LABELS
I don’t understand why people want to put a label on all human relationships. We often hear terms like ‘like a son’ or ‘like a sister’ or ‘he is like my brother’. Why do we want to take every relationship between two people and put it into a known slot?
Is it because we think that only these labels carry respect and if we don’t stick these labels, we cannot respect a person?
Or is it to show the world that you do not have any bad intentions for the person concerned?
Or is it because we are too used to these relationships and can deal only with these? Anything other than these known relationships and we do not know how to behave with the person.
It is like taking something beautiful and putting it into a box, confining it with expectations and obligations. It will keep banging against the box.
Every relationship has a sanctity and certain ‘rules of engagement’. The moment we put any association into these slots, we confine it.
Of course, we are humans and can have genuine brotherly / sisterly / fatherly feelings for a person. If it is reciprocated, fine. But we do not need to stick labels just as a matter of formality and to show the world.
