I don’t think it’s controversial to say that many (the majority, all?) people feel something lacking in their lives. The rules of passing (by definition) demand that we assemble versions of ourselves to present to the public which look like others’. In high school unpopular kids turned their noses up at peers who were able to find a place within groups made up of characters who were “different like everyone else”. Today it seems there’s still a desire to be seen as “different like my own self”, and perhaps the group of people desiring these things are from a larger circle than one might expect. The condition of never feeing “enough” has stopped many people from coming out in their lives, or even entertaining an acknowledgement within themselves about subjects which seem taboo.
I can’t tell you how regularly and from how many differently presenting people I hear about the desire to be understood as “special”, “different from the pack”, “individually recognized for their personal values, against type”… Ironically, I feel as though being seen in the world for who I am—queer, genderfluid, “sexual” rather than type-X-oriented—incites the opposite desire. I’d prefer people to see me (and those traits) as normal. After all, sex and gender variations are normal, as is sensual desire across a spectrum of types. These things are evident throughout all of nature, they’re well documented and acknowledged within our contemporary society, and they’ve been present across cultures and nations historically.
Desire for pleasure to be felt in the body—any place on the body—stimulated by a person who can be connected with safely and amorously: is normal.
The desire to be seen as a valuable individual, not simply generalized as part of a larger group’s legacy: is normal.
To want to be viewed as separate from whichever archetypes you represent or appear to align with: is normal.
To want your story to count is human: and normal.
People who’ve spent their lives unable to profit off the patriarchy because they don’t pass social standards, have spent time wrestling with their defined differences from the norm. Within wrestling most of us come to love ourselves in spite of, and even for the very things we feel rejected about or harassed for. I wonder, in this ever polarizing world where community member is pitted against community member for survival, if it’s just simply time for a tide named “different” to sweep the land? May we all be better nourished if that is so.
Acceptance of self requires a growing acceptance of others. From an early age we learn to identify “against” rather than “with”. This type of divide perpetuates an “us against them” mentality which serves to keep all of us down. I hope we’re starting to value the need for individual acceptance over herd mentality. I’m all for it, but not at the expense of othering people as collateral damage on the path to perceived freedom. In an ideal vision of growth we’re able to share our hard won identities with pride, without posing over those we’ve climbed over in order to get there, or painting others into a corner in order that we might stand out as “more enough than they are”.
We cannot use the master’s tools to destroy the master’s house.
We’re born alone, we die alone, and we have gifts to offer the universe which are simply our gifts to give.
Capitalism, our prevailing paradigm, incites fear, belief in baseline instability, and promotes unkind behavior in reaction to the idea that anything valuable exists within a starvation economy. These ideas extend to concepts which are bottomless by nature—love, compassion, empathy, and admiration, for example. The games we’ve learned to play in order to survive have taught us that if we aren’t “on top”, there will be too little to live off of. Those beliefs (lies) steal from us the very human traits which link us to one another meaningfully and contribute to communal success. Our society was built off the concept of: hierarchical placement = value of personhood. If we truly believe one human is more valuable than another, we’re also doomed to acknowledge our own specialness as important only when it offers power over others. This measure of a person’s individual gifts to community is against the concept of community.
Today is National Coming Out Day. Just a couple days ago the Supreme Court heard arguments about, and is currently ruminating on, whether LGBT people deserve equal rights and protection in the workplace. Can you even wrap your head around that? I have a hard time doing it. We live in a country that defines itself as the “land of the free”, and has as its founding principle a separation of church and state. Still though, our State feels the need to consider whether or not some people are more free than others when it comes to physical presentation, sexual attraction, and opportunity to identify oneself honestly.
But Capitalism, am I right?!…
Follow the money.
Look to the power
Your cup of cool-aid is on the table.
It’s not hard to understand the intersection where people get stuck: wanting to be actualized through creativity, inspiration, and congress with positive, pleasurable energies we feel comfort around; while being bound to an environment which denies safe access of basic needs to those who don’t effectively pass while playing the game.
The game is bigoted. We all know this.
Trauma from trying to survive in society is real. Not a single one of us and no single group of us owns that hurt. To create meaningful change it will take many of us calling to the powers that be, the ones who have “won” the game, and holding them accountable concerning how the system hurts us all. That, or a violent uprising, but miles may vary on those…
We run into problems when we turn people into symbols. Conflating an individual with a symbol, archetype, social role, defining them by their job, other identity affiliations, belief system, pleasure activities, or any other single corner of a their experience, is a way to cut down and control them. We endeavor to control others in order to keep ourselves safe and profitable. Knowing one’s place in the pecking order (thereby buying in to the pecking order in the first place) offers us opportunity to harm others in our stead. Those with none below them, and those who decline superiority, suffer in this system. More of us must suffer for the system to collapse, and eventually the masses of those who suffer must teach their suffering to those who remain less touched.
In the quest for specialness (which is really a quest for acknowledgement that we are enough) perhaps the most important thing to remember is that we all deserve things which make us happy, especially things which do no harm to others. I don’t think it’s possible to be meaningfully “special” without celebrating the specialness of others and striving toward egalitarianism. I hope that idea helps heal current divides. Divides serve to rob people of a sense of self which is expansive and complex. Working within a limited sense of self, what specialness exists that a person can be proud of in the first place?
Play On My Friends,
~ Creature
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