Shitty First Draft
When I am talking to my friends, Marcella, Rocio, Lydia, Clara, Oriana and the other random that walk into our dorm I feel heard. I use a lot of humor to hide myself from the world. And even though my humor is being heard it is not me it is a defense mechanism that I think has the opposite effect of hearing. It's more like a silencer. I love it but sometimes I feel it keeps me where I am at, a dangerous stagnation so to speak. I want to be heard but sometimes I’m too scared to do what's necessary to make that happen. I am such an outlier in about every situation that I cannot properly (because of myself) make myself be heard. I am scared to be heard. Like really scared. When I am heard, I know half the people in my life would consider ostracizing me for being heard. The people who do hear me can only hear the echoes that come out of the depths of the canyon. This analogy is a stretch but parallel so work with me. People cannot understand the fresh thoughts or words that leave my mouth, ironically the words I put on the forefront mislead and don’t paint a picture of what I truly want. People other than myself might not know the deep quarrels I feel within myself, but they are there. I am no fool, I know this world is rough, but it does not help that I have the eyes of a cynic. To dig deeper some might say I am my real barrier.
I have a hard time revealing myself because of people pushing me into a corner based on categories and differences. Categories seem efficient and easy however they more than likely can just lead to isolation and pain. I wholly lead my life in a way to strictly define myself in terms of the right label. The world forms a normal just like in math we can collect a mean and median number however humans are so much more complex and everchanging than we give them credit for. This is a mistake I’ve found myself making in my life, relying on these labels up until my venture to college to explain us in ways that simply can't be reasonably explain. Things shift regularly and quickly for humans. We are not stagnant and to provide stagnant labels only allows for conformity instead of forcing uniqueness. I felt like when I hide myself behind these labels or even behind my personality I am losing. In life when people would bully, harass, or judge me enforcing a label to provide instant comfort only provides short term relief. In the long run you lose the free nature humans need to be more understanding, loving, and empathetic.
I felt spoken to from the heart when I sit down and watch seminars on YouTube of professors. One very specific one was the topic of white fragility and black injustice. They explain scenarios when they were giving examples and they all connected me to similar experiences. Hearing someone talk about a black experience with strong white oppression white people were not aware of empowers. You hear more sides. When you are free, not labeled to a corner because it is easier at the time you can pursue growth. When you hear these strong speakers on these platforms, they explain an individual's uniqueness when it comes to struggle and discrimination in terms of the categories and separations of black and white people. These platforms provide riveting information that is crucial to know but work in a way that can be divisive because of the built-in separation and isolation of labels and categories. These categories I may place myself in such as gay, straight, queer, or bisexual weaken my ability to express outside of what is expected from me and others like me. It creates a false sense of comfort and strength by providing homes for labels that only serve to hide my insecurities. When it comes to my attitude of toughness it may be hazy to seem because of the false comfort I can allude to with my acquired label, but my actual fragility can be revealed easily when you get to know me as a human.
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