Hi, my name is …

What’s in a name? Nothing. Nothing at all. And if you learn a thing’s name, you lose all of its thing-ness, its splendor, its mystery. It is all a matter of perception. This is my chance to play philosopher. Bear with me, and we’ll explore together.

What is reality? Again, what we perceive is what reality is, at least for us. We call a daisy a daisy and a dandelion a dandelion.

Daisy
In biology many plants, especially of the Asteraceae family listed twelve species. (then it goes into greater details)
–Wikipedia

Dandelion
noun: a widely distributed weed of the daisy family, with a rosette of leaves, bright yellow flowers followed by globular heads of seeds with downy tufts, and stems containing a milky latex. • Genus Taraxacum, family Compositae: several species, in particular the common T. officinale, which has edible leaves.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from French dent-de-lion, translation of medieval Latin dens leonis ‘lion’s tooth’ (because of the jagged shape of the leaves).
– Oxford American Dictionary.

But, you and I never break it down beyond the name — daisy, or dandelion.

Suppose we didn’t know what either plant was, and someone pointed out the dandelion to us, saying, “That’s a dandelion.” Now it’s got a name, we know it, we recognize it for what it’s called. That weed is a dandelion. And that is the problem, we named it or learned its given name. And that’s where perception usually ends. A rhetorical brick wall.

On the other hand, what if no one tells us the plant’s name at this moment? What do we do? We ask questions. Is it poisonous? Don’t know; be careful. Let’s see what we have here: Yellow flowers. Ball heads of seeds with downy tuffs, and the stems have milky goo inside them. And the leaves are jagged like teeth. Smell it, oooh!




What is it? It’s like a daisy, and we are told to call it a dandelion.

But do you know what we learned when just given its name? Nothing. From then on we matched the name, dandelion, with its image stripping the potential experience from your reality. But on the other hand, before we were given its name, we got to know the plant in great detail. And given its name later, much more than the image of a dandelion will rise up in our minds.

When I meet someone, I purposely make it my business NOT to learn their name. I meet them again several times and I get to know who they are, their characteristics, likes, dislikes, habits…all that stuff that makes this a person, a human being. Then I learn their name. Had I learned their name first time around I would have labeled them as George or Mary or…. And married their name to their image, knowing nothing about them, nor learn much about them later.

It’s all a matter of perception. If you have understood the above, then you might want to continue on your own and rediscover reality. You will see it with new perception tools — see what is there and keep it nameless. Don’t remove the mystery from your reality too soon; there will be plenty of time to name things later.

Remember, reality ends at the limits of our perceptions.

And beyond reality? Wrong question. Beyond our perceptions of reality? We see in color, dogs see in black and white. See what? Amongst a jungle of “stuff,” within a jungle of life, are other creatures, some we call viruses, different recorded kinds, and yet we have given them names, names only. It can be similar to naming the dandelion without seeing it. What are we missing - something we might perceive as splendorous or something we might perceive as hellish? How do we physically see beyond our perceptions? How did we see before the telescope; and after the invention of the telescope? And with the telescope came the naming-game. Unless we withhold the naming-game we will never ever see the reality beyond out perceived reality.

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