Categorical thinking is very common in life.
In fact, it is extremely valuable aspect of human being. We cannot possibly avoid this process : assigning people or things to categories.
For example, people are seen as either: male or female, good or bad, us or others.
In the process of categorizing things and people we are assuming that our model of reality is valid, all people are either male or female, good or bad.
Categorical thinking is very helpful in science (any science requires the mind to know things distinctly as this or that). If we take this orientation of thinking to how we think about people or situations in our everyday life, we search to label them: how annoying is this person, the customer service was terrible.
Moreover because of categorical thinking/conclusions, we try to avoid unknown people or situations until we know which category they belong to. We start to live in fear of being hurt. We start to label people and situations as soon as we can because we could deal with them better.
It takes time to change categorical thinking . We all are used to the mind concluding or categorizing people and situations into neat boxes so we can deal with them better. The more we try to fit things into our model, the more we fail to have a happy life. Our true nature can not be categorized or objectified. When we are able to appreciate that the truth of our existence is both this and that, and at the same time neither this or that, we no longer feel the need to categorize or label an existence or a situation.
We enjoy what is.
