There are 2 Types of People in the World: Nicodemus & Jesus

The memes that float around that claim there are “two types of people” are the most useless and fallacious memes out there. You know what I am talking about, right?

“Ladies, there are only two types of men…”
“Men, there are only two types of women…”
“There are two types of people in the world…”
“There are two choices for your relationship…”
“There are two paths in life…”
“There are only empaths and narcissists in the world…”
“There are good people and there are bad people…”
“There are those who still have shadow work to be done and those who are awakened…”

Of course, the law of attraction memes can be added to this list of hopeless ideas that only divide people:

“The law of attraction stipulates that you attract what you are…and if you attract toxic people, it’s because you are toxic.”

These are ridiculous ways to reduce humanity and choice, don’t you think? Two types of people exist in the world and we all fall into one of two categories? If only humans were that simple and if only reality wasn’t so diverse could this be true? Are there only two types of men? Are there only two types of women? What happens if you don’t fall into either category? Are you nothing?

What if we considered that there are numerous types of people in the world? Would we be so quick to reduce people into limited categories? What if we considered that there are dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of types of men and women who have all been hurt, traumatized, and let down at some point in their life, and because of that, it makes relating to others challenging?

More Than 2

There are hurt people in the world. There are men who have “mommy issues”, “daddy issues”, and also there are women who have “mommy issues” and “daddy issues.” There are people who have trust issues. There are people who believe that all love ends in pain and tragedy. There are people who have never been intimately involved with another person who fears to take that first step. There are people that grew up out of divorce, chaos, loss, abuse, neglect, and filled with oodles of unmet needs from their past who don’t know how to ask for the fulfillment of those needs now. These experiences in our lives do not make us bad people and do not limit us, they add to us and to our personality. My mommy issues make me who I am, they don’t make me less than. My trust issues show that there is work to be done, not that I should be rejected and disregarded. None of this is cause for categorization. One cannot type a lifetime experience. It is unique.

There are people afraid of spiders, snakes, and dogs. Others are afraid of love, sex, and experiencing pure joy in their life for fear that if they find pleasure that pain will surely follow. There are anxious people, angry people, and depressed people. These types of people are not somehow “less than” or people that we should avoid. Every single person that we interact with serves a purpose. Even the ones who drain you, hurt you and leave you are working out their own shit.

Why do we need to divvy people up to fit snuggly into one of two categories? I mean, we are in a time in history that there are more than two genders, why wouldn’t there be more than two types of people in the world? More than that, who are we to say what “type” another person is if we don’t know them? I have noticed how quickly we dismiss people based on one exchange of words without seeking more information to understand the words another person uses. So, if someone disagrees with me about anything, I can easily relegate them to the side that I deem as less than me? As opposed to me? Is that what we want for the world?

Dissolving Dualism

Fortunately, the dualistic design that humanity created for the world has been dissolving. I see more and more people refusing to play the game of this or that. Some are so bold to suggest that there is no evil in the world, that all created beings are good, and that everything is rooted in love or, as a way to attain love and meet needs. Mystics and contemplatives teach us that acceptance of all things without concerns of labeling and judging, is the way to conscious awakening. We must let go of the desire to contrast and compare another with ourselves and develop a way to see them as truly divine beings. This is not only important for peace of mind, but this enables us to fully embody our truest erotic self.

Eros is a transformative love. Octavio Paz says that it’s also a blatant contradiction. It takes two opposing forces and integrates them. Eroticism combines involuntary attraction with choice but adds to the equation a third factor: acceptance. So, while the memes and ideas may imply that you attract what you think about, or that you attract what you are, and that somehow, this means you aren’t what you should be, or you’re not the type that is the right type; eros says something different. Octavio Paz articulates on behalf of eros:

“Love is attraction toward a unique person: a body and soul. Love is choice; eroticism is acceptance. Without eroticism—without a visible form that enters by way of sense—there is no love, but love goes beyond the desired body and seeks the soul in the body and the body in the soul. The whole person.”
(The Double Flame, 33)

Look at it like this. You are going around in life, seeing all of these “types” of people come into your proximity. You immediately decide which category they belong in. Insta-judgment. You’ve reduced them and swiped left. Or maybe you’ve decided they are your type. Swipe right. You judged them positively because you watched them do or say something amazing and decided “Yeah, that’s my people.” In either event, you’ve only chosen because of the things you have seen with your own eyes or heard with your own ears. You’ve done this based on how you categorize, label, and type. Not because this person and you connected on some intimate level, but superficially, only.

