24:05 We entreat all who profess themselves members of our Society to be faithful to that ancient testimony, borne by us ever since we were a people, against bearing arms and fighting, that by a conduct agreeable to our profession we may demonstrate ourselves to be real followers of the Messiah, the peaceable Saviour, of the increase of whose government and peace there shall be no end.
That's from "Quaker Faith and Practice". A lot of the "verses" in that book have to do with peace, a particular obsession for the Quakers. From this, our conversation went on to talk about labels. There are many people who will do something such as label themselves lazy.
That's what I really want to talk about.
We really like our labels. They make life easier. Possible, actually. Without these shortcuts there would be way, way too much to know. Every single minute of your life is packed with a good hour's worth of information. Compounded that by all the information you have to take in that isn't (or wasn't) part of your life and you have a situation which would make even the most studious researcher balk. So we place reality and each other in various constrained categories: male, female, Scandinavian, skin-head, tea-bagger, heterosexual, psychopath, happy, lucky, lazy, depressed, ADD, boring, successful, arrogant, black, white, red-neck, man, dog... That list could go on forever. None of these labels tell the whole story about a person, some of them don't tell any of the experience of a person, but they are sometimes used as though they do.
Therein lies the problem. The important thing about labels is to remember that they are just labels, just shortcuts, and aren't such a fundamental aspect of a persons character that they can't be changed. Hell, Mike Jackson changed his race, so even that one is modifiable if you desire it enough. But in seriousness, the physical aspect of race isn't what I'm talking about. If a person is unhappy with the label "white" or "black" they can begin to distance themselves from that label even if they don't change their skin pigment. See George Carlin on "Happens to Be".
Again, I'm getting myself off topic. The damaging labels, which people tend to apply to themselves for whatever masochistic or misguided reasons, are labels such as "lazy".
It devolves into an excuse. Why didn't you get your homework done? "I'm lazy." Where are those TPS reports? "Well, I'm lazy." I thought you wanted to go to the fair, "Welp, I'm a lazy bastard, so..." So you're losing your life confining yourself under a very removable label. Laziness is nothing but a habit. I've been there before, I used to have myself oppressed under the "ADD" label. I still associate myself with the label but I don't use it to limit myself. Sure it's difficult for me to stay on task. So what? Not like it's impossible. Not like it's actually gruelingly difficult. It's not like it's a good excuse.
Like Aristotle would say, Laziness, like greatness, is a habit. You become what you do.
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