“Different understandings about how to abstract identity from experience result in different bandwidths of relational transfer amongst participants and contexts.

Languages are methods of abstraction, and thus carry implicit repercussions in terms of relational transfer and depth. What is transferred (or shared) is not merely information; the content is complex, and includes cues, queries and responses as well as ‘data’.

The English language is a method of abstracting identity from circumstances, and as a method, its bandwidth is incredibly narrow. This does not mean it cannot convey information, it means it will inhibit or disallow many aspects and consequences of identity that are discarded in order to achieve goals peculiar to its orginary purposes and functions.

We must have other ways to abstract identity which are broader and deeper than those ordinarily imposed by our languages, and both art and nature provide examples and encouragements to learn to see beyond the rather crude offerings of our familiar labels and categories.

Something much more interesting than language is going on within and all around us. Without losing the ability to articulate our feelings, ideas and thoughts, we must escape the perennial imprisonments that have too long resulted from being the subjects of of our languages, rather than their proper masters.”

— an anonymous informant