My name is Ellen and I'm a vegetarian. Just to add another label to me: I am a lesbian, aquarian and vegetarian. I've said it.
I'm not in the business of ranking or debating who is what.
For me, I've never really thought of myself as labeled as a shooter or whatever. People can say whatever they want.
There's nothing wrong with it. It's only a word. What's in a name? Nothing! Cats say, "Call me Muhammed so-and-so. "
I've never tried to measure myself on any scale. A person is more multifaceted than the label they often get stuck with. On the other hand someone's whole behaviour allows you to characterise them in a certain way. This person has liberal convictions, that person has conservative ones, this person is a radical socialist, and so on.
As we grow up, we're constantly defining ourselves. In my case: Caucasian, male, born in Iowa, live in Boston, Zen Buddhist, good at learning languages. With countless labels, I build up this creation I call my self.
There is no reason why people should not call themselves Cubists, or Octagonists, or Parallelopipedonists, orKnights oftheIsoscelesTriangle, or Brothers of the Cosine, if they so desire; as expressing anything serious and permanent, one term is as fatuous as another.
I never say I'm an "ist" of any kind unless I know how the other person is defining it.
I want people to understand why I'm not 'P1' or 'P2.'
I don't like the word 'perfectionist,' because it's self-flattering. It's tooting your own horn and implies that you actually can achieve perfection. I prefer 'particularist.'
I don't have any labels for myself, really. Sometimes, when I am out with my wife, I am just Mr. Thompson. Or at my daughter's school, I'm Gaia's dad. I don't think of myself as Greg Wise, actor.
I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.
I think we identify ourselves by labels or things that we are able to do: I am this. I am a good cook. I am a good mother. I am a good this. I am a good doctor. I am a good lawyer. When you can’t do those things anymore, you wonder where your identity is.
I'm not an environmentalist, or a doctor, or a nutritionist.
I don't necessarily self-identify as a writer, 'cause it implies a certain level of intelligence.
