Are we what we do?

We live in a human dream, being one in which everything appears purely in the guise of it's human utility, and held in place by it's human name. Names are small and sinister metaphors which restrict, absolutely, the use of an object. Our eyes open to this madness every morning and at night we dream within the dream; whole lives are spent without so as a ripple of doubt reaching the surface.

But when the object is allowed to shrug off it's name, it begins the long journey back to it's own mystery- on upon reaching the core of it's own estranging fire, radiates until the whole world is unified by it. The rose or the paper clip; either could open the path back to our awakening.

-Don Pattersen-, Best Thought-Worst Thought (aphorisms)
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My thoughts: By naming, assigning, we lose the intrinsic object and instead replace it with the idea of the object instead of the object itself. Can you look at a flower, and not think "flower"? Assigning values and memories to it?

When this is applied to people, we lose the uniqueness we all seek; the marvelous fact that we exist at all is mired in roles, functions. We get boxed up in titles, creating a self-image that exists no where but in our own minds. That 'self' we create is not in the minds of others (duality of existence?) They do not see us as we see ourselves. We rarely think of ourselves as our actions, but that is how others see us, define us.

When we think of another, it's a string of words or memories in relation to how we know them, what their role is against our own. This is of course colored by our interactions, both good and bad. Memories of that person become charged with emotions, sometimes attracting, sometimes repelling, sometimes neutral. But rarely can we think of anyone's uniqueness, to revel in the marvel that they exist, like we do.

It's that existence that is just so incredible.