Paz’s presentation of eroticism’s fundamental aspect of acceptance is crucial. Eroticism looks beyond the surface so there can be no insta-judgment nor a reduction. One exchange with another does not provide enough substance to judge in the first place. Secondly, intimacy is cultivated sensationally. In the cyber world, this form of love doesn’t have enough room to grow—it’s a great starter-container for a young seed of connectivity, but eroticism spreads through touch, sound, smell, sight, and taste.

If we take the ideas from the memes that there are only limited types of people and combine the Christian principle of “love the neighbor” in its most ineffective way— “I love everyone, even people I don’t know, because that’s what Jesus said to do,” neither choice incorporates acceptance. It’s just blind obedience; obedience to a societal recommendation or to a doctrine.

Without the senses, there is no love. Without a form to go beyond, there is no eroticism. Love is an energy that flows through the senses, but it flows beyond the senses, it’s transcendent. Love is just floating around, seeking space to fill. We provide that space if we choose to and accept that choice.

When we type people, we fail to see that the person we “attracted” into our proximity of interaction is seeking love (and an unmet need). More than that, they are seeking attention. Love wants attention. But people don’t always know how to ask for the attention they want, so they do stupid shit. They hurt us, challenge us, insult us, attack us, contradict us, and project their fears and shame on us. When we look at people with an erotic lens, we can see the multitude of possibilities of that person and we don’t need to type them. We look beyond the surface, beyond the body, and see the soul.

I am not suggesting that we give attention to those who are constantly hurting us or neglecting us or ignoring common decency. I am suggesting that we give people a chance to reveal what is in their hearts before we dismiss them and cast them off with a label that damns them to an eternity in hell. It’s interesting that we are so quick to condemn and so slow to love.

Jesus was met with disdain, condemnation, and threats from all types of people. The Pharisees gave him the most grief. And while many people see that throughout the Gospels the Pharisees were rude, cruel, and self-righteous—which is true for many of them, not all of them were typed and dismissed by Jesus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, yet Jesus gave him compassionate attention and answered his questions. Jesus could have easily assumed that Nicodemus was just like all the other Pharisees, but he didn’t. Why?

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb and be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
(John 3:1-8, NIV)

What if Jesus’ response to being born again has something to do with Nicodemus’ distinction of the type of person Jesus is? Jesus is the type of person who has God with him. Meaning there are some who do not have God with them and cannot do the works of God? How often do you or other people type people based on the Christian beliefs in God? “If you don’t believe in God, you are going to hell.” “If you don’t declare that Jesus is Lord, you will burn in hell.” The idea that there are two types of people in eternity, the saved and the condemned, falls back into this fallacy of only two choices.

Flesh gives birth to flesh, but love gives birth to love. Spirit, like love, is everywhere, seeking a space to fill. Everyone born of the Spirit looks into a person, not just at the person. Nicodemus was just looking at what Jesus did and decided he was this type of person that has God with him. He accepted what was on the surface—the miracle as observed by others, not what was in Jesus’ heart. Nicodemus goes to tell him “Dude, you did all these amazing things! Wow, you really do have God with you!” But Jesus understands this form of patronization and tosses this odd response back to him and it baffles Nicodemus. “Born again? How is this even possible?”

“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and you do not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” (John 3:9-12)

Pharisees, it was assumed, were people that “have God with them.” That’s the type of people they are. Nicodemus has now put Jesus in the same group as himself. But Jesus spins the lesson into a clap back. “You’re the teacher who has the authority to categorize me and accept what you see in front of your eyes, but have you accepted what I have in my heart, even if it causes you to question what you know?”

The transformative power of eroticism requires dimension, surface layers will not do. Love goes beyond form, beyond the senses, but without the senses, there is no love. Nicodemus’s declaration of what he knows is only based on what he has seen with his eyes. That’s a form of obedience that Jesus was not seeking.

Belief in the Son of Man is not simply saying “I believe because I have seen.” Even Doubting Thomas needed to touch Jesus to add dimension to what he was seeing and hearing. Belief is acceptance, not just a statement. Authentic acceptance comes by way of understanding. And one cannot understand another unless they are willing to share space with them, listen to them, and grant them attention. Nicodemus used his sense of sight alone to decide God was with Jesus.

