Carbon Press Publishing
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Remove the Labels
CARBON PRESS
A PLATFORM FOR IDEAS
A STANDARD FOR DISCOURSE
KNOWLEDGE
SATURDAY, 20th JUNE, 2026
n this article we will discuss the importance of removing labels. Why remove labels, you might ask. And which labels are we speaking about in
Was the rug large or small? Dark red or bright red? Round or square? The chances of your image being identical to someone else’s are almost non-existent. Yet, people frequently argue over differences they themselves have created through interpretation.
Many arguments emerge not from disagreement itself, but from assumptions hiding beneath words. Words are useful, absolutely. They organize thought and allow us to communicate complex ideas. Language is powerful. But words are not reality. They point toward reality. They are maps, not the territory. A rich vocabulary can open doors, build bridges, and sharpen thought. But labels should always remain tools. The moment we mistake the label for the entirety of the thing itself, we risk reducing the infinite into something manageable. It would be like saying that the neck label of a t-shirt is the t-shirt itself
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Let us look at this another way.
Imagine a child of perhaps two years old sitting in a garden on a warm afternoon. The grass bends beneath small hands. The world at this age has not yet become organised into categories and labels. Reality exists simply as encounter. Suddenly something appears beside the child. A graceful being descends from above, moving with impossible precision and erratic beauty. It hovers, darts and circles as light dances from its feathers. The child freezes.
The child and this strange visitor become equally fascinated with one another. For a moment neither possesses a name for the other. There is no bird. There is no child. There is only curiosity observing curiosity. The creature pauses just beyond reach. Slowly, the child raises a hand toward it.Then the impossible happens.
The creature settles upon the child's finger. The child stares in awe.And perhaps, if such things can truly be said, the creature stares back. Between them exists a moment beyond language; a kind of communion, a direct encounter with life itself.
Then a voice calls from nearby. "That's a bird sweetheart."
The parent means no harm. In fact, the parent is helping the child navigate reality because language is one of humanity's greatest tools. Without names there could be no science, no communication and no shared knowledge. Yet something subtle also happens.
The vastness of the experience collapses into a category. The mystery becomes a label. The encounter becomes a definition. Bird. Four letters.
Yet if one were to open a dictionary and search for the word bird, nowhere would they find the sunlight, the anticipation, the stillness, the wonder, or the feeling of one living being encountering another. The word contains none of it. Because words are containers. Experience is greater.
As human beings grow older we inherit thousands of these containers. Male. Female. Success.
The Hidden
Slowly identity begins forming around inherited definitions. Yet beneath every description there remains something that cannot be fully named. This is the hidden essence and reality behind what we see. The hidden or The Amun - hidden; which is also spelled, yes 'spelled' A.M.E.N. Amen; when inverted we get the word 'Name'. How these two seemingly unconnected words and their meanings converge into a metaphoric insight is uncanny.
Consider, for instance, the ancient tradition of Kemet, where even the most revered nswt bity held not one, but five distinct royal names, each a powerful label designed to encapsulate their divine connection and earthly authority: • Horus Name (Hr): Identifying the nswt bity as the earthly manifestation of the god Horus, enclosed within a serekh to symbolize their palace and divine presence. • Nebty or “Two Ladies” Name (nbty): Representing unity and protection over the Two Lands of Kemet, associated with the goddesses Nekhbet and Wadjet. • Golden Horus Name (Hr nbw): A declaration of eternal nswt bityship, triumph, and divine perfection, often depicting Horus atop the hieroglyph for gold. • Throne Name (nswt-bity): Literally “nswt bity of Upper and Lower Kemet,” emphasizing sovereignty over the unified lands, enclosed in a protective cartouche. • Birth Name (sA Ra): The personal name given at birth, signifying divine descent from the sun god Ra, also placed inside a cartouche. Each of these names was a meticulously crafted container, meant to convey immense power, divinity, and purpose. Yet, even for the nswt bity, these were still labels—maps pointing to a profound reality, but never the full territory of their being. They were the outward expression of an inner, unseen force.
I
particular? Let me offer a simple scenario.
