Manic world. Depressed human. Locks. Chains. Cords. Keys. Strangled. Inhibited. Out of control. Confused. Knowing too much. Not knowing enough. Victim to emotion. Desperate. Depreciate.
What do you seek?
Power = Control
Self knowledge = Freedom
EXPAND into infinity.
♥
I’m convinced that modesty is useless conditioning. It is simply a way that empathy is used against humanity. I see no logical reason to not be great and recognize where you are such. I have beat myself to a pulp in attempts to make others comfortable, to present no threat to their personal security. It took much soul searching and grappling my own insecurities to see that this is not part of my purpose. No one’s insecurities/psychological inadequacies are mine to deal with just as mine or anyone else’s are not yours. It is completely irresponsible and self destructive to make one’s self responsible for another’s emotions. This is because only the subject can control or even really understand their emotion. They are in the end the only one who knows how to produce pleasurable feelings in themselves.
The reality regarding insecurity is we all have them even those who you may look up to in some way. The biggest mega stars or supermodels have insecurities because it is the human condition, we all endure struggle. The test is in how we deal with them, how we beat them into submission as this is indeed what is required. In most cases this is the only way to manifest the things we perceive as rewards into our experience. Insecurities allow opportunities for others to manipulate and control us through our emotions. Everyone wants to be happy and comfortable, unchecked most concern themselves primarily with this. Because they are only living their experience they will expect those outside them to attend to their happiness and comfort as well. In some respect humans gauge love by how much another is willing to do this. This conditioning becomes problematic for those who are empathetically talented because this will be taken advantage of. Producing situations where only one set of desires are expected to be considered, the empathetically talented party becomes responsible for coalescing to the other without concern for their own desires.
I believe that usually neither party realizes this is happening when it is, only after being removed from said situation and then only sometimes. The interesting thing for me is how many people I have come across who are veritable vampires, living on manipulation. Most of them don’t even know it, at least not on their most conscious level of thought. They seem to think they are being “good people” whatever that means. That they care for the other party and because they do the party should be responsible for their emotions. The reality is in most cases these people care for what the other can do for them. They care for the feeling of authoritative importance they derive from the subtle oppression they can inflict, how much they can manipulate another’s behavior. They don’t actually care for the person because manipulation wouldn’t be required, the person’s natural presence would make them happy.
Modesty is a detriment because the only way to defend oneself against this kind of attack is to be aware of one’s power, of the things that make you unique and special. This is because the common bases of interpersonal assaults on liberty is forcing you to minimize yourself by making you guilty for not being the way another wants you to. A way they want you to be so that they can be comfortable. So that you don’t highlight for them where they are inadequate to themselves. A red flag tendency to look for is that of underlining your differences from the crowd even if they share them. Some creatures get off on caging things and being in control of their movements. It is deeply imbedded in their psyche that this is where their worth comes from. The easiest way to cage humans is by compartmentalizing and categorizing them because then everything says they should conform to the stereotypes of their category.
I obliterate norms and expectations in the most delicate graceful way but with the efficiency of an assassin. I will never tolerate anyones warped ideas of what I should be. I will not proliferate the gospel of modesty because it is counter productive and teaches people to be or pretend to be insecure for other people’s comfort. If you feel sexy own it. If you feel smart act it. I will not silently watch people minimize their talents and abilities to pacify. We should relish and cultivate pride in what we are, in my opinion it is wrong not to. You were given whatever gifts are yours for a reason and that reason is not to minimze them, in fact I believe we are meant to maximize and utilize all talents. We all have our unique contributions to make and how dare anyone make another feel bad about that. Here is something to think about, bragging and expecting modesty both come from insecurity. Never minimize yourself for anyone’s comfort because to do this is to turn away from your purpose for existence.
♥♥♥
More alarming than N’s attempt to project the character that I am as something else was what I noticed in the police report. Again I cannot know what anyone was thinking but I will express my ideas as this is my forum to do so. When I read the police report I noticed that my ethnicity is listed as white. I cannot help but question whether this was done for statistical purposes. This is a great illustration of how little these dualistic labels of black and white mean. N tried to sensationalize the idea of blackness to imply certain criminality but with the flick of a pen my ethnicity was “white/non-hispanic”. Seriously makes one wonder what being black or white means. I have come to find it is a label applied by others that we accept because it makes things easier makes them run smoothly and lends to stereotyping in a snap. In most cases skin color is a factor but I have never met a black or white person only people who identify that way culturally and people who self identify at both ends come in all shades in reality.
