Funny how the damndest things pop into your head from time to time. Here I am with numbers dancing through my head working on a desktop application my girlfriend asked me to make for her, listening to Shinedown and all of a sudden I felt the urge to make mention on the subject of stereotypes. Now I've certainly been called a few choice names in my day and most commonly I suppose the word hippie pops up, but am I a hippie? Is there any such thing as a hippie?
Stereotypes such as hippie, rocker, goth, etcetera are container terms that define a set of rigid characteristics. I say rigid because the characteristics defined by these terms don't change which is exactly why they don't exist and cannot truthfully be used to describe a human being. The characteristics that define a person are not rigid, they are dynamic which is to say that they change with every passing moment. Like waves in the ocean a person ebbs and flows along with their environment, they might react differently to a situation on Monday than they did when faced with the same situation on Thursday.
I feel that we do ourselves a grave disservice by applying labels to people. The only way labels could be at all accurate is if there were as many labels as there are people. Like the finger print or the snow flake each individual is entirely unique. There are no hippies, there are no africans, there are no gay people and believe it or not there are no men or women. There is only the individual who is entirely unique.
It's not that an individual has a right to exist, but instead that the individual should exist. If an individual exists it is because there is a reason for their existence, that reason is well beyond the comprehension of any mortal and so the smart thing to do is not to try and determine if a person is worth existing, but simply accept that they do in fact need to exist.
There is a serious punishment that awaits those who would choose to take it upon themselves to decide who should and who should not exist. They are allowed the freedom to make their mistakes, the mere fact that they are wrong and have chosen to follow in the footsteps of false is the most catastrophic of punishments. Take a look around, any of these people look happy to you? The life they have chosen is the punishment they are handed.
If you choose to place your hand upon a hot stovetop then you get burned. The punishment for placing one's hand upon a hot stovetop is placing one's hand upon a hot stovetop. If the people who run this world had any idea how to run a world then this world wouldn't be in such dire need of help.
In a perfect world each individual exists as they should exist rather than how others think they should exist. If the others get their way and people exist as others think they should rather than how they already are then they must live in an imperfect world.