by Underground Panther in the Sky, Unknown News
Feb. 27, 2004
I always hate it when people ask me, "Who are you?" Because I find I have no answer for them. I mumble ummm, uh hmm er... I dunno ... who I am. If I knew who I was I would have solved one of the biggest enigmas that have stumped philosophers since the beginning of time. When someone says they "are" something what does it mean really?
I can identify what I "like" or have an affinity for, and what I don't like. Sometimes I can choose this, sometimes I can't. But that isn't just who I am. It's a part of me I presume, but It exists outside of me ... too. I co-opt these things they are like accessories to access me.
I like all things feline, I like art, glittery things, and that killer 3-layered 4-inch thick chocolate mousse cake from City Cafe. I like animals and magic, the woods, sunsets and thunderstorms, Earth and the Sky in general. I like mystery, history, spirituality, prose, and music. To make a long list short I like a lot of things. And I do not like other things -- eating mustard or liver and onions comes to mind. Funny, I am beginning to change my opinion about mustard. Even your taste buds change over the years.
And there are unchangeable things I decided long ago I can't stand having as part of myself: choosing to manifest a deliberate desire to violate others consent to control them or abuse them, and being manipulated and dominated.
Being a bisexual means basically I like who I like and I don't care what sexual equipment people possess or don't possess biologically. To me it means I like people. I see beauty in people. I prefer no gender over the other. Both are equal and different in my taste.
Being an androgynous/transperson too means basically I don't believe in gender. I reject the notion of being forced to live exclusively in a role of man or woman, socially, sexually, or otherwise. I don't feel like a man and I don't feel like a woman, I find I am comfortable shifting around in the spectrum of masculinity and femininity. I feel I am more true to what is inside me when I am living in the ambiguity of both and neither. People tell me they sometimes don't know which gender I am, I get ma'am'ed and sir'ed in stores and on the street, and it seems to be a phenomena independent of what I am wearing. I don't take it personal when other people use a gender label because I dunno who I am really, I just know the me inside is somehow different then my genetics or body that biology says I am.
In fact, I kinda feel sad for these people I meet getting all flustered and embarrassed when they discover I have breasts too big to bind down (hopefully not forever) after they have called me sir, or blushing after they say ma'am when they suspect I am a man.
Gender is, at least as it is taught in our culture, a rigid binary system. And in a reality that is incredibly complex a simplistic notion like gender is not able to contain a person who asks certain questions like: why can't girls play baseball and boys play with dolls, women grow penises and men get vaginas installed?
I feel like an anthropomorphic person, or as some say, a furry. I walk around with cat ears and a feline tail most people think is "cute." And that's OK, little do they suspect I am a panther -- literally. At least I take comfort that I ain't getting harassed over it.
I have found I do not feel comfortable living as just a human being in a human suit. I remember when I was a little kid I was the Rainbow Tiger Sun Storm when I was happiest in my own skin. Those memories of being RainbowTiger Sun Storm shine out to me as some of the most honest and comfortable times of my life. And since I am pursuing happiness like the rest of the world does, why not be happy in the way I know best how to?
As an adult I call myself Underground Panther in the Sky. My life experiences have changed my name, but not my image. Some therapists, and other well-meaning but kinda controlling folks, looking to put words in my mouth, they might claim my feline thing was due to my abusive past, or it's a phase, or rebellion, or body-hatred causing my happiness to be found in some form our culture tells people it does not want here. Some might say my feline issue happens because I liked watching the Thundercats cartoons way too much.
These kinds of lame explanations directed at my understanding of what makes me happy says my felineness, and happiness, makes the observer feel very uncomfortable. They project upon me asking am I doing this to push people away, to move away from people because I feel vulnerable or angry. They assume a lot they cannot know in these statements, so are they talking about how they feel? Logic says to be safe and fit in with this culture, be a conformist. Acting "normal" is safe and safe too often gets aquatinted with values like success, sanity, or goodness that have nothing to do with being safe. In fact it is known among forensic psychologists, serial killers tend to look "normal" until the cops find all the bodies stashed in the basement.
