Narrow definitions

Many people seem to want to use absolutes to categorize everything and everyone. Those absolutes typically both define and exclude. Examples abound:

Definition / Exclusion
I'm a gourmand / I turn up my nose at fast food
I love action movies / I hate chick flicks
I read mysteries / I don't read SF
I'm a liberal / I'm not a conservative
I love rock & roll / I hate classical
I'm a literary writer / I don't write popular fiction

Okay, so I loaded the dice on all of these examples, because I embrace aspects of both ends of the spectrum of these and so many other categories. I've spent insane amounts of money to eat astonishing meals at some of the very best restaurants in the U.S., and I plan to do so again--but I have also cut at high speed across four lanes of I-95 to find out what hot dogs that ran two for a quarter would taste like, and I love eating the junk food at the State Fair. I read both mysteries and SF. I can quote all the key lines of the bad early Ahnuld movie, Commando, but I also quite enjoyed The Jane Austen Book Club. And on and on.

When we define ourselves or others narrowly, we're creating unreasonable and unnatural limits. We need to accept that people, including ourselves, are masses of contradictory feelings, tastes, and thoughts.

Oh, how life is the better for that fact!