#bonobabble

There's a worrying trend amongst those who are new to 'being' animals -- or beings other than human. (You'll find I use 'therian' and 'theriotype' in my blogging, this is because that's what I am and have the most experience with but it's pretty applicable to otherkin, too.) I'm seeing more and more often as I lurk around various therian blogs and forums the propensity for the young and the barely initiated, it seems, to feel as if they have to overcompensate for their feelings by prostrating themselves in public.

I suppose one might consider me something of an old fuddy-duddy when it comes to that. As much as I love costuming and 'alternative' hobbies and lifestyles (and I do) I'm not in favour of, essentially, rocking out with your cock out. There's a time and a place for very nearly everything, I firmly believe, and when it isn't that time or place, it needs to go away. I think perhaps it's that that some people have a problem with -- the idea that who they are isn't always acceptable to flaunt around. 'But I'm not hurting anyone!' They cry. 'I should be able to do this without being made fun of!' And, certainly, they're right about that. But, a big part of functioning is understanding the world in which we live, and letting go of some of our idealisms. Just as the child screams 'It's not fair!' It's the adult who responds, 'It never was, and it never was intended to be.'

I read tale after tale of very sad, lonely kids who wear ears or tails to school every day and get harrassed, and I feel conflicted. On the one hand, people shouldn't treat others that way for such harmless things. On the other, being a therian or otherkin isn't about wearing such things as an expression of who you are; It's simply about being who you are. Of course there are 'kinfeels' and all the rest of this, we all cope with being our theriotypes and what makes us comfortable in different ways. I'm not decrying the value of wearing a tail. If that's what floats your boat, do that, but be aware also of the statements it makes to those around you, and how apes react when they are made to feel uncomfortable by something. It's usually not a pretty (or quiet) picture.

I wouldn't want to be hanging out with someone wearing a wolf tail and ears out in public at a time when that's not part of what's going on socially. I'd be embarrassed. At a furry convention or something, that's a totally different case. Those who know me in real life know I show my therianthropy in various ways. Sometimes when I'm really feeling it, I move a little bit more like what I am inside. My expressions change a little bit. But, it's never enough to really 'tip off' the public at large. I wouldn't look particularly out of place in a mall full of everyday shoppers. I mean I guess I would in some ways, I have loads of metal in my face, some tattoos, and half my head shaved, but aside from that, you know.

There was probably a point to all this.

I suppose what I'm getting at here is that there's a lot of misguided people around who oughtta just calm down, and that's sad.

Boy oh boy, this ape does not have much time right now! So much work... But soon, once the academic year is out, I will have a lot more time to discuss and ruminate like I used to! Thinking of you all. I’m still around!

Being someone who was raised by two nurses, I've always been around medicine and medicinal jargon. At times, when my mother was working late, I was taken after school to wait in the hospital. I used to ghost around the Head Trauma unit where she worked. I listened to the doctors, nurses and goings-on of a busy hospital. Medicine has always fascinated me, and my passion for life and all the forms of it that live with us on this planet naturally led me to veterinary medicine.

I did not have a very functional upbringing. My education was both hampered and cut short by a need to leave a dysfunctional home to support myself at a very young age. I did not attain the grades I needed, and did not graduate highschool. I had no papers, and even less money. So, I was not able to try for veterinary school, a fact that bothers me to this day.

I love art. I'm passionate about it. It's also something I love and have always done. Art is a cutthroat, competitive field, and the particular industries I am involved in/passionate about (animation, film, games) have seen boom-and-bust cycles over the past few years that could make one's head spin round. Often, reading about the state of the industry and what's happening to my favourite studios and producers makes me feel ill, scared, and sad about my future.

Art was the thing I could get an education for despite having no grades, and more years behind me. I was able to demonstrate a solid basis of skills, and was admitted. I am doing very well in my courses, and I do freelance work as well. I make money off what I do, but many times it seems as if with my skillset and position, there are no end of people who want what I can produce, but don't want to pay me for it. It's frustrating, to say the least.

In my spare time, I read zoological reports, papers, books, and veterinary medicine textbooks. I teach myself, and I have taught myself a considerable amount. But still, my heart's heavy. I am doing what I love, but there's another love I also want to do. However, I lack the good start I needed to have early on. I lack the funds. I lack the time. I am at the point in my life where I don't think I am able to really consider that path for me anymore and it's something I don't feel great about.

I read forum threads and reports and listen to people, veterinarians and vet nurses, talking with each other, and it fascinates me, makes my heart soar, but also makes me melancholy and sad. I just won't be a part of that community, or of that world that pushes the boundaries of what we can do to help animals, and that feeling of being excluded from an entire world is a very common feeling in my life. 

I've been a little quiet lately, but this is largely because of a lot of positive things that are going on in my life. I have returned to the gym, I am investing a lot of time in my friends and relationships, and am focussing on new things! I still read here very often and I have things to say, but I need the time to sit down and say it! I am a very busy bonobo.

There's a special breed of "conversation" that happens sometimes on Tumblr. There are scare quotes around that for a reason, which I'll get to in a second. "Friendly reminders" sometimes espouse decent views or tidbits of food for thought that are genuinely worthy of consideration, but more often than not are wrapped up in so much poisonous passive aggression that it completely kills whatever point the post might have been bringing up, at least for me.

More annoying than that perhaps is their propensity to come across as sounding so authoritarian.

I don't know who you are, person issuing this 'friendly reminder,' nor what your motivations are, nor what your qualifications are for dictating things to me in such an insulting and condescending way. It's seen so often as being this snappy, witty thing, but I just find it acerbic and offputting. The concept of tone argument can only be taken so far. Righteous anger can only be so useful in meaningful discourse before it starts polluting everything it touches.