Creating the appearance of "normal" and "moderate" offends no-one. It is like an Identity Mastercard. The NormalCard gets you accepted into most social circles everywhere human society wants you to be. But not necessarily everywhere YOU want to be. Going where the interest rates are higher gets more difficult as it begins to cost you social clout among your 'normal' peers.
I wonder if my differences bother "normal" "conservative" or "religious" people, because they never questioned what it means to not be a human being. They just do as they were told to.
We are taught to put our own kind as the center of the entire universe and the pinnacle of creation. Old spiritual drawings, philosophy, and psychology tests echo this anthrocentric view. Yet it is human civilization that might destroy this planet. How is committing planetary genocide and anthro-suicide the pinnacle of anything?
Seeing a 'civilized' human adopt 'wildness' and look like a Panther person opens up deep and unconscious cultural issues about consent, control and powerlessness that humanity has a hard time coping with in general. People that are uncomfortable will pretend, and to keep this illusion of 'normalcy' they see as 'stability' they try to set limits on others -- by assuming marriage must only be between one man and one woman. Likewise cultural assumptions say our genders must be limited to being a man or a woman. Reality proves much more ambiguous when you look at hormones, genetics, the influences of environmental factors, and what having an identity might really mean in and of itself.
And there are plenty of transpeople, proving gender is just another cultural assumption, by living who they feel comfortable as. They're showing humanity that a cultural belief is just a belief, and any belief that makes you miserable need not be part of your reality.
Even when everyone else thinks it must be as they say, so they can selfishly avoid feeling uncertainty about who they are and avoid cognitive dissonance about being civilized, they will inwardly cringe as a happy cat person goes walking by and it is nowhere near Halloween. The beliefs that bind the mind become a tiny bit more conscious. And it hurts. And this might be a good thing.
When you step outside the species closet, as a furry, you begin to question the very essence and purpose of the definitions of what it means to be civilized and you question the value of human culture itself and if it means anything to you. We are taught by adults, by society, by marketers, etc., that a cat is not a person. A cat is less valuable than a person. Etc. My experiences show me that cats care when people are too hung up on their beliefs to care. Cats don't carry the baggage and impositions of this human culture to a relationship. It raises other questions too, like why are women and people of color seen as less worthy than white rich men?
It raises the idea that the world, people, creatures, plants, and minerals might have a purpose independent of what we think it is. That this Earth might not exist just for us to use up, as Francis Bacon so declared in terms dripping with abusiveness, non-consenting domination over the Earth.
And it raises the notion that our own kids might choose to be something other than what parents want or society expects.
We say children are our future ... what if they choose a different future, without the ways we know and imposed upon them?
Are we born to be wild or domesticated? Are we conditioned to accept domestication and civilization? Or is a civilization that subjugates and punishes its people seeking equality, justice, harmony, and freedom... in their search for happiness and integrity, is it somehow "natural" as it wipes life off the surface off our home in the name of growth, progress, and human 'achievements'?
What does it all mean to me? How do I fit in with this? Do I even want to?
The tail and ears I wear are just extensions of this expression of animal human in me. Someday I may grow whiskers in the form of pierces upon my upper lips, implanted fangs, and tattooed rainbow stripes, transforming myself into something unique I find incredibly beautiful, liberating, and comforting to my mind and spirit. I am determined to become my own dream.
The rest of the world might reject me, call me freak and be scared of me... but I have learned the hard way that I cannot live my life for anyone else, or live as anyone else, and still be happy in my own skin at the same time.
Sadly, it has taken me years to realize this fact about my life. It's taken 38 years to have the courage to be who I am, despite the hostility of an entire culture that wishes I'd be content in a simple definition of what everyone expects of me, that does not challenge cultural impositions and assumptions about what are we, that does not raise all those thorny conflicting questions about life, humanity, relationships, and culture that they would rather not see.
I can't play pretend with society if it hurts.
OK, am I my spirituality?
