Pages
I AM...
I am whatever YOU think I am until YOU get to KNOW me. This is true for everyone else too, of course.. so don't make assumptions about anyone or pass judgment; ask questions. You might just make a new friend.
Followers
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
SUCCESS MAKES YOU UNPOPULAR IN A WORLD WHERE BEING POPULAR IS STILL A THING
As gay men we work extra hard to prove to
others, and to ourselves, that we are amazing because we were told by others,
and ourselves, for a long period of time that we were anything but amazing.
Once
we get to the place we dreamed of for so long, we often find that those who
were not so friendly before become extremely friendly for self-serving
purposes.
Unfortunately, the better we are doing professionally, romantically,
or otherwise, the more others in our won community have something negative to
say about us.
Monday, November 28, 2016
¿WHY DO WE SEPARATE OURSELVES INTO SUBGROUPS?
WE SEPARATE OURSELVES INTO SUBGROUPS.
We have our wolves, otters, bears, daddies, babies, twinks,
twunks, jocks and a neverending list of categories that ultimately say one
thing: we aren’t equal, we are separate.
We may cross paths, but often we tend
to stick to those cliques that match ourselves, which, from a sociological
perspective, makes sense. Comfort comes from understanding something, and we tend
to understand ourselves better than someone we don’t know.
However, in doing
this, we revert to an immature notion that because someone doesn’t look like us
it means that we don’t understand him or her. Not true, right?
AN OPEN LETTER OF THANKS TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
Dear President Barack Obama,
Before you set
off writing the next chapter of your life, I want to take this occasion to
thank you for your service to our country and to the global community.
Thank you for
your alerting the world to the threats and dangers of “crude nationalism”
presented in the guise of “popularism,” which feeds on people’s fears and prejudices
resulting in the separation of people and nations from one another.
Thank you for
your audacity to hope for a better, more inclusive country and world, one that
comes closer to fulfilling our founding goal of ensuring liberty and justice
for all, one that cherishes our diversity while truly exemplifying E Pluribus
Unum.
Thank you for
your brilliance of intellect that guides your every decision, and filters the
noise and distraction in the cacophony of voices around you.
Thank you for
your charm that often disarms even your most ardent skeptics once in your
presence.
Thank you for
your commitment to the most important of your priorities, your family, by never
allowing your work to cloud your connections with loved ones.
Thank you for
your dedication in protecting the environment by working to save and sustain
the earth for current generations and those yet to come.
Thank you for
your dignity in how you express and carry yourself, even when others do not
reciprocate in kind.
Thank you for
your empathy in reaching out to the marginalized, dispossessed, and scapegoated
among us, and in attempting to bring them into the center of our society.
Thank you for
your fortitude among the onslaught of obstructionism cascading like torrents
from across the ever-widening aisle.
Thank you for
your gentleness in redefining the truly gentle man in a world and a nation of
increasing toxic hyper-masculinity.
Thank you for
your grace under tremendous odds by those who have attempted to bring you down
from the beginning of your tenure, and in the face of the incessant barrage of
criticism and attacks on your very humanity and your qualifications to hold the
highest office in the land.
Thank you for
your heroism in never giving up even in tough times when the hill you have
chosen to climb in the distance is, in fact, a seemingly unassailable mountain
the closer you approach it.
Thank you for
your humor and your tendency never to take yourself too seriously, and your
ability to roast yourself when the occasion calls for it.
That you for
your integrity, which you are never willing to sacrifice in exchange for mere
material or political rewards.
Thank you for
your judgment in keeping forever on course and attentive, preventing you from
swerving into potentially dangerous political terrain.
Thank you for
your kindness that comes forth in your treatment of the people you meet,
especially when you are in the company of the youngest among us.
Thank you for
your love of people, love of country, love of service, and your evident love of
life itself.
Thank you for
your mensch-ness (Yiddish, “a person of integrity and honor”), the qualities
that have secured your place in that great pantheon of “the good.”
Thank you for
your mindfulness in concentration, focus, study, and understanding of self, and
your ability to “be here now” at the moment.
Thank you for
your nobility, that virtually indefinable quality emanating from deep within.
Thank you for
your oratory precision in presenting a clear and sustained message, and in
mobilizing your enthusiastic supporters to rally beside you.
Thank you for
your patience in seeing the big picture and in continuing your course in
reaching your goals, even when others deposit giant boulders to block your way.
Thank you for
your pragmatism in your continued efforts to unite the disparate states of the
fractured United States of America.
Thank you for
your pride in your multiple identities, and in serving as a positive and
constructive role model to others who may had never imagined reaching the
pinnacle of their potential.
Thank you for
your principles, which you never sacrificed for the sake of mere expediency or
popularity.
Thank you for
your quick wit that often delights your supporters and challenges your
detractors to raise the level of discourse ever higher.
Thank you for
your respect for other nations, and by so doing, bringing back respect for our
country and for the office of the presidency from people and leaders worldwide.
Thank you for
your steadfastness to diplomatic negotiations in conflict resolution whenever
and wherever possible rather than the raising of arms.
Thank you for
your temperament, one of the most, or possibly the most, crucially important
qualities in functioning effectively and responsibility in the highest and most
critical position in our country.
Thank you for
your understanding of the full enormity of the awesome responsibilities you
inherited upon election, responsibilities you have never shirked, relegated, or
denied.
Thank you for
your values that serve as the foundation of your beliefs, actions,
interactions, responses, and initiatives.
Thank you for
your vision in seeing the true potential of the United States to ultimately
attain the end goals in this great experiment in democracy.
Thank you for
your warmth and your willingness to listen and truly to hear others’ opinions
in carefully weighing numerous options before coming to a final decision.
Thank you for
your xenial nature allowing people who do not know you well to relax in your
company.
Thank you for
your xenophilia amid conditions where some political leaders and would-be
leaders promote xenophobia to divide and conquer in their quest for power.
Thank you for
maintaining your youthfulness in your boundless exuberance and optimism,
especially when the going was difficult in repairing a ruptured economy and
bringing peace to an endangered world.
Thank you for
your continued zest for life, and for serving your country and the planet these
past eight years during all the ups and downs in world and domestic events on
this roller coaster called “politics.”
I predict you
will conduct one of the most exciting and impactful post-presidencies in our
history.
I can also see
in my mind’s eye your return for an extended stay in the White House.
We will
remember to go high when they go low. MICHELLE IN 2020!
Go in peace and
health,
Warren J.
Blumenfeld
SOURCE: LGBTQ NATION
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)