckle dragging brain reflex that deserves extinction.

I wonder as I'm making my snap judgments (I call them "categories" when I want to be nice to myself) about what people's snap judgments are of me. And I realize that those snap judgments someone may make about me may really apply to me. No matter how much I don't like falling into the stereotypical "Mom" look--well yeah, I did care more about getting breakfast ready, nursing my baby, and folding that laundry that has been haunting me since yesterday than standing and blow drying my hair for 20 minutes. Hopefully no one classifies me as "non-hygienic" but I could see that happening because sometimes I really hate showers (because, heck, I'm just gonna get dirty again).

Besides "mom," I don't think anyone would categorize me as I would categorize me. Mom--wanna be garden hippy--loves outdoors to the point of loving pulling weeds to be outdoors--likes organization but is anything but (but that's what I'm obsessing about today. Maybe tomorrow I'll be categorizing myself differently).

Will you join me in stopping our snap judgments? People are much more complex than their appearances may suggest (or perhaps more bland than their appearances may suggest).

I was given a cupcake with a cupcake topper many years ago that I had thought so profound that I put it on my wall ( I know, a cupcake topper on my wall. Label me--"tacky teenager" :) ). It said, "She is a child of God."  Morals from cupcakes: "She is a child of God." Not just "I'm a child of God" but everyone around us.