Well I have learned to not label myself as anything, spiritually. I have explored a lot of belief systems, each time looking for the truth, and I've taken the useful stuff and chucked the rest that was hurtful, useless, or false.
I am pretty heretical to authority and tradition. I struggle to find the spiritual fruits in whatever belief system I'm in. I struggle with issues of right and wrong, to build up my character. I took the lessons of spirituality and used them to become more honest about myself, and caring about others.
I went into my first belief system, wondering why the world has such an evil problem, why people hurt each other, why we are born to bloom, or not bloom just to die. I have agonized over these issues. I have accepted Christ into my heart, and kicked him out...
I still have no clue what happens after we die. I think a lot of beliefs are elaborate coping mechanisms to tolerate the human condition. They are guesses about vast unknowns mingled with hope. Religion attracts seekers, but it also invites authoritarians into a power structure and hierarchy system that can be misused to exploit people's hope and seeking, and it hurts people in the most depraved ways. Spiritual abuse is to me a horrible thing to do to a person.
I do think there is a vast unknown, a great mystery, a one-and-many something transcendent and immanent. I haven't a clue what it is. It speaks to me through the Images of Sekhmet, and Michibizi, and the other feline gods all over the world. It speaks to me through mostly feline archetypes. It seems to speak to other people other ways in other images or no images at all. It can make us better, it can make us act like monsters: if we don't discern what we receive from these mysteries with what our conscience says is right and wrong. And whatever we do with it we are still responsible for the results.
But is it God? I dunno what God is, frankly. And I can't live with myself if I were to be so arrogant as to say I know 100% what God is. Maybe I need an epiphany, or maybe I've already had one. I crafted a belief system that is unique to me, based in what I have experienced, what I observe from paranormal experiences, dreams, my goals of helping, healing, and getting out of this mess, and the accumulated results of a long and varied spiritual journey I call my spiritual life ... and I am still wondering why the world has such an evil problem, why people hurt each other, why we are born to bloom, or not bloom, just to die, I still agonize over these issues, and I still cry out in the dark for wisdom and understanding. Sometimes I get some insight, inspiration, and comforting ... as I hear Sekhmet's deep voice telling me I am A tiger divine, as cat fairies flit around the room ... sometimes it's just me crying to myself in the dark.
But is this struggle what I identify as who I am? Nope it's just a part.
Then what about Identity with my own life experiences?
Am I just a product of what I have lived through? Am I a product of my cultural conditioning? Am I a product of cultural rebellion? Is my ancestry a part of me? My history, my genetic code?
How much has marketing influenced me? Did my mom drop me on my noggin as a baby? Do I really like Thundercats cartoons too much? Is it because I do not agree with someone's assumptions about who I am that does this, that entitles them to call me sick, a problem, even a threat to society, and scapegoat me? Is any of their fear justified? Is my fear of their 'power' justified? Are norms sane at all?
Because I have struggled with the dark side of culture, does my lack of faith in cultural norms entitle the believers in these norms to hate me with impunity? Because I have asked myself what does it mean to be a gender or a human being, does this entitle those who never asked those questions for themselves, without a guidebook or guru explaining it all, the 'right' to push me into a closet of their own design? Because I like people and see beauty in relationships with anyone, does this entitle some people who have a specific view of the unknown and what that transcendent immanence is about, entitle them to by force of law, by threats, or by the will of their condemnation, be permitted to force or shame me into limiting myself to someone else's definition of what I like, just because I have a vagina and breasts, and they so strongly believe a female human is designed to only see beauty in men's bodies? And do I deserve to find happiness? To be true to myself? To be whatever I be?
Who Am I? The answer to that question depends on when you ask me. This is because I change everyday. I would have given different answers in the past and I know I will give different answers in the future than I would give you today. I'm not being dishonest or contrary. I'm being accurate about the human condition as I live it.
Identity seems to be conceptual a kind of interactive fluid prose of self. A sign, a shell, a label. A shelter...
