Tuesday's Thoughts

Something happened over the weekend that spawned a thought process in my mind. Saturday night, I, along with 4 friends and fellow DJ's, played records for our monthly party that we call WHERE IT'S AT! (https://www.facebook.com/events/444727435653769/?ref=br_tf) All of us had a great time playing records, dancing and enjoying the general good vibe of the venue and our friends who had come out to support. Unfortunately, someone decided to crack that good energy in half and slip us an anonymous note, basically commenting on our skillz in a negative way, as well as calling what we're doing "hipster B.S.". Instead of coming up and introducing themselves to us and then talking to us about what we do and then maybe offering up their constructive criticism, we got that note filled with negative commentary. I would like to be the first to say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I do believe this to be 100% true. As many humans as there are on Earth is the same amount of different perceptions you will find. Of course, we all gravitate towards other humans who perceive things along the same lines as we do and that's how we are able to create friendships and bonds. We cannot expect to please each and every person who might show up to the bar where we are playing records, nor can we expect to please each and every person in all of the things we do on a day to day basis. My frustration lies in the negative approach to offering criticism and the need to "define" things based on personal perception & bias. But therein lies the ultimate problem in humanity...language. Language is a necessity in human functionality, but it is also limiting in the fact that each word in our vocabulary is a definition. Everything we see, feel, hear & touch is "defined". And there are those humans out there who choose to abuse the privilege of language and connect words in ways that produce negative feelings, energies and intentions. I feel that each human looks for ways to define themselves, but may not always be appreciative of the kinds of definitions others might put onto them. The moment our lives are conceived, the defining starts. Before we are even born, we are defined by our gender, our ethnicity and a variety of other societal preconceived perceptions. Once born, we are then defined by our weight, height, hair & eye color, spoken language and then the continuous details that will forever add on to the original basic list. Irony is found in this continuous defining. We want to "belong", yet we want to be "individuals". I do believe that no matter how we define ourselves, that those outside of us will define us in completely different ways. I also believe in the multifaceted make-up of each individual human, based on the idea: "there is the person who we think we are; the person others think we are; and the person who we really are". I believe that the person who we really are is hiding somewhere between the person we think we are and the person others think we are....but then again, the question arises, why the need to define?