Sunday, March 29, 2015

Homophobia- what it actually is

So many people have a label, (and even an opinion), when it comes to the L.G.B.T. community. The label of "homophobia" is supposed to be the fear of same sex loving individuals. At least that is what the dictionary will actually tell you. I however, have a completely different story to tell about this word and what it relates to in my life.

Homophobia is a fear indeed. But the funny thing is, I have never encountered a single person that reacted with an actual "fear" based behavior. In each scenario, the "homophobic" is always taking the role of the oppressor. If you are actually afraid of something, then how can violate and immature behavior almost always be the end result? Why go to such great lengths to insult and degrade and even go so far to cause harm to someone else?

 From verbal insults, beatings, and even murder, gay people have had to hide in times past to protect themselves from those who were supposed to be afraid of them. But the only fear I can personally see being demonstrated, is a fear of actually being gay. If you are truly secure in your own sexuality, then why oppress another person for their own? Or is it that you actually have a fear that you are hiding the fact that you are actually gay?

Being raised by an extremely conservative mother, I witnessed homophobia first hand from since childhood. From my own mother and sisters, I was ridiculed and abused both emotionally and physically for something I actually could not control. I was made to feel inferior for acting feminine. Even after I adopted a warrior aspect for my own persona, I was still made to feel inferior simply because of who I was attracted to.

I was labeled a mutant. I was exiled as an outcast like trash. The very people who brought me within this existence were the very ones that were my worst oppressors. Were they afraid of me? Not in the least. Did they show me signs of actual fear? Never once. Homophobia to me is a lie unto itself as just a pathetic excuse for ignorant people to act like assholes.

But from these humble beginnings, I learned that not all people are ignorant. The true homophobia in my own eyes was in how people would react to finding out that I myself was different. I recall being a gay teenager. I had to play a double lifestyle and even a double persona. The fear of people coming after me placed me in a position of fear. It placed me in a position of hating myself for being a mutant. It placed me in a position of shame that I never asked for. Why should I be afraid if I am not "homophobic"?

But despite all of this, I have learned what love truly is. Despite my twisted past, I have learned to focus on better things and eventually, better people. I am often asked about my past and my family. People ask me why I don't go back to see my family. But I ask you, after all of that hatred, how can I return to what tried to box me? I do not look upon my family with hatred for ignorance. I choose to look at my family as the ones who love me without judgment. The very ones who have helped me rise above conflict and even emotional and financial strife, do not share my DNA.


Saturday, March 28, 2015

The secret of trust.

Trust,
It is something that is given freely in the care free days of youth until your heart is betrayed by someone you brought close to you. Their intentions being different from your own, they had their own desires they were tending to. And here you are thinking the wrong vision of another person altogether. You gave them your all because you thought that they had the same intentions. It is in that moment when you make the realization that people will always be who and what they really are, regardless of whatever you may think. You trusted them and they let you down. You trusted them, and they lied to you.

It begins with trying to understand why at first. In the chaos of emotions that follow, you feel a void within you that was once filled with happiness and oblivious naivete. Now it is a pain and a hollow feeling that is then leading you into this anger and sadness you have never felt before. This is what treachery feels like. It is the biting of the tongue when you want to scream in rage as the emotions reach a boiling point you consider what has just happened. Did he ever even care, or was he in it for his own intentions?

You try to make some sort of logical explanation or excuse about it all, but it doesn't stop the feeling of pain welling up inside. The silence of his response is chilling, cold, and lacking. He gives you nothing to explain his obvious greed and then you are besides yourself with thoughts of his demise. Why do you want him to fall? Because you want him to feel what he made you feel. You want him to hurt like you hurt. You want him to be the one hurt instead of you crying in your pillow at the bedside.

You want the pain to stop and you want to stop talking about him. You want to cut him from your heart and even still something within you holds on to a fragment of the first lie. You want to believe in that lie there was something profound. You want to believe within that fragment of love, that it wasn't an illusion. You truly want to understand how it all happened so fast. You back track the memories and the trail of emotions left behind to make some sort of sense to it all. Why would he do this? How can someone just not care at all?

It is here you realize that you can change. But why should you? You weren't the deceptive one. But you have decided to never to allow this to happen again. You realize that somehow you allowed this to happen. You realize that you have to pick yourself up off the floor because with or without you, life goes on. Do you live, or do you wither? In each heartbeat, a fragment of you remains unfulfilled, because you made the mistake of trusting the wrong person.

