Lesson

I didn't make DragonBoat. It's a good thing because because I think, truthfully, either way I wouldn't have cared very much. I say this not because I am bitter from not making the team; rather, it's because I've been rejected from the team that I can see more clearly now. Trying to mold myself into a part of this team has cost me.

I have lost time, and also I have lost myself. Recently Andrew made me realize I've become rather complacent regarding queer issues and goals I used to be focused on. And he's right. Rather than continue the fight against sexual discrimination as I'd been doing, I've been avoiding those issues because I didn't think other people of the team wanted to talk about them. Rather than presenting myself as a confident gay man unwilling to compromise issues important to him - as in the past - I've crumbled, and compromised.

Are athletics really that important to me? Not really. I have felt more fit in the last few months - but that's it. At the end of the day does my body, my already-fine health matter in the grand scheme of things?

And at the end of the day, does making friends matter to me? If there's one thing I've learned, it is that my duty on Earth is not primarily to make friends. It is not my duty on Earth to work in a team. I think I have been and will always be an independent thinker and someone who lives by my own principles and visions. In fact I'm a loner. But I think that's wholly natural. Working on a team bends these principles and skews these visions and while teamwork is a valuable skill to have, perhaps it is a skill better left to other people. That is not to say I don't need friends, because when I meet people I do click with I love those relationships.

And that is not to say I don't enjoy meeting people. But often a casual acquaintance is enough - enough for a lifetime.

Dearest, I have lost much, and have gained in place not enough.

To The New Year

My new years' resolutions.

To sleep more. To sleep on time. To learn how to manage my time. To write more. Perhaps more importantly, to write without self-censorship. And to write without shame: to transcend that paralyzing emotion. To not worry about whether written works are successes or failures. To write a little every day - it adds up. To experiment with a larger amount of poetic forms and imagery. To get published. To read more. To survey, absorb, and experience different kinds of writing and of literature. To become more aware of language, and how writers in the past have used it. To learn how to rhyme in more interesting ways. More broadly, to become more involved in the arts: to play piano more frequently, to become exposed to different types of music. To help in the fight against sexual discrimination of all kinds. To develop the vocabulary necessary to talk and argue convincingly about sexuality. And again, to talk without sex and its associated subjects without shame. To join an anti-homophobia group. To develop a personal philosophy. To stand up for my own principles. To accept responsibility; to reflect on faults; to look on the world with unwavering humility and wonder. To forgive when understanding is not possible. To remember, cherish, love.

Here's to the new year, everyone.

Crapyrus

There are some days when I look at the things I've written and go "oh my god, that's so crappy. That's an awkward sentence. This sounds like shit. This is so cheesy. What the heck was I thinking?" And today is one of those days.

During these times... I feel very powerless and frustrated. Writing is the easiest and best way for me to express myself. I can't really speak well - even in regular speech I stutter - so I turn to writing. When I feel like I can't write, then what am I left with? I am consistently amazed at artists' abilities to share their emotions with the world: they are so brave. How do they do it? How did Dido feel releasing songs about her father's death?

Just writing this blog already feels so draining, and not a lot of people even read it. I secretly do think of deleting what I've written here sometimes, or fantasize (with pleasure) about ripping the sheets I've printed my poems on.

But perhaps what keeps people like Dido going is their belief that sincere emotion can and must be a powerful persuader in a logic-and-rationalism-obsessed world like today's.

I guess one thing I've always liked about my science courses is that there is no swoop of the heart when I realize your problem sets are being read, no tug of emotions when you deliberate whether or not a line you've written is sound. In a problem set, you are not expressing your own opinions, but your understanding of and your own slant on what the professor wants you to learn. But as I grow older, I realize that even science doesn't quite work this way at higher levels of study. When one moves on to a PhD thesis, one's research project does require a lot of intuition, and creativity, and personal thought; hence, it probably does become a self-conscious and emotional affair. The grad students I've met have been wholeheartedly immersed in their experiments, frustrated when a setback occurs, and delighted when they make progress. Moreover, one's thesis would be read by people experienced in the field and the scientific community is probably as harsh a judge as its literary counterpart.

No matter what field I pursue, people are going to be judging my work: so I mustn't use these feelings of self-consciousness and embarrassment and excuses for not following my dream. Undoubtedly I'm going to write some crappy poems or some laughable articles sometime in my life. I will just have to remember that one criticism or one bad piece does not make or break a writer. These feelings will have to be overcome and ignored in order to generate discourse in society. Unfortunately, there is no undo button in real life (at least not until Staples invents one), but if I'm too obsessed with perfection or pleasing other people, I won't get anywhere at all.

EDIT: Just got my first piece of feedback from another writer, ever. Wow, it really is quite unnerving. This is the first time I have gotten affirmation that I have some (no matter how little) kind of talent, at least, and am not blindly reaching for a finish line that I don't have the physical constitution to reach.

Not Inferior, Not Indifferent

There's been a string of gay teenagers committing suicide lately. Which makes me really troubled.

