Categories of Categories: How We Build Meaning Through Mental “Boxes” (and Why Positioning Depends on Them)
Last time I got a little intense talking about expression—about being able to explore what’s true, what isn’t, and how truth can be different from “facts” even when people are staring at the same information.
That tension matters because it forces us to do something most people avoid: discuss reality out loud, risk being wrong, risk conflict, and risk being offensive—because without that, we don’t refine our thinking. We just harden it.
Before I go deeper, quick update: Most Businesses Fail in the First Five Minutes is finally done. I’m holding the advanced reader copy in this video—the labor-of-love version with tears, blood, and everything else that tends to show up when you actually finish something meaningful. If you want to be notified when the official release drops, go to positiontowinbook.com and add your email.
Now, the real topic today:
Categories of categories.
This sounds abstract until you realize it’s one of the core engines behind how humans create meaning—and how positioning works far beyond marketing.
Why This “Categories” Topic Goes Beyond Marketing
I was explaining positioning to my uncle and he said something like, “That goes beyond marketing.”
Yes. Exactly.
Positioning is not merely a tactic to sell something. It’s rooted in something older and deeper:
The way the mind organizes reality into a hierarchy of importance.
Your mind is always deciding:
- What matters most
- What matters less
- What gets attention now
- What gets ignored
That process isn’t neutral. It’s how you survive complexity.
And it’s also how people get manipulated—sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally.
What a Category Actually Is
A category is basically a label. A grouping. A mental folder.
Think of a filing cabinet:
- You open a drawer
- You see labeled folders
- Each folder contains “things that belong together”
That’s a decent metaphor for cognition.
Because if your mind didn’t do this, experience would feel like raw noise—data spread everywhere with no structure. Categories compress reality so you can:
- Access information quickly
- Decide what’s relevant
- Act without re-thinking everything from scratch
The end goal isn’t intellectual elegance.
The end goal is usable meaning.
Narratives Are Built Out of Categories
At a high level, the mind structures life in narrative form.
But narratives are built from constituent parts—categories.
A narrative has to be abstract enough to apply to you, me, and the people around us. If it’s too specific, it only fits one person.
That’s why fiction is powerful: it operates at a level of abstraction that makes it feel universal.
You watch a story and immediately try to answer:
- Whose point of view is this?
- Who am I supposed to identify with?
- Who is the “hero” here?
“Hero” is a category.
“Villain” is a category.
“Mentor,” “outcast,” “traitor,” “lover,” “king,” “rebel,” “coward,” “prophet”—all categories.
And these categories become the mental handles we use to grasp meaning.
The Dark Side: Ideology as One-Sided Categorization
Here’s where it gets dangerous.
Ideologies work by turning complex reality into simplified categories:
- “These people are good”
- “Those people are bad”
- “If you disagree, you’re not one of us”
It doesn’t matter whether it comes from the right or the left—extremes often collapse into the same structure:
- simplified narrative
- rigid categories
- suppressed nuance
- justified cruelty
That’s one reason we need to stay capable of open conversation: because the first sign of ideological possession is when someone can’t tolerate the category being questioned.
Familiar vs. Unfamiliar: The Infinite Problem
At any moment, you’re dealing with:
- familiar things
- unfamiliar things
And the unfamiliar will always outnumber the familiar.
The familiar is finite.
The unfamiliar is infinite.
That fact forces humans to build “floors”—foundations under our knowledge—because we can’t live floating over the abyss of the unknown.
This is one reason belief systems (religious or otherwise) show up across human history. We need a stable frame to function.
Categories help build that frame.
A Concrete Example: Why We Have Different Kinds of Doctors
Let’s get less philosophical and more practical.
Why do we have:
- general practitioners
- cardiologists
- neurologists
- gastroenterologists
- psychiatrists
Because the human body is too complex for one person to master completely.
So we specialize.
But specialization comes with a cost:
As categories become more specific, the chasms between them get deeper.