I believe that when the police arrived and began to really analyze the situation they had walked into it was pretty clear that this wouldn’t go far. That the situation likely did not play out the way N said it had and that I was ready to and very capable of convincing a jury that her story was implausible. This would add to the number of “black” people arrested for what would turn out to be no reason that day week month or year. Who knows maybe a quota had been met or needed to be as I’m sure many know the police do work this way. This idea is inflamed in my mind by the awareness that state prosecutors do not like to look bad by pursuing charges that fail. The reality is these things are all tracked and data is compiled. I had a public defender as I was not in a position to hire council at the time and I was not going to burden my family financially for such a frivolous weak allegation. There was no proof to argue against and I knew this confidently but the thing is most don’t.
I saw how the fear that comes with legal trouble can make someone in my position into easy prey. The lawyer repeatedly offered me “deals” that would end the hassle and minimize the possible damage to my criminal record with the price being dollars and freedom. I made it clear that I was not interested in anything but being found not guilty or having it dismissed but still I was offered these “bargains” repeatedly. I was aware very early on that no one gave a shit whether I had done anything or not, once the hooks where in it was about profiting from my life. The public defender seemed completely impotent to do anything for me except give me advice which to be clear I greatly appreciated. I didn’t expect much anyway and very quickly began to see him simply as a middle man between me and a legal system that didn’t want to deal with me standing up for myself and making sense. It didn’t want me daring it to work the way it should and make N defend and prove her allegation. In the end she abandoned them after wasting time resources and man hours. She had manipulated the entire justice system into attacking me then left them with the burden of proof and nothing to show as such.
The cold hard reality is the public defender was not expected to defend me but facilitate a deal between me and the state of Massachusetts that would leave the system looking squeaky clean and unflawed. Knowing as well as I did that there was no case against me the “defender” was bringing me deals that required me admitting that there was sufficient evidence to convict me! Deals that would put me on probation and require me to attend anger management classes on my dime as if I needed lessons on managing rage. I do not imply that there is anything wrong with this when it is necessary but it wasn’t. If anything I needed lessons on managing my empathy, on keeping my distance from situations that don’t concern me personally. I was shown that the average citizen’s fear of the legal system is capitalized on regularly, I know because even I thought hard and wavered. The way things where presented to me I know many people such as those with prior records, with less faith in truth, those less articulate, those less educated and those who feel less acceptable to the gentry would have bit. I have no doubt now that this is done to people all the time. That there are many young people like me who have records now or are on probation or even in prison for things they did not do.
I share my story because it is important to me that this experience and the things I learned from it help others. With the recent wave of murderous violence perpetrated by police against civilians it is paramount that we value our own and each other’s lives. That we protect our safety and freedom by being smart calm and realistic when dealing with law enforcement and the justice system. The damage has been done you see because the system has succeeded in conditioning the average police officer to see themselves as separate from the rest of us as opposed to an extension. This is dangerous to melanated men but never be deluded for this is dangerous to all. It simply takes being labeled a criminal by the right entity for any life to become worthless in the eyes of law enforcement. They enforce mandates created by a government that could decide at any moment that any of our actions are against it’s laws. Actions like protest, being outside at certain times (e.g. Boston april 19 2013) or communally opting out (e.g. move 9). The US has the largest prison population on earth and this police force is one of the more militarized. Prisons are for profit and it’s populations produce much free labor. This is that new slavery and orange is indeed the new black. ♥♥♥
✩This is for my brother Kadeem. I do not pretend to know what role he played in his own incarceration only he knows surely what happened. We are all innocent and we are all guilty. He made youthful mistakes as we all do, raging against a society that labeled him delinquent from the beginning. Taken into the machine and away from our family with an unfinished education and the world at his fingertips. We eagerly await his return and I hope that no other family has to experience what we have.
I love you. I miss you.
