My friend Bre and I were talking about some hoopla kerfluffle I sparked on Twitter some time ago. I made an inflammatory generalization and wound up offending and upsetting some people, which in turn upset me because I felt unheard and misunderstood.
Bre summed up the situation beautifully, and I felt it was so awesome, it deserved the light of the internets.
With gemstones we take a stone and look at its properties. Then we cut bits off of it and shine it up and grade it based on color, and quality, and the kinds of imperfections it has and where, and some imperfections are good and some aren’t, and some are intended and some aren’t, and we categorize how “good” they are based on this whole process – when really, it’s just a stone that we took and then augmented its natural state to look a particular way so we can judge it better.
(We do this with each other, too.)
You, Kyeli, like all the shiny bits and corners and angles and imperfections and good stuff and color that happens naturally. Sometimes, this means everyone else shows up to the party with their cut gems, and you show up with a wild gem, and everyone gets confused because we try to judge yours based on the standards for the cut gems, and it gets confusing.
But there isn’t anything wrong with yours at all, because it’s got all of the exact same qualities; it just didn’t go through a bunch of arbitrary rules to make it stand up to a particular standard. The issue isn’t that it’s less, or less beautiful. That isn’t what people are confused or upset about; it’s that there’s no way to say which wild gem is better than another wild gem. There are no rules for that.
And Bre is totally right.
The lack of rules makes people uncomfortable. Encountering someone uncensored, someone who shows up with wild gems, tends to push at the boundaries we set up for how we interact with each other.
This is what we’re all about here. Being our own gorgeous, wild, shiny, uncut gemstones who may not fit into what society expects of us; that’s the Freak Revolution.
So bring it on; bring us your lopsided, kooky, unpolished selves. Bring us your open, honest, covered-with-dirt, uncensored selves, and let’s get connected. Because who says the current rules are the right ones, anyway?
Have you read the Connection Manifesto? It tells the story of why there is so much hurt and sadness in the world, and how we can heal through connection.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Was this the “male gynecologists” thing, or something different?
.-= Oliver Danni´s last blog .. =-.
This makes me happy! Thanks for sharing!
Hey, Kyeli!
Love the post, and thinking about myself as an uncut gemstone. I think I’m a chunky piece of ruby, with mixed deep reds and pinks. Yep, I like that!
Annie
Annie – uncut and unpolished rubies are *gorgeous*. Have you ever seen one? They’re my second-favorite untumbled gemstone. I’ve always thought of myself as a big chunk of turquoise, with spots of unshiny grey and bright shiny blues, and that gorgeous texture. (: I actually thought of myself that way before my friend said this to me.
Oliver, it’s completely unrelated. (;
I love the way you express yourself Kyeli!
I find that I am often the one who is upsetting people with my “wild ideas” around making your own rules and living a happy life…..being yourself and proudly flying your freak flag. It is like they can not believe that i would even suggest such a thing! ( My older brother just could not believe some of the things i would say or do).
Thanks for providing such a wonderful warm comfy space for us freaks to show up in.
Big love,
Leah
.-= Leah/DefytheBox´s last blog ..Is It Really Worth It????? =-.
{ 1 trackback }