Mirror Objects
Jesters
Drag
If truth is a cat, it is a scared one, solitary, hissing, back furled.
It is suspicious of any and everyone, susceptible to any movement or sound, sceptic. And generally impossible to grasp.
Like a subject that is present only in the background, sneaking around in silence, observing.
The jester feels like a fitting main character. A person blissfully unaware, walking off a cliff with a smile on their face.
Simultaneously they combine this whimsy that I idolise personally with a lot of power, a certain freedom that comes from their lack-luster approach of doing. They do not care in a lot of ways, about others, but have a cunning judgement over situations and people.
The moon feels like it knows everything, but is slow to tell, wise but with the knowledge of that wisdom being impossible to tell maybe.
Playfulnes might not be serious then, but it is plain. It is the barest minimum somehow, a default line to revert back to. It is not hiding anything, anywhere but going the pace it needs to go, following the logic or non-logic it needs to follow.
There is an element of truth in simple playfulness. I think one aspect that brings me a lot of peace is reminding myself that nothing can be a failure if done with good intentions. Identifying those is hard though I believe it is this certain simplicity that makes it easier.
Again this feels like an objective simplicity can be found, don’t know if that is the case.
What is the bigger societal context of this?
The loss of agency over your own identity. That is what I find most fascinating still.
When this loss becomes physical i think is when it is most pronounced. I believe William S Burroughs cutting off hist finger is one symptom of this.
Chosing to switch the side of the street when a group of teenage guys walks past me is a physical sign. But not really adapting my body though. More my extension into the space. Or the way I extend into space.
But these are so personal.
So far I feel truth is playing a role, this incessant need to strip away at subjectivity, to remove weathering from my person, to un-dent any creases - I believe - is an attempt at ending up at a form of truth.
I think there might not really be any. I might find at the end of this, that my identity is not something to be statically displayed, to be uncovered for once. There will not be a north star of true character - I don’t think - that I could then fall back on.
Shaping is what a subject makes. Maybe.
Maybe I have to ask different questions then, like why I have this need to find some kernel of truth, some quintessential part of myself, of identity? Is it moving through life in strange paths - a certain feeling of constantly shaping myself to tend to my environment that creates this search or longing.
I think I am searching for validation, an objective truth to cling onto, a part of me I can exteriorise in order to have an unshakable scuffolding and framework that I can point to in order to take decisions, stand in for myself, be.
Am I really constantly shaping myself?
I guess so.
How am I adapting nowadays?
I kind of hate to bring this back to queer identity constantly. And then I think is that internalised homophobia on my part? Or just a rejection of parts of what is considered “queer” for my own identity? It feels like waxing on and on about a subject.
Do I think being queer had a big influence on my life and identity?
Yes.
I think it has shaped me in every way I could not even begin to think what my life would be like had i been not queer.
Had I not locked myself away from early teenage years watching queer youtube, consuming queer media on the internet; had I not of couse been objected to stupid haggling and homophobia in school, life, family (this feels again annoying to mention, I think I might just have a problem stating the severity of things, or granting myself big narrative. I like to keep myself very small usually.)
There is something to be said about proportion. Making myself small and shrinking or aggrandising, which I guess I can be guilty of in very small moments to make up for lost time almost? Like when I get really comfortable with a person I guess it can go the other way and I dramatise things? Although not very or at all.
I always keep quiet and shape myself away from conflict until there is no other way but it kind of has to come out.
Why do I feel bad aknowledging that growing up/being queer has influenced me so starkly?
Maybe its the same mechanism, I feel it’s irrelevant, not that iportant, not worth to mention. People go through worse things. Also, framing it as this constant bad influence, this marginalising force while simultaneously making it a marker of your very identity tarnishes your whole self-perception.
Why would I want to identify myself through this apparently negative state?
It feels important enough for me to expend energy on moving along the lines of society in a queer orientation, to climb and tumble over the ridges and hills rather than sticking to the linear path of the valley.