A brain expert gets incredibly good at one domain.
A gut expert gets incredibly good at another.
But what happens when those systems interact?
They always do.
We’re now learning that the gut has a “brain-like” network of neurons, and that digestion and mood and cognition are deeply connected. The categories were useful—but reality doesn’t fully respect the borders.
This is a pattern that shows up everywhere: medicine, business, organizations, tech, culture.
Two Types of People: Inside the Game and Outside the Game
Here’s another useful distinction:
- The person inside the game
- The person outside the game observing the game
The insider:
- learns the rules
- gets deep expertise
- plays the category well
The outsider:
- sees the structure
- sees incentives
- sees relationships between categories
- sees the system
You need both.
You want a real cardiologist doing heart surgery—not someone who “kind of remembers biology.”
But you also need someone who can say:
“The heart issue might be a symptom of something systemic.”
Positioning—real positioning—requires the ability to step outside the immediate category and understand context.
Emergence: Why Knowing the Parts Doesn’t Explain the Whole
This is where it gets interesting.
Even if you understand categories deeply, you still may not understand what happens when categories combine.
Classic example: water.
Hydrogen has properties.
Oxygen has properties.
Combine them in H₂O and you get something with totally different emergent behavior:
- Water is liquid in a range where the separate elements aren’t.
- Water expands when it freezes (ice floats).
- That simple property is part of why life can exist as we know it.
The lesson is bigger than chemistry:
Knowing parts doesn’t guarantee understanding the whole.
This is why imagination matters—because connecting categories often requires creative leaps, not just expertise.
Categories of Categories: The Nested Doll Problem
Every category exists inside a larger category.
A specialist exists inside a profession.
A profession exists inside an industry.
An industry exists inside an economy.
An economy exists inside a society.
A society exists inside a worldview.
It’s nested like Russian dolls—one inside another inside another.
This is why the phrase “think outside the box” is incomplete.
Because even if you step outside a box, you’re still inside a larger one.
The real skill is not “no boxes.”
The real skill is:
- knowing which box you’re in
- knowing which box you need
- choosing the correct level of analysis for your goal
Positioning as Context Management
This is the bridge back to positioning.
Positioning isn’t only about standing out.
It’s about making sense in context.
Nothing exists in a vacuum:
- your business
- your offer
- your ideas
- your career
- your pitch
- even your identity
Everything is evaluated relative to other categories, other players, and other frames.
This is why most people fail at persuasion and opportunity.
They walk in and say:
“I need a job.”
“I need attention.”
“I need funding.”
“I need customers.”
That’s the inside-the-box move.
The outside-the-box move is:
“Here’s how I fit into what you already need.”
“Here’s what problem I solve in your system.”
“Here’s the role I occupy relative to your priorities.”
That’s positioning.
Closing Summary
Categories are how the mind compresses reality into something usable.
But meaning and strategy require more than expertise inside a category. They require the ability to:
- see categories interacting
- shift levels of analysis
- step outside the game and observe the whole system
That’s what “categories of categories” is really pointing to.
And that’s why understanding positioning ends up being a philosophy of mind—not just a marketing method.
FAQ
What does “categories of categories” mean?
It means categories are nested—each category sits inside a larger framework, and understanding often requires choosing the right level of analysis.
Why do humans categorize things?
To reduce complexity, retrieve knowledge quickly, and decide what matters—so we can act.
How does this connect to meaning?
Meaning depends on what gets prioritized and how experience is organized. Categories determine what we notice, value, and ignore.
How does this connect to positioning?
Positioning is context-based evaluation. To position well, you must understand the surrounding categories and how your idea fits among them.
Why can specialization be limiting?
Specialization creates depth but can create silos. Many problems are systemic and cross-category, so integration becomes essential.
If you want help applying positioning and systems thinking to your business, career, or strategy, email me at [email protected].
This piece connects to the Meaning hub here:
https://gabebautista.com/essays/meaning/
