That voice you hear inside your head - is it yours? Probably not. It is some authority figure - your father, your mother, a teacher, a priest. And it probably tells you how you should or shouldn't act and what a horrible person you are if you fail to act in a specific way.
It's
known as socialization - the act of adapting the norms and behaviour
of your surrounding culture. You are programmed to be "normal"
for your culture. Only I call it indoctrination because there is
usually no act of adaptation. The culture is usually absorbed
unquestionably.
Finding
yourself means hearing your own voice over the clamour of these other
voices in your head and listening to what you really think.
This
is why some people have to trouble to some strange and exotic place
like India - to have all those unquestioned presumptions challenged
by a very different culture.
In
my opinion, the strongest act of self-validation has to be deciding
that you're gay. Ever since I was young to walk into a newsagents, I
have been assaulted by images and words that tell me that
heterosexual sex is right and desirable. And it wasn't just the adult
magazines on the top shelf. it was even in the comics. Boys and girls
would fall in love because that's the way it's supposed to be. Now
that's not a problem for me because that fit my own preferences. But
gays must've had the same pressure yet at some point they said "No,
that's not me". Where does that strong sense of self come from?
The transgenders are even more extreme because they're prepared to
alter their bodies to make them fit their sense of self.
I've
chickened out asking gays about this inner voice because I haven't
found a way of phrasing it that either makes it sound like I'm
interested in pursuing that sexual preference or just sounds like "So
how did you decide to become abnormal?" But I would love to have
their insight not because of that particular choice of path but so as
to help others find their own particular paths if they differ from
that of their culture.
Credit: The header image is available as wallpaper from wall.alphacoders.com
Inner Voice
Credit: The header image is available as wallpaper from wall.alphacoders.com
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