Posts tagged “identity”
I'm reclaiming "web developer" as a title worth owning. Bad ones build websites; good ones push the web forward as a medium, experimenting and iterating. Stop hiding behind "frontend engineer" or "web architect." If you develop the web, say so proudly.
(I am way below quota on blog entries this month folks; sorry!) This weekend was my first Gay Pride weekend in San Francisco, and as is customary around this time, one stops to think about the whole concept of being "proud" of one's sexuality. What's it about, really? For one thing, having a big parade where everybody goes overboard with stereotypes -- dykes on bikes, muscle marys, leather daddies, drag queens and twinks (sexy though they may be) -- doesn't exactly send the right message about what gay people are really like. Of course, a parade that accurately represented homosexuals would be 90% completely ordinary people, and that would make for a pretty dull parade ("...and here come the gay accountants!"). For another, having a big parade where people go over the top to show how WONDERFUL it is to be gay smacks a little -- no, a lot -- of over-compensation. There is no reason life as a homosexual cannot be absolutely as fun, fulfilling and happy as life as a heterosexual can be. Going...
Walking down Old Compton Street gives me a rare, warm sense of belonging among people who share my sexuality and history. I wonder: is this what straight people feel everywhere, all the time? And if so, is one street's concentrated freedom worth being ghettoized everywhere else?
I love London but Trinidad is home in a way Britain never quite will be. I daydream about returning, fixing the country's mess, raising kids in sunshine with room to roam. But I'm not ready yet, and being gay there is literally illegal. For now: undecided.
Coolness is just the respect of your peers. My peers aren't on MySpace judging my music taste, they're respecting my dancing, my conversation, my domain collection. So forget the hand-wringing: I'm not uncool, I'm unbelievably cool. And so are you.
I explore what it means to be a geek: someone with an intense intellectual obsession, once a social outcast but increasingly cool since the dot-com era proved geeks could outearn athletes. The internet has helped us find each other. Simple rule: you're a geek if you say you are.
I've been defining myself by my weaknesses and limitations to seem unique. Realizing now I don't need to do that. I am my strengths, skills, and attractions. Also, there's a ridiculously hot boy in my living room and my timing is terrible.
Saw Festen last night and found the audience's reaction to its racism more disturbing than its incest. Growing up as a white minority in Trinidad, and later passing as invisible among white Britons, I've heard what people say when they think no one who'd mind is listening. Britain's racism is hiding, not gone.
Nobody knows where they're going -- not me, not anyone. We're all frightened animals making it up as we go. The trick is to just try things: plug in the box, go to the party, take the job. One of them might become your thing. Start walking.
A song of gratitude to the people who challenged me, humbled me, and helped me find myself. I came in thinking I knew everything. I didn't. Thanks to them, I still don't know who I'll be, but at least I know who I am.
Lance Arthur's writing about being closeted and a late bloomer resonates deeply with me. I identify with all of it: the fake persona built from fear, the late puberty, the long showers. Turned out okay in the end. No grand conclusion here, just a tired nod of recognition.
Took some online quizzes. The book quiz said I was David Copperfield, which felt wrong. The country quiz said I'm Chile: skinny, bumpy, fighting for justice. That one felt right.
I admit I judge straight people unfairly, mentally recategorizing friends I love as "not really straight" because I can't reconcile my affection for them with my distrust of their group. My heterophobia isn't rational or right, but it's where unprocessed pain goes. Sorry, breeders.
I really want you to change your name.
I've spent years hiding behind "Seldo," a persona I built at 15 to escape being bullied, closeted, miserable Laurie. It worked brilliantly. Now I'm exhausted by my own invention. I want to stop collecting admirers and start earning understanding. Time to let Laurie grow up.
100 things about me, because everyone else was doing it and I couldn't resist. I blew the "short" requirement completely. Covers everything from being Trinidadian and gay to my Nightcrawler fixation, my terrible eating habits, and why I go by Seldo.
Being geeky and gay means double the teasing, but also double the resilience. I'd share my own coming-out story but don't have time to do it justice. Short version: all-male school, no friends, and I never even told my mom. Happy birthday, mom.
Four years ago I came out, and with my sexuality came everything else I'd been suppressing: the twirly wrists, the giggling, the dancing. I'm not proud of being gay specifically, but I'm proud of finally being myself. And four years ago, I couldn't have said that.
The real world is boring, painful, and indifferent to me. My mind is better. I fly, shatter into silver angels, swim as dolphins, blast back at bullies with beams of light. Why settle for here when I have all that in my head?
A poem wrestling with guilt, shame, and the crushing weight of others' judgment. I question why I internalize their bigotry, why I can't cast it aside, and reckon with a darker truth: I might be just like them if I weren't the one they condemn.
A poem about an ordinary, invisible boy nobody noticed. No tragic ending, no special qualities, just a reminder that everyone has depth if you bother to look, and that loneliness is more common than we admit.
A poem and prose piece urging you to stop living in fear of judgment. Nobody is watching as closely as you think, the walls are imaginary, and the only thing stopping you from being yourself is you. Let it go. You have nothing to hide.
A poem about the tension between inner growth and the pressure to stay small, stay safe, stay the same. The world wants you on automatic. I'm overflowing.
A poem about coming out to my parents, fearing I'll become a stranger to them, but pleading that this stranger still needs their love to survive.
A poem about a controlling mother who sees her son as an extension of herself, unable to accept who he really is. When he finally asserts his own identity, both find imperfect freedom.
A poem about people who treat me as a novelty rather than a person, collecting "weirdo friends" to impress others while reducing me to comfortable clichés. I refuse to be squeezed into their jigsaw. Know me as I am, or don't bother.
A poem about feeling peripheral, disconnected from the main event of life. I'm the sideshow nobody notices, clowning through existence, wondering if anything I do matters. The circus rolls on with or without me.
A poem about the unknowable self that lurks within, driving my actions without my consent. I've traveled far but never found myself, and this hidden inner force clouds my judgment, harms those I love, and leaves me pleading for forgiveness from those I've hurt.
A poem about feeling unique and misunderstood, longing for connection while holding myself apart. I wonder if being special means being alone, and whether it's time to stop standing apart and just fall back into the arms of humanity.
Being surrounded by people who don't know I'm gay has brought back every awful feeling I'd forgotten: the guilt, the vigilance, the claustrophobia of hiding. Acceptance has to keep happening. I refuse to be recloseted again. I'll out myself, help others, and fight everything that keeps closets closed.
