Perhaps you’re the kind of person that likes to identify with trends, use labels, associate activities with certain characteristics.

To be able to quickly and easily identify people with a label and then be startled when sometime in the future your prejudices are shattered doesn’t sound too open and willing to me, but perhaps I’m being prejudiced.

A friend of mine just called me ’emo’ because I said I wanted the slowest and most emotional music possible. She thinks I’m about to cry now. All I can think is how unfortunate it is that she has now lost all abilities to experience the very beautiful music I was listening to.

I just read this piece on The Guardian debunking the myth that there is no such thing as the left brain and right brain. There is no isolation. They work in unison. There is no separation, and has never been. And in fact, the separation has apparently never been proven by research, it’s just psychologist looking for catch-all phrases to characterize people.

The most important message from this article was the last paragraph.

What research has yet to refute is the fact that the brain is remarkably malleable, even into late adulthood. It has an amazing ability to reorganize itself by forming new connections between brain cells, allowing us to continually learn new things and modify our behavior. Let’s not underestimate our potential by allowing a simplistic myth to obscure the complexity of how our brains really work. ~Amy Novotney

Letting labels cloud the future is a dangerous proposition. Mind the gap.