Jesus continues:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16-18)

The first thing that stands out to me in this verse is the intention of Jesus. Not to condemn, but to save the world. Second, whoever believes is not condemned. Nicodemus wants to declare his belief so that he won’t be condemned. But Jesus is quick to remind him that belief isn’t about just seeing stuff and nodding heads. It needs to be deeper than that. It needs to run through the body, into the soul, as the Spirit does. Third, if God didn’t send Jesus to condemn the world, what does that mean for the Pharisees and the rest of the people that still choose to condemn other?

What is another name for God’s Son? What did Jesus represent? Jesus represented love. Jesus wanted to show us that God = love. Jesus shows us love in action and that it’s acceptance of the whole person, not just the things that can be seen and discussed in town gossip. Jesus accepted everyone he interacted with, even the types that the Pharisees didn’t approve of.

That which condemns is simply the refusal to see the love in the atmosphere. There is always an invitation to love present in the space between people. We condemn ourselves when we refuse to believe in love’s powerful energy to transform. We condemn ourselves when we reduce another person with surface judgments. We condemn ourselves when we reject the invitation to love and accept another.

Remember earlier in the text when the writer notes when Nicodemus visits Jesus? It’s at night, hidden in the shadows. As the conversation is ending, Jesus says,

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” (John 3:19-21)

As Jesus ends his schooling session with Nicodemus, I cannot help but wonder if this reference has anything to do with the evening visit? A Pharisee accepting Jesus in the dark cannot be seen by many people. But in the light? The town would talk! The Pharisees had already decided what type of person Jesus was, and he wasn’t their people. Is Nicodemus trying to come to the Son of God and tell him he believes to gain credit with God and still maintain the credit of his council?

Reflected from this story is the image of modern society. How often does this scene play out in our lives today? Using the cover or the night to get away with things to save face in the light.

Love Actually is All Around

Love is all around us. Like the wind, love blows—it flows, and we hear it, but we cannot tell where it comes from. But along the way, our experiences distort how we perceive love. Our lens gets fogged up and the view becomes blurry. We form new ideas about how love should be presented to us, what it is supposed to look like. We build expectations around the image of love and refuse everything that doesn’t look like what we were told it looks like.

That’s how Nicodemus presented himself to Jesus. He was instructed to discern that seeing miracles = Godly. Nothing less or nothing more?

We decide to believe before we understand and accept and experience it for ourselves. We use remedial memes that say, “If a person shows you who you are, believe them the first time” and then use what they show one time as enough to decide whether to swipe left or right. On the surface, it’s safe. It protects you, especially from abuse and harm. But it also prevents healing from occurring. And when I think of Jesus, I think of healing. Besides, Jesus doesn’t strike me as a surface person, what say you?

Like the Apostle Paul needed to see the world with fresh eyes, Nicodemus too had to give birth to a new understanding of what belief means. Belief is not “I see it; therefore, it is true.” Just as love is not “I love because I am told to love.” Belief and love are both affective phenomena. They affect the senses and the soul. Form and flow. Flesh and Spirit. It’s not one or the other, it’s both. I think that’s what Jesus was trying to get Nicodemus to understand. And it reflects Paz’s ideas about eroticism. Eroticism, being the contradiction of fate and freedom—magnetism and choice converging into one powerful energy; is love for the whole person. The body and soul. Flesh and Spirit. It’s beyond what can be seen.

I encourage us to consider seeing into the soul of a person and accept them instead of blindly adhering to doctrinal ethics of “loving everyone as Jesus did.” We can’t love what we don’t know. It’s silly to hold an expectation that we should. I don’t love my husband simply because some words in a book have been interpreted to mean that. I was attracted to my husband, then chose to love him because I could accept him after I understood him. That takes time to develop. It’s a process. I didn’t decide to love him simply because someone just said, “You, go love people, now.”

I believe if we let go of the prescriptions of partitioning people into reductive categories, we wouldn’t be so offended and outraged as often as we are. If our lens is adjusted to give attention to those who fit a certain type of people worthy of our attention, we limit ourselves to the possibility of evolving. Why would we want to stunt our growth like that? When we adjust our lens to the love setting, we see it all around and as an endless possibility of fruition. We also notice how grand love is, it touches everyone, it runs as deep as we are willing to look. There is no type, no category, no way to reduce it. Essentially, love is label-less because eroticism is everything and nothing.