2024-05-09
Let's talk about community.
As always.
When I felt my selves coming together in 2022, I tried to talk about it to people. It's an isolating thing to go through. On one side, you've got the folks who don't remember experiencing something like this. Their sense of self always fit into being one person, so the idea of being more than one seems alien. What do you mean, things can be in your mind but not feel like they're yours? It's your mind.
On the other side, you've got the folks who understand what it's like to be multiple, but who have absolutely no understanding of how it feels to become one. Some of them see it as murder or death, did you know that? Letting go of these separations between parts of your mind is seen as something to grieve.
You agreed with them once.
Yeah. I did. That's something that I think a lot of people can understand through horror- you know about the concept of hiveminds? It's the same kind of fear. There's this existential dread around losing your individual self. Imagine that, but it's all inside your head instead of some external thing. You're feeding this bigger self that didn't exist before- it feels like you'll disappear in the process. I understand where the fear comes from.
You understand it, but you still disagree with it now.
It's like swimming in a pool. You think you're going to drop under and drown because you can't see the floor, but you dip a toe in and you're fine. Your feet find ground under the water. You wade further in and you're still fine, better than fine. The water feels lovely against the summer heat, and you can float or sink without worrying about drowning. You know the floor is there to catch you. When you were standing outside the pool, it was scary, but once you're in the water you realize you understood the pool wrong. You were never in any danger.
Coming together is like that. You've got all these selves insisting that they're totally different, that coming together will kill them, that it'll feel like death. And then it happens and you're fine. No one dies or goes away. All of you moves together instead. You realize that you were never truly separate in the first place- you were always parts of one whole, and none of that goes away when those parts blend into each other. They all become yours instead of being split apart. It's a thing that's hard to describe if you've never experienced it.
Perhaps that is part of the problem. To those outside, it is horrifying. It is grief-worthy.
So many people that I'd trusted reacted to my experiences with rejection- "that's not really happening, it's actually this. You are what I think you are." It forced me to confront how conditional a community can be. I'm sure that there are supportive ones out there, but "you're only supported if you're exactly like us" isn't true support. It's pressure to conform. It's a threat. "Be like us or we'll leave you."
Is that not part of communities, an expectation that one will fit somewhere?
I think it's more about support- being there for each other. Who cares if you share a word? There are thousands of queer people out there that I've never met and never will meet. Are we a community because we use the same words?
You do still affect each other, however remotely.
That's true, but they're not doing things for me or anyone I know. Any actions they take are for themselves and the people around them. It's not about some rando in another country. And that's the difference, isn't it? There's no community there. There's commonality, but not community. I'm not coming together with them.
All we share is a label. Is that really enough to unite people who have nothing else to do with each other?
Tell it about labels.
Offline, there's space for being things without putting a name to it. The names are handy for finding others with similar experiences or getting support, but you don't have to name things to experience them.
You were told you could not be both cisgender and transgender.
That's different.
Is it? Offline spaces are not free of prescriptive labeling, despite what you choose to believe.
Well, it's at least more of a problem online. You can get away with skipping labels offline often enough to manage.
Sometimes. There are some spaces that do not expect labels, largely those that do not unite around labels. Others require them. In some cases, the requirement is even useful.
Okay, fine. There's no escaping them. I do think internet culture is a big part of the problem, though. So many online spaces require the use of labels- we introduce ourselves by them, gain entry with them, get rejected for them.
There are general spaces that do not require them.
And yet they still show up, don't they?
Yes, but they are chosen in those spaces rather than expected. They are not the foundations.
I see so many people saying, "can my label do this? Am I valid if I'm this label and have this experience? Am I actually this label? Give me labels to use as part of my identity. Give me more words to define myself around." That's all that people talk about in some spaces. It's stupid. I hate it. How are we supposed to get anywhere if all we talk about is words?
You are thinking of certain spaces in particular.
