Hardly Just a Name

Names are merely symbols. They are really nothing more than a few letters pushed together so that we may give a title to something we are told is significant. Yet it is the name we all recognize, that word that sparks our acknowledgement of association and puts into perspective its meaning relative to things like it. It works just the same with people. They have names, which we learn, memorize, register in our minds upon the sight of their face. Many shall be forgotten, but some are more important. Their name is forever chiseled into the stone tablet that is our memory. And I say stone tablet not as a generic, insignificant metaphor, but because some things, some people, cannot be forgotten. They stay with us forever, not necessarily in physical form, but very much so in our thoughts. They’ll not be erased, perhaps worn down like the engravings in stone, but never erased. Because they’re more than just a name, and really without anything of substance a name is worthless. It becomes a placeholder of emptiness, a representative of nothing.

We tend to forget that every now and then – that there is a person behind a name. For we begin to categorize and prioritize these names. We enroll them in lists and give them an order based on their usefulness to us or the role they play in our daily lives so that eventually a person becomes a thing. Just a tool to be used when needed. But what happens when that tool is no longer there, yet its name still exists? Then that thing is recognized and taken into consideration for it really is. Sadly, the same can be said about those we know. Consider the teacher you see each day, the source of homework and burden and undesired stress; he is gone. You never realized how funny he was and how enjoyable his class could be. Consider the room next to yours belonging to that pestering sibling you never really paid attention to; it’s now empty. It’s amazing how much they really meant to you.

We have sadly unpersonalized those who we interact with the most out of an unrecognized selfish tendency. It’s no one’s fault, but it is a problem. We have turned the concept of a name into a definition explaining what someone is, while at the same time we’ve totally forgotten who they are. Only you can determine what significance a person has to you, only you can assign them meaning. We must recognize that what is really important, what truly represents something to us, is the person behind their title; their emotion and personality, charisma and individual presence, their strange, goofy nature.

Do not forget that they add something to your life that would be lost without them; do not forget that they are far more than just a name.