Sometimes out of convenience or from the limits of language we put ourselves inside a label until we find out we have grown too much to fit within it comfortably, then we sometimes seek another label to inhabit, another comfort zone is marked out in point of view parameters, on the field of consciousness, daring us to look past our own fences. Until we step out of bounds, then we find we need a new label given what we experienced and understood. Than we need a bigger fence.
People in their lifetimes grow out of many label 'shells' they identify themselves with, because they change, grow and experience more. We are taught to assume the shells you tell the world who you are. People can spend a lot of lifetime living like a hermit crab, trying to find a shell that fits until one day, they figure out no shell others have made for you fits, and they find they have run out of shells to contain them. Then they find they are on their own free-falling into finding out. And it feels different, unknown, unpredictable, daring and vulnerable. Doubts are everywhere, people around you react to the changes. It feels like coming out of the closet and going into a closet at the same time.
You start to make your own shell and tear it apart remodeling it until you feel at home. This is what social heretics like myself do, because I can't live in a lie in my own heart.
This can scare a lot of the hermit crabs around you who do not know how to make their own shells yet, who are still living in prefab ones culture makes up for them. Insecure people who are afraid and vulnerable, because your presence makes their own shell feel confining, because it begets questions and stirs desires for things 'off-limits' outside of the comfort zone. It's hard on the psyche, losing your shell in the dangerous sea of ideas. Having no shell, limits or boundaries makes you become vulnerable prey to any predator out there looking to make your life miserable by poking your soft parts until you are goaded into a shell that is harmful to you to avoid pain.
I can stick labels on myself and take them off again, but this doesn't change who I am. Labels on people don't change how other people are to me, either. I am a self-soliloquy living explorer of consciousness and experiences, telling my story as I write it all down in multidimensional real-time with invisible ink. I am change I perceive.. I am limited and limitless. A paradox wrapped in an Enigma. I can change and I can't change. I can learn and unlearn and relearn and remember.. I seek to find what is... in my struggle to find my meaning, my truth, and to feel happiness in this life.
My descriptions of me will fail to tell you who I am ... I dunno who I am. I am what I am. Or is it I am therefore I think ... nahh ... I ain't into Ayn Rand. So I grab another slice of pizza. And this brings us back to Descartes. Thinking, therefore I am? Sigh.. I guess I just am.
So who are you?
© 2004, by the author.
Comments?
xoxounknown at yahoo.com
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Creating the appearance of "normal" and "moderate" offends no-one. It is like an Identity Mastercard. The NormalCard gets you accepted into most social circles everywhere human society wants you to be.
|
|
Because I have struggled with the dark side of culture, does my lack of faith in cultural norms entitle the believers in these norms to hate me with impunity?
|
|
Because I have asked myself what does it mean to be a gender or a human being, does this entitle those who never asked those questions for themselves, without a guidebook or guru explaining it all, the 'right' to push me into a closet of their own design?
|
|
Because I like people and see beauty in relationships with anyone, does this entitle some people who have a specific view of the unknown and what that transcendent immanence is about, entitle them to by force of law, by threats, or by the will of their condemnation, be permitted to force or shame me into limiting myself to someone else's definition of what I like, just because I have a vagina and breasts, and they so strongly believe a female human is designed to only see beauty in men's bodies?
|
|
And do I deserve to find happiness?
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|
It's taken 38 years to have the courage to be who I am, despite the hostility of an entire culture that wishes I'd be content in a simple definition of what everyone expects of me, that does not challenge cultural impositions and assumptions about what are we, that does not raise all those thorny conflicting questions about life, humanity, relationships, and culture that they would rather not see.
|
|
I can't play pretend with society if it hurts.
|
|
Am I just a product of what I have lived through?
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Am I a product of my cultural conditioning?
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Am I a product of cultural rebellion?
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Is my ancestry a part of me? My history, my genetic code?
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How much has marketing influenced me?
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Did my mom drop me on my noggin as a baby?
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Do I really like Thundercats cartoons too much?
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Is it because I do not agree with someone's assumptions about who I am that does this, that entitles them to call me sick, a problem, even a threat to society, and scapegoat me?
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Is any of their fear justified?
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Is my fear of their 'power' justified?
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