#fraegn

I’ve been a furry for the majority of my life at this point, and i haven’t changed my fursona because i feel an immense amount of symbolic significance with jackals. There’s a lot of things about them i relate to that i feel constantly validates my choice to represent myself that way. Looking back I don’t know how much of a choice it was or if it was just something that I arrived at. If samsara is real i wouldn’t doubt it’s what I am either in my next life, or was in the one i had before this.

I don’t consider myself a Therian because from what I have gotten from the community, it represents a somewhat different kind of connection and experience than what I have, and much of the language of the community is something I don’t particularly resonate with.

Though, if there were other specific terms for the type of spiritualist-naturalist-furry I was and a way to distinguish it, I probably wouldn’t use that term either. Here’s why:

I think the furry community is an expansive and wonderfully subversive scene with one of the most simple common interests of any fandom: affinity with animals, esp stylized cartoon animals. The thing that makes it such a cool community is the fact that there are a zillion different ways to arrive at that community, a zillion differeny ways you can have participation or connection to it, and across these several sub-communities you can still make friends and feel like you’re a part of the same common thing.

People can even give different weight to the different reasons their furry self is significant to them, but the commonality is the strong significance. It is close to a spiritual thing for most furries, people just give it different vocab. We can relate to each other and feel like we’re part of a group with very little.

I like relating to so many people like that. I don’t want to distinguish myself as being somehow deeper, more spiritual, more connected, more attuned, more animalistic, etc etc, than other furries. I don’t want to create an in-group out-group dichotomy in my head like that. I feel a little put off when I see others trying to exceptionalize their in-group by saying no, their connection is more spiritual, more "real" than others.

I have a strong aversion to things that look like organized religion and organized spiritual systems overlayed onto real life. They’re very fun to think of fictionally and worldbuilding-wise, sure, but when it comes to my own spiritual beliefs, i do not like feeling like i need to declare my assimilation to a belief system when answering questions like this. I have bad experiences with that dynamic and and just principally don’t like to incorporate things like that into my outward identity. People can find whatever communities they want that make them happy and whatever spiritual language speaks to them and gives them the will to live, to grow, to heal, to be better. And it may look different to the way your own community talks about it.

Spiritually, I tend to operate more individually more than I need to follow a pack. That’s kind of just what having a soul shaped like a jackal looks like. hope i didn’t disappoint, enjoy your food for thought.