Would a reader know which, though? No. Go to any subreddit or hashtag or whatever, sort by new. Count how many questions are about words. I did it today- r/lgbt has 11 from the last 10 hours going off titles alone. That's not an exception. It's the rule.
This is common enough that it could be literally anywhere on social media. Labels aren't tools anymore. They're the end-all be-all proof of people's realities. There is no division between the word and the person. Is that really healthy?
Health is subjective.
To a certain extent, sure, but I see a lot of cases where people get so eaten up trying to label themselves that they forget that it doesn't matter.
Does it, though? It certainly matters to them.
"A rose by any other name..."
Point taken. Still, surely there is at least one case where the words do matter. A rose could be called a dingbat, but when we talk about it to others, they will expect it to be called a rose.
Unless enough people start calling it a dingbat. Then it's a dingbat, not a rose.
You are arguing that the words do not matter, but there is a degree of importance to words when communicating.
There is, and I'm not arguing against that. Words have meanings, and we do use them to talk to people.
Then where is your argument?
Words have meaning, but they're not reality. That rose is still the same object if we call it a dingbat. Words don't change or define that object. It exists regardless of what we call it. So if a person has an experience and doesn't label it...
"If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?"
The tree still fell. It doesn't matter whether it made a sound if the trunk is on the forest floor. It doesn't matter whether someone labels an experience if they're having it. I see a lot of people treat the labels as more real than their own experiences, and it gets to the point where we're not talking about someone's reality anymore. We're talking about whether an arbitrary word is connected to someone's idea of reality. The words replace the truth.
And yet one's choice of words does matter at times. The medical field expects labels as a prerequisite of treatment. You are ill with a disease that is named and coded.
Do you think that's why the internet is the way it is with labels, because society expects formal labels if you want support?
It may be part of the puzzle, yes. But the point stands that in certain contexts, labels matter. The wrong label may mean incorrect support, which in turn may cause harm when needs are not met or diseases are made worse. Perhaps that idea was internalized and spread online to other label systems, but it stands that one's choice of words matters in certain contexts.
I guess it makes sense that a community founded around what was considered a medical condition at the time would fall back on the medical model of labels. Why stick with it, though? Why do people have to name every little thing, even when no one else will ever understand the names chosen?
For fuck's sake, would you know what a "dvalen" is if you didn't have exhaustive knowledge of Greek and Latin roots and extensive experience in the community the label comes from? No, you wouldn't. Heck, I have both and I still had to look it up.
"Frustration is just a shadow which follows expectation." You are frustrated by this. What did you expect?
A grip on reality? Awareness that none of it matters, and that labels and naming can get in the way of being? I don't know. I'm not surprised that this is a problem, but I'm disappointed that things aren't different. Sometimes I wish that humans had never created language.
You do not have to care about this. Their use of words does not affect you.
It does, though. People push labels on me all the time. Instead of hearing an experience with the words someone chooses, there's a lot of "oh, that's this label". No, it's not that label. I didn't ask for one, either. There's no escaping it.
Perhaps the problem is that you are expecting people to act outside of their natures. Their natures are to name and box. Yours is not. You expect their natures to be like yours when they are not. Then, you are disappointed that your expectations are not reality. You cannot force people to be something other than what they are. All you can do is sit with what they embody and allow them to be as they are.
I guess that's fair. I should stop expecting them to be different. It's just frustrating because from my perspective, I want to help them connect with their experiences and the world, and I think that labels get in the way of that. But if someone sees the world through labels, then it's not my place to ask them to be someone else. If they're meant to let words go, then they'll find their way there.
Exactly. Trust that their lives will work out as they are meant to, and allow yours to do the same. You are not beholden to the same ends. Pushing them towards what allows you to grow may stunt or harm them. It does not help to control others.
You know, you contradict yourself a lot.
Elaborate.
"There is no truth. This is true. The words don't matter, except they do matter, but they don't." How am I supposed to know what to think?
The world is too gray for singular truths. Opposites may be true at the same time.
Except when that's not possible.
Exactly.