Imagine that you had never seen a speaker box in your life. You had never heard the word speaker, never witnessed one being used and had no prior concept of its purpose. What would you call it? More importantly, what would you use it for? Would you instinctively call it a speaker? Probably not. Would you know that it was designed to project sound? Again, probably not.
You might use it as a seat, a step, a storage box, a table, or perhaps something entirely unexpected. We often observe this with children. They regularly use objects according to what they perceive those objects can become in that moment rather than according to their intended function.
I was one of those parents too. I would say to my children, "Don't use something for other than what it was designed for." I was usually speaking about using the television remote as a drumstick or a toy sword. You understand the idea.
Of course I meant well. My concern was safety and practicality. Yet in some small way, without realising it, I was also narrowing my child's scope of possibility — limiting their natural tendency to see things differently.
Children possess an extraordinary gift before the world fully educates them: they experience first and define later. Adults often reverse this process. We define first and experience later.
Failure. Intelligent. Beautiful. Average. Normal. Citizen. And eventually perhaps the most powerful label of all: A name.
From that point onward the world begins speaking to us as though we are the container rather than the mystery inside it.
"You are this."
"You are that."
"This is your place."
"This is what you are worth."
THE DEITY AMUN
Because you were never merely your label. You’re the hidden force behind the physical body; the psychic behind the physics, if you will. You were never merely your profession. You were never merely your history. You were never merely your successes or failures. Just as that hummingbird was never only a bird. You are also the experience itself. Perhaps the real tragedy of modern life isn’t that we learn names. Perhaps it’s that we forget there was once a moment before the names even arrived.
This becomes especially important when we start talking about ideas, beliefs, and meaning. Have you ever witnessed two passionate people debating God? One defends their understanding with complete certainty, while the other defends theirs with equal conviction. Yet, often missing from the discussion is a very simple question:
“What do you actually mean by God?” Why is this so crucial? Because words often carry different internal meanings for different people.
If I asked you to imagine a dog sitting on a red rug, what dog did you see? Was it a German Shepherd? A Labrador? A Chihuahua?
Expectations
We risk placing boundaries around things that were never meant to be confined. And perhaps this is the deeper lesson: Names help us navigate the world. The world is a man made construct—yet the world is not the planet itself. You may have been in a situation where people failed to live up to their label; we all have, I’m sure. This could apply to anyone given a label, because with labels comes a certain level of expectation that you would fulfill the requirements of your title or, in this case, label specifically. But this applies to all named people, places, and things.
We are getting into the essence of the thing when we have these kinds of conversations, but it is very necessary. I could name a thousand instances where people haven’t lived up to the expectations of others, and I dare say, for what somebody else expected of me in whatever capacity, I may not have met their expectations either; that’s real. The key here is this: beneath the layer of the label, title, profession, uniform, family member, friend, etc., lies the unseen hand of the individual themself.
You may have had a certain expectation of a friend or family member based on the very title or label we place on them, only to be betrayed by that friend or family member; it happens. This is a universal phenomenon, and the important thing here is to be aware of this reality and treat others as you expect to be treated, and equally, look for the red flags. A simple question is this: let’s say a friend betrays your trust or treats you in a manner that you wouldn’t do to them. Then it is worth observing to see whether it is a one-off that you both can overcome with dialogue, or is this a pattern of behavior that this friend or family member displays generally with other people? You decide what you are prepared to put up with for the sake of what you perceive to be a friendship, although a repetitive pattern of behavior that you find offensive should make you question the label you have given this individual.
So, we say: remove the labels. By doing so, you begin to look beneath the surface that the label has created, and you begin to see what makes that person operate the way they do. You begin to operate from a place of actions versus expectations. (See article ‘Beneath the Surface,’ which is part two of this three-part series.) In essence, the journey of removing labels isn’t about abandoning language, but about using it wisely. It’s about remembering that the map is never the territory, and that the deepest truths often lie in the moments before we name them. It’s about rediscovering the boundless mystery within ourselves and in every encounter, allowing us to truly see, truly connect, and truly live beyond the confines of definition. what we’ve been told things are.
