Welcome aboard! You will now begin your tour of categorical realism. Take your pick. Choose one or the other, but you cannot pick both. Hold on to your questions until the very end. Ambivalence will not be tolerated. Make a decision now, please! No time to waste. If you hesitate, you might forfeit value, acceptance, being consequential and relevant. Let’s go, make haste! Clock is ticking…
It’s very simple, really. One or the other but no in-betweens. Otherwise, it’s neither here nor there. Are you Hispanic or Latino/a? Black or White? Asian or Pacific Islander? Male or Female? Gay or Straight? Woman or man? Pick one and move on. Best you grab on to something and stick with it rather than have someone else decide for you. Or has it been decided for you already?
Keep it simple, no one likes to get it wrong. Let’s strive for order and clear arrangements to avoid any confusion. Better choose sooner rather than later and avoid ending up somewhere, who knows where, neither here nor there.
Stay clear of those junctional spaces where things converge but lack any real identity. Places of dreadful uncertainty that thwart our ability to classify accordingly. Or better yet, non-places, lacking any ‘real’ space, open-ended and undefined, locations that are neither here nor there. Let’s face it, our lives would be better off if you just choose one or the other. Don’t make it hard on yourself, choose one. If not, then you run the risk of never truly belonging or being at home. What kind of existence is that? What kind of world would that be? A world short-lived, transitory, with changing definitions.
This kind of world is deeply unsettling, depriving us of absolutes and certitudes. A world that lacks taxonomical significance and clear-cut opposition between binary pairs is simply unimaginable. We value a world that never changes, where the present is always the future and the past, well, never mind…
Why obsess over unidentifiable spaces? Thresholds where something always gets left behind, yet you never fully arrive anywhere – neither here nor there. I can only compare it to moments of disorientation, lacking real space, uncharted territory, beyond our ability to systematize.
I suppose you will try to upset our schemes and challenge our power? Good luck with that… We are everywhere, ubiquitous, all-encompassing, except of course in those transitional, evasive spots that escape our ability to gauge. Those areas that make ABSOLUTELY no sense and are totally immaterial! Places that are neither here nor there.
What else must I say to convince you? What more can I do to show you that this is how it is? Perhaps offer you a glimpse? Give you a taste of the real? Your choice… But time is running out. If you remain undecided then …. I don’t know.
If you don’t choose you’ll always be on the verge of something, never quite anywhere, neither here nor there. So what do we call you? How do we label you? If you don’t choose then you’ll always leave us wondering about you. Excluded from the grand scheme of things. Wouldn’t you want to be considered something? Someone? Somewhere? Your choice!
Here or there?
Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash
Liminal Theology 