The Classification of Persons

What’s my classification? I often have thoughts about myself – whether am I a rich man or a poor man. Am I of wealth or not? Of religion or of apostasy, holder of knowledge or merely bestowed by empty notions of a monotonous mind? Of race and ethnical considerations, among kindred spirits and brethrens, within circle of affiliations and aggrupations, these also become further considerations to this particular questioning.

There is a universe of wandering, as I thread upon these thoughts, lost in detail and exactness for these premises does not become susceptible to ubiquitous deduction, merely by intuition and perception.

There is that notion I’ve learned just recently that persons often interact in terms of actions and inactions, in gestures and signage, more intensely at times than with the spoken word.  This is Symbolic Interactionism at its keenest, as ushered in by social philosophers Talcott Parson and Herbert Blumer, a primal social concept that I’ve learned from my attendance to doctoral classes in most recent days.

In the principle of symbolism, persons act towards things in terms of how they ascribe thoughts and meaning to these specific things, as if upon organisms relating merely in action and reaction, but not in conversation.

The first instance that I have come upon this specific premise of human action, I have exhibited immediate reversion to such, not being able to fathom the very idea that humans could be assimilated with beast and organisms even merely as to the manner of social interaction and communication. I regretted this concept in fact, and have decided to set it aside.

But on the second and third instances, relinquishing a more focus thought on symbolism as a principle in human interaction, I have come to fully appreciate its main intention and direction of thought.

I have realized thereupon (upon daily observations and examinations of how persons relate and converse between and among each other) that indeed, we are full of gestures and signage that relays the manner in which we have thoughts on certain objects, events and persons.

My observations did not in fact end on such notions of symbolism, for I have reckoned that upon these premises, I could build upon further theory and principles on some notions of human interaction and social orientation. I have thought that the social theory of symbolic interaction can serve as a vigorous anchor for the philosophical determination of the classification of persons, for I have come upon this thoughtful undertaking so very lately, for what classification am I as a person.

Let us not be in denial, for I am of awareness that I am not merely alone in these thoughts, for there would be myriads out there that have come upon this particular questioning of the self.

I am lost sometimes about myself; this is not to be an understatement. And I am like a wanderer lost in a vast wilderness at times when it comes to this specific thought, not knowing what direction to follow or thread upon.

There are times that I feel that I could be so evil in person that is engrossed with evil thoughts; so strong these thoughts that I retreat from the outside world just examining and weighing the things that I have become or could become. I fully regret these thoughts of course, and this specific orientation of the mind and self. For a person should be full of goodwill at most times, of good thoughts and intentions. We should all be that way, that’s the most ideal state of persons, keen to relate and decent in words and actions.

But often, this is the hardest thing to do.

At most times, I can believe that I am mostly of good intentions. I could not help but forward this notion to the others that I often interact with.

To this vacillating ideas of my person have thence come forth this particular notion that one could determine one’s classification of the self  through the manner of social interaction, in the way that Symbolic Interactionism have proposed the ways of persons to be.

That is, in positive gestures and signage, one could determine the aggrupations and association of the self. In negativity, one could determine the non-classification of person—- as simple as that.

But of course, this particular social concept of mine is still of nascent roots. It needs further study.

From my blog "THE CITIZEN ON MARS"