The truth is that gay teenagers feel an isolation that perhaps not a lot of people can imagine. They can't come out to their parents in fear of being thrown out of the house; they can't talk to their friends because they're afraid that they would be humiliated and their sexuality revealed to everybody else.

Those crippling feelings of isolation that I used to feel back in high school... I've kind of blotted it out of my mind. And I'm afraid I will forget how hard it was. I've been enjoying the joy of living an open and "out" life. I've been more confident than ever and mostly happier. But I'm in a privileged position as well. I have understanding parents - perhaps more understanding than many can hope for. I'm lucky enough to have an amazing friend who accompanied me to two Pride Parades, despite not being LGBT, and who constantly gives me me courage to speak up. I'm lucky enough to have a friend fun and accepting enough to accompany me to a gay club.

Living this life, and constantly feeling myself growing farther and farther away from that hole (no, not that kind of hole) I was stuck in during high school, it's very easy for me to become blasé about the lives of other people. But I can't forget... I can't forget that there are people out there who are still in need.

I know a lot of people who volunteer for LGBT initiatives. I can only hope to be as brave as them one day. Right now... I know myself to be arrogant and selfish. I'm afraid of being reminded of the feelings I had in high school and I do everything I can to avoid them. And no matter what, I'm still pretty introverted. Though I have forced myself to talk to more people last year, I can't really seem to break out of my shell. When I'm surrounded by a lot of people I tend to just withdraw. But then again: these aren't excuses for inactivity or indifference. We can't give up. Not now when we've come so far.

In my History of Sexuality class, I read a paper arguing that sexual behaviour is akin to class and race and other social ways of organizing power in our society. In times of social crisis, people at the bottom of the sexual ladder are often scapegoated; this may include: gays or lesbians with more than one sexual partner, transsexuals, transvestites, fetishists, sadomasochists, people in the sex work industry, "those whose eroticism transgresses generational boundaries" (my textbook's words), etc. They receive less institutional support and economic sanctions, and less protection by the law. Moreover they may be thought of by the medical/psychiatric community as being "insane" or "criminal" or somehow emotionally or morally inferior.

I don't know how our world got so warped this way and how people can allow their penchant for hate and control to classify people in this way. There is simply one principle that you need to understand: what works for you does NOT necessarily work for others. Just because you feel like you have to be monogamous, does not mean that this is the best option for everybody. Just because you don't like being tied up/don't like being peed on/having your feet licked/having sex in leather etc., doesn't mean nobody does. Why must some people mistake their sexual preferences for universal laws that apply to all of mankind, throughout all cultures, throughout all the ages?

I've been thinking. In my last post, I said that I felt like I couldn't pursue public initiatives. But I can write well. I can fight for change, in my own way.

I will use my writing and push for social change.

I will help increase LGBTQ visibility as best as I can, and reach out to youths and adults through my writing.

I will fight against sexual discrimination of all forms.

And that's why... that's why I have to leave the sciences.

A New Leaf

It is the night of my birthday dinner. Just a few hours ago, I was sitting at one of Starbucks' mahogany tables, drinking in the conversation and caffeine. But now the caffeine has worn off and the conversation ended, so my drowsiness is less diluted.

This summer, I've realized many things. The most important thing I realized is that, despite being a physics major, I still love writing and I still want to become some kind of writer in the future - and I know I won't rest until I do.

With the amount of free time I've had this summer, I've set many personal goals that I think will help me along my career path. I've started to read books again. I've started to read newspapers and keep myself updated on news concerning Toronto (though I've lived 15 years in this city, I realized I hardly know a thing about it). I've started to write again.

Perhaps I can draw a lot of inspiration from these other sources. I've been having lots of thoughts about what's been going on in the world recently.

This year, I learned that I must express myself. I am lucky. I am gay, and because of this, I've had to struggle and fight for what I believe in. I've had to struggle for my identity, and it's left me stronger than ever before. In the first two years of University, I turned away from the humanities because I was afraid. I was afraid that I "wouldn't have enough money to make a living" (my parents' words). I was afraid that my ideas weren't deep enough, or good enough. I was afraid of the imprecision of the humanities and sought refuge in the sciences, in which rationality is valued above creativity.

I am still afraid, to an extent. I not only believe, but KNOW, that there are people whose writing skills and creativity are light-years ahead of mine. But I also know that to succeed at my goal, I'll need to ignore these doubts and move forward. If I'm not creative enough now, I'll grow more creative later.

On this blog, I don't aim for perfect rhetoric or even logic. The purpose of this blog is just to get ideas down, so that when I want to write a story or poem or non-fiction piece or article, I don't start with nothing.

So expect to see a lot of quickly written poems, terse short stories, cliche metaphors, and badly-expressed thoughts. But hey, if I don't write anything, I'll never write anything good.

Of course, maybe I'm just being idealistic in my pursuits. But it's too early to tell, and it's too late to think. Good night!