Breaking the Spell: Rethinking queer community

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Toughy

Aj.........I need to digest what you said. It is never my intention to discourage anyone. When I asked my grandmother how she and my grandfather stayed married for 60+ years.........her reply was....'you have to be decent with each other always'. I think those are words to live by.

My world of acceptance is truly but a pipe dream, where the world is not a melting pot but a salad bowl. Differences are as celebrated as commonalities.

Lately I have been failing at articulating what my intellect tells me....as someone said in another thread........'I used to be so smart'. Maybe it's because more and more I operate from an open loving heart which does not always translate to words.

Take your time, Toughy. I do want to say two things. While we might have dreams of how the world would be if we had a better people to do social change with, we only have us. If we lived in world of *infinite* resources, there would be no need for competition. If we lived in a world where everyone thought alike, then, ironically, we could have the world you're talking about where differences are as celebrated as commonalities.

But look at who we are. Is there a *single* culture that anyone can name where one couldn't tell a story about two sisters jealous of one another and people will understand what that story is about? Can anyone think of a culture where a story about a couple kept apart by their parents, or one where a good woman stays by her drunkard husband, or families quarreling about this or that would not resonate? There's a reason for that. People are jealous. They get angry. They quarrel. They are selfish. They prefer their family over strangers. They prefer their countryman or their neighbor over the stranger in their midst.

This is what we have to work with and we have to do it in the most democratic fashion because all the other alternatives are pretty unsavory.

One thing about your operating from an open, loving heart. I don't often talk about this and, quite honestly, I have done an insufficient job letting my love for humanity come through. That is my own failing as a writer. I am operating from an open and loving heart too, Toughy, even if I'm less obviously public about it. I hoped (and still hope) that my loving heart will come through without my having to tell people 'see, I'm a loving and open-hearted person'.

When my son was just a toddler and I would get frustrated with him, I would say "act my age!" It was my way of reminding myself that I was the adult and he was the child and my desiring for him to behave like an adult was patently ludicrous. That, to me, was being both open-hearted and loving. Instead of trying to make him be what I thought I needed or wanted him to be, I had to meet him where he was, warts and all. When I met Jaime, the mistake I told myself I would avoid was expecting her to be anyone other than she is. I try not to see my wife through rose-colored glasses although I'm sure that I do. You've met her, it's easy to do. But if we are going to last, I need to meet her right where she is and never expect her to be anyone other than herself. That, to me, is being open-minded and loving.

That is how I try to approach my love of the other 6 billion of you lot. I don't expect us to be anything other than what we are. So any social change we're going to have has to be done with that in mind. That's not to say we shouldn't dream big, but expecting humanity to one day live in a state of perpetual kumbaya is to expect a 2 year old to act like a 22 year old.


Cheers
Aj