I am a spirit. I am sexual. I am creative and whimsical. I am many things and I don’t even count many of the things that others do when we meet. I will never accept boxes. I understand that we are all at different levels of understanding of self and therefore everything else but some things are just in poor taste. Don’t ask me how I have sex. This is what one is asking when they ask any question with the purpose of labeling my sexual expression. I am a sexual being that is all. Unless you are hatching a plan to have sex with me this information is not useful to you. In the case that you are, you are over thinking it. This feeling either happens or it doesn’t. I find it ridiculous that humans have found a way to divide into boxes over something as neutral as the sexual impulse. furthermore the presenters of such distasteful questioning are way ahead of themselves. We cannot certainly know a person’s gender reality when we watch them for a few moments in their whole life, to try to label their sexuality is an old dead joke. This must be checked because the mechanism behind what holds your boxes in tact are the boxes you put others in. What one labels me speaks to their state of mind not my state of being. I will continue to be what I will be. It is all very psychological and those who are not strong enough become what their box dictates. This creates immense frustration. We are sentient beings, we do not come in flavors. We come in different shades, speak different languages, and immigrated to different parts of the globe to just integrate again. We are all entitled to our choices so if you choose to rock your tag I respect that but don’t expect me to do the same for anyone’s comfort. ♥
When I was a kid I would draw and sketch at school when we had free time and sometimes while the teacher was talking about something or another. I just created from my heart, something I was very good at at that time. I found myself creating all these images of powerful women. As my artistic vision developed my mind’s eye presented this as fire breathing and flying women. Prior to second grade the images had just been of the human form as I played around and developed technical skill. Once I understood the concept I created women fully in the throughs of pregnancy. I had no tool box for fully developing the ideas that I had in my mind at the time but looking back I see it’s easy to analyze. I was creating art depicting women doing what I thought made them amazing, creating life and breathing a force of light energy like fire into the world. It was all symbolic of my innate reverence for the feminine creative force, the women themselves simply represented this. Over time as my second grade teacher began to notice my art she made it very clear that she did not believe I should have been putting these images onto paper. She was apparently made extremely uncomfortable by what she saw in my art. I believe it was more my fearlessness pride and even gratitude surrounding the strong influences of this energy on my personality and life path. Not so much that I was creating the images, I don’t recall there being anything graphic about the images. I think she even felt the dryness of suppressed rage that I at such a young age was so secure in something that in her mind should have been taboo to me. What this lady didn’t understand was that I at even that age somehow understood where my propensity for creativity came from. This was not about her gender identity or mine but much deeper and beyond something so trivial and 4 dimensional. At such an early age it is difficult not to absorb temporarily some of that negativity even if you don’t stop doing what you do. I began to feel so ostracized by both her and other students that I didn’t want people to see my art. I began to believe myself strange because I kept creating inflammatory images without trying to. My art became shallow and directed from an exterior world view as I no longer thought I should show people what was in my heart because it scared them. I had been censored for the first time in my life but this would not be the last time the attempt was made. She had given the beginners course on how to deal with the wider world. Her message had been audit your creative thoughts before committing them to reality unless you want to be cast off as a lunatic. It cost me several years without inspiration but I’m grateful I have this event to look back on. It was the beginning of my life lesson in self expression despite and in the presence of adversity. So fuck you lady wherever you are, no hard feelings but I don’t give a shit how much anyone hates something I produce from my heart because those things are pure little pieces of me.
Censorship is death ♥
He met her in spirit form. He styles himself like her because he thinks she is beautiful. She helps him because she appreciates this. She thinks he is beautiful too. He is a reflection of her, seen through the mirror of ether, of infinity. She spins color music and all things creative from her core. She lends the color from her drape to his life. It is far beyond any one hue yet creates the shade of everything.
When I was little I played with dolls. I loved barbie, science and all things artistic. I sketched, sang, danced took things apart to see how they worked and stared at the night sky when I was supposed to be asleep. I was raised mostly by a single mom who had me pretty early in life so we always had a friend vibe in addition to our biological relationship. My mom never bothered me about playing with dolls. I would play in plain sight with my cousin’s female friend’s and anybody’s dolls I could get my hands on, no problem. My mother seemed to draw the line at buying the dolls though. I’m not sure why she chose this as the line, maybe a psychological thing. As I’m sure one would imagine I overheard all kinds of comments and questions when I would play this way. questions asked my mom by adults, questions asked me by other children and questions posed between my peers. I knew I wanted to grow up to be pretty and have a boyfriend but I was a boy myself.
As I got older I began to realize just how much my interests bothered some people. I began to get more sinister questions and comments from peers and adults looked at me in a way that told me how strange they thought I was. At some point people outside my immediate family began to ignore the fact that I was obsessed with space, how much I loved science or how much natural talent I had for art. They could only focus on the issue, that there was no neat box to put me in and I was making no effort to create one for myself. Although there where bumps in the road, my mother’s total acceptance of who I am set the tone for my family. They had offered nothing less, but even they struggled with knowing how to handle me while balancing their own indoctrination. Being the strong willed proud person that I am I never allowed anyone to feel as if they had made any headway with changing who I am. I continued to play with whatever I wanted to and behave the way I naturally behaved. Most of all I never cried or let anyone have the satisfaction of knowing they had gotten to me in that way, but it wasn’t that simple. I had internalized so much of their ignorance and negativity despite my determination to remain proud and strong.
The dolls where just an extension of something much bigger than plastic toys with lady bodies. I have always revered women, my role models were women. Not only was there my mom but so many other powerful women raising children alone, going to school, or just working hard to make things happen for themselves. I wanted to be like my mom and as I got a little older I wanted to be like my aunt, who went off to school, spoke spanish and had what I thought must have been amazing adventures. I wanted to be a girl physically, I wanted long flowing hair and I wanted to be powerful like the queens I knew. I wanted to be a mother and when I thought about one day raising children that was the role I visualized myself in. I made better friends with girls, I identified more with them and found the company of boys very awkward because of our usually being so different. I was always very active naturally athletic and quite fearless which I turned into excursions into the woods, up trees, into abandoned structures, and anywhere else I sensed adventure. This guys where a lot more able to stand so it’s where I got to hang with them.