Friday, March 27, 2015

Body Image and how it affects you

I have contemplated the effects of body image in America. Body shaming should be the more appropriate phrase to use for the sake of this blog and my own opinion. From when you can walk in America, you are taught to be ideal. You have to have rock hard abs, you have to have less than 10% body fat, and if you do not, then American Media will poison you with shame.

The fitness industry stands testament to the effects of the marketing of ideal body image. You see commercials that show exercise equipment and always have people pour their souls in testimonies. A before image is often used to show unhappy people in unhappy situations that felt that they wanted to change. This change is often achieved by using repetition of certain exercises and the strict "healthy diet". This is in a country in which processed foods rule the country with lobbyists bribing senators to keep their chemical laced foods legal.

It is funny that body image has taken such a sharp turn over the decades to the profit of various markets. During the 1970's, the ideal body image was to be of "slender" build and foods were no where nearly as toxic to consumption as they are today. To achieve this slender build, a person became dedicated to the four food groups and aerobic exercise. Growing up during the 80's and 90's, this "look" remained easy to achieve for the average citizen.

During the 90's however,  the shift in marketing strategies changed and with it, body shaming was clearly more evident. As processed foods came on the rise, obesity in America also rose. The medical industry also rose in profits with treatment for diabetes type two, and high blood pressure. The food is more toxic, and yet Americans are "expected" to be healthy by controlling portions and choices.

Body shaming now affects men as well as women even more now than it ever has in the past century. If a man is not of at least an "athletic" or "muscular" build, he is often over looked as a viable choice for attractiveness. A man's sense of worth is now just as vulnerable from youth as a woman's when it comes to how you appear to people. The common factor here is that if a man doesn't lift weights, he isn't deemed as "strong" or even masculine.

I would not dare say that it is right for only women to have these problems. I would say however, that as a society, we should not be so quick to judge people based upon this social conditioning that has poisoned our way of viewing others since times past. Why can't we just teach people that they need to look behind the cover? If appearance is all you are looking for, then all you need to do is search for thirst traps on Instagram and Facebook. People who find their only means of validation, showing off their bodies to appease a void that they themselves cannot fill.

Love is the obvious answer. But too many people are focusing on too many external elements to fill the void of what is missing within themselves. You have to learn how to love who you are without any need of outside validation before you can realize what love actually is. If you cannot love a person's flaws, how are you going to love the rest? How can you expect to be loved by anyone if you can't accept flaws as part of the person as a whole? Unconditional love has no barriers to actually stop it. If you can't love unconditionally, then you already love only under ideal conditions.

-Q-

Monday, March 23, 2015

Wavelength

I have a lot to say. But before I do, I want to take out the time to say thank you. I want to thank all of my potential readers that will come out here and see what is going on in my little life. I want to say thank you to everyone that has supported me in my efforts and everything that I do. I want to say thank you for the life I have been allowed to live right now. I have so much time now, and it feels so good to have.

I am walking in the light of this world without worry or fear. I can now say that I do not have to be afraid anymore. I am surrounded by people that love me. I have begun the process of understanding manifestation and the Law of Attraction. When I look at this, I have a much more clear understanding of how my life went the way it did and what exactly that I desire in this world now.

I have left that self imposed prison that was retail work. I spent 9 years in a hardware retail store being something far greater than anything that the company could offer me. I reached a point where I came to the realization that it isn't about the money. It was truly about becoming and living how I wanted to live. It was about being who I really wanted to be. It was about respecting the real career of being myself.

We spend so much time being "conditioned" in a world that teaches you to hate who you are. You spend so much of your adolescence "emulating" someone else because who you are isn't truly respected by you. You are told to lose weight, to wear certain clothes, or to purchase certain possessions to establish a very false sense of wealth.  Day in and day out, you flip on a television and see a perspective given to you by classical "media".

There is so much shame in what the media teaches you. There is so much fear and disrespect given by that one perspective. It is no wonder that my life changed, when I decided to become an individual and not  a sheep to the massive grips of the machine.There is so much toxic conditioning in American society, that you literally spend half of your life just trying to figure things out.

Now that I have passed that point in my life, I can now focus on what I consider to be the true wealth. Happiness to me is far more important than the largest diamonds. Happiness is what we all secretly and openly desire. It is the focal point for all of our large and small decisions in this lifetime. So if you are not being happy, you are bringing forth more of what isn't happy in your life. So the same questions pop up again and again in multiple phases of life: What am I doing? What do I really want?
When you are confident in answering those questions, you will discover the most important aspect that you alone can control, yourself.