My first post

“…when I awoke in the middle of the night, not knowing where I was, I could not even be sure, at first, who I was; I had only the most rudimentary sense of existence. Then the memory — not yet of the place where I was, but of others I had once lived in, where I might now have been — would come like a rope let down from heaven to haul me up out of the abyss of nothingness, from which I could never have dragged myself. In an instant I would pass through centuries of civilization, and out of the blurred vision of nightlights, of shirtfronts with turned-down collars, I would slowly piece together the shape of my own self.” – In Search of Lost Time

I hadn’t been sick for a while, until now. I’m handling it worse than I’d like to admit. The joint pain and fever are okay, but the decline of mental sharpness and the resulting distortion of my sense of self is what unsettles me.

If you know me personally, you know I like to say that we’re not our bodies and our minds – we are the pure consciousness behind them. While I remind myself of this through meditation from time to time, it’s something entirely different to try to remember who you are and what led you to this very moment, while all the memories of past years dissolve into a single, muffled fever dream.

Really, who was the guy with light brown hair last year? Who was the person who got so upset over a long-forgotten wound from his childhood just an hour ago? Who carved those scars, and what made them seem healed?

Did I choose all this? Or did all this choose me?

I don’t know why I’m saying all this. But maybe that’s the essence of blogging, after all?

I’ve been thinking about keeping a personal blog for a while now. I have the skills to code a decent page, and I find solace in writing whatever comes to mind. There was only one thing holding me back – privacy.

The notion of setting up an independent page dedicated to sharing my story and ideas, rather than succumbing to the limiting formats of traditional social media, is appealing. But I kept thinking – wouldn’t it make me too vulnerable to share my thoughts with the whole internet?

Well, maybe… but attending a week-long course on queer activism gave me a different perspective. On the final day, we were tasked with sharing our personal stories in just four minutes in front of everyone. I chose to be vulnerable in front of roughly twenty people I had only known for a week, and in the end, it was totally worth it.

I learned that openly speaking your truth and sharing your authentic story can be far more powerful than you might expect. In some cases, you can inspire (or even save) someone’s life. Isn’t that reason enough to overcome your worries?