Yeah, I also like the label analogy. I think it helps clarify that y = x doesn’t do anything other than associate the name :y with the current value of x.
The good news is that if you’re used to Python’s variable semantics, you should find that Julia’s behavior generally matches your expectations. In both Julia and python, doing y = x; y = z never changes x in any way-- it just attaches the :y label to a new value. Likewise in both Julia and Python, doing y[x] = z results in a function call that looks something like “set the x index of y to value z” and thus modifies the current value of y.