Fast forward a few years and at 19 I got myself some barbie dolls. Yeah I know how strange that is but alas it is true and thats what this is all about. I got the dolls because to do so made me feel empowered, it felt like a rebellion against all the garbage society had heaped onto me about it’s norms and what everyone else thought I should enjoy. A rebellion against my mom even, it was my way of saying haha I own them now, I can get what I want for myself! But very soon the feeling of empowerment faded and I was left with these little plastic women that I didn’t even see the appeal in anymore. They only ended up coming with me when I moved because I was embarrassed at the prospect of my parents finding them in my things in their storage area. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away though, little did I know how huge of a clue that was. I left the comfort of my family to strike out on my own looking for the place I belonged. I had a long term relationship, moved to New York for a brief period to pursue my ambitions of stardom, then settled in Massachusetts.
Then in August of this year at 27, I was talking to a friend about gender identity and I had a revelation. The dolls meant so much more than I ever knew, but paradoxically they lost all of their power and meaning in that moment. It came so clear to me that somewhere along the line I had absorbed much more ignorance than I thought. I had been warped by the same patriarchal society as everyone else while I thought I was fighting it and winning in my own life. I have relationships with men, I pursue the interests I want to pursue, and I have no shame or even timidity about it. But somewhere somehow I had absorbed the idea that there was something wrong with the way I felt about femininity. Patriarchy is a beast, think about the difference between a 6 year old boy and a girl crying in how those situations are handled. The little girl is likely to get “it’s ok sweetheart” and so is the little boy but he is also way more likely than the little girl to get “don’t cry”. It’s ingrained from an extremely early age, like barbie and say a toy truck, one is “for a boy” and one is “for a girl”. First off the distinction is made crystal clear from the beginning and we are never allowed to forget how different we are. Then you have those subtle social norms that make the feminine into some kind of embarrassment. When someone is perceived as being weak or conniving they are “acting like a girl”. Why are those negative qualities associated with femininity, but even more importantly why is exhibiting qualities associated with femininity such an insult?! I realized that it was more about the way I felt about femininity than my feminine qualities that had rubbed people. I also didn’t realize how those negative energies had kept me from realizing the true nature of my spirit. It wasn’t a problem for people that I was attracted to men or that I was sort of effeminate, the issue was that I was proudly wearing my femininity and not hiding in shame or pretending. More than that the problem was that I saw the feminine energy as it is, a creative force, the true representation of the element fire. That I unapologetically channeled this energy into creating art and my life, barbie was just where I channelled it in play. The societal structure wouldn’t let me believe I was a normal boy and my genitals wouldn’t let me believe I was a girl. I felt like many of my impulses and my cognitive process were inherently female but I didn’t feel like nature had made a mistake with my body. The society that we live in also doesn’t really allow for the idea that there is something in-between or undefined. I realized that the dolls were just a place where I put my power, my pride in my feminine energy and the gifts it granted me. Moreover they were the keepers of my reverence for my physical body (male energy) and the duality dance. At that moment I knew I no longer needed the dolls. I was what they represented so I did what I do, shed some tears and pulled out some art supplies. I wanted to project myself onto barbie and help her represent me a little better since she had been so immeshed in my psychology for so long and that is how Habib was born. I Pulled the girls out one more time to give a good makeover and then I tossed them in the fucking garbage. Taking in everything they held for me and just like that I was new but the same.
I always knew how I felt inside, and looking back I believe those closest to me did too. But I had also been taught like most of us, that I had to be either male or female. All the innate knowledge that I had of myself as a child came back to me in the moment that I realized what had happened. At talking to my mother I realized how simple it was once I knew who I was. I was operating from the strength that only security in ones identity can produce, I didn’t know what that felt like. She responded with her reliable acceptance as if she had known all along and was relieved that I had figured it out. I knew then that everything was as it should be. I am duality, I am the embodiment of both the female and male universal energies, I am two spirited. My male energy manifests my physical body and my female energy manifests my life force. I’m super proud of who I am and what I am truly made of. I won’t turn this into a battle of the sexes but I wouldn’t be any other way if I could. Kings are great and there is nothing like a queen but I’m happy balancing a little of both.
. Rebirth, creation, love, art, venus
. Thank you Britney for inspiring me to tell this story and for showing me where to start.
This is representative of the nature of my life force. Although I have always come off as proud and confident even to myself, I had no idea of the struggle my subconscious mind was going through. The confusion I was carrying around was so buried. This year has been filled with emotional and psychological hard work for me. It’s been about digging deep and finding out what I’m really made of. Clearing those bones from my closet and freeing myself to fly 💔+🔥+💪=💖
The Healing Mermaid 