Guest post by Traveling Bard
To understand me is to know I live in two realities simultaneously. I wrote about where I came from, and where I came to be. Now I write with the estimation of where I am currently, and who I one day wish to become.
Owning My Parts
In fairly recent times I have been able to unify my two realities. Both realities still exist, but it is similar to having a red overlay of reality being shown out of one eye with one perspective, and a blue overlay of reality with an entirely different perspective with the other. Both realities process the base facts and stimulation I am exposed to, but they now are able to work in harmony with each other versus having two completely different agendas. Put simply, my thinking and feeling brains are on the same page. This has been in no small part due to the fact that I have owned my role as an outsider.
Societal pressures have long since pushed me to the outer rings of society. Instead of feeling like an outcast who was pushed out, I now look at myself as a traveler who is able to successfully thrive in this environment. The difference is slight. However, owning my identity and social class has surprisingly given me unexpected and vast amounts of psychological power.
An Unexpected Role
This has led to the other unexpected but pleasant development. By attempting to create environments where I can thrive as well as others, I have inadvertently become a fledgling event runner and event host. While everything I do is still very much in progress (and put on a temporary freeze due to COVID-19), I have somehow jumped from the fringe of society to the center of the events I host. I do have some formal training in event management and logistics, but being recognized as a new event runner has been a welcome and humbling surprise.
Creating My Future
My next milestone is to become a holistic educator that teaches soft skills, technical skills, and kink material alike. Education and kink are often at war with each other because one is monopolized by people of incredibly conservative and traditional backgrounds. I plan on countering that by creating a place where one can: start their course of study about the English language, get curious about psychology, and learn about negotiations and power dynamics in kink.
My ultimate dream is to eventually study foreign policy and land a career as a diplomat. I am not trying to become a hero, but becoming someone who is larger than life is a necessary step so that an adult can walk into this place of learning, be curious about a branch of study, and study it and all its interconnected offshoots without stigma. In order for that curiosity to be nurtured, a space needs to be created where one can be “shielded” from undue negative influences to let that curiosity meander into the best possible outcomes. My dream is to become powerful enough so that others can grow to become the beautiful and bizarre human beings they always dreamed they could become.
I don’t know what that looks in comparison to mainstream masculinity and to be frank, I don’t care. This has been a dream of mine for a long time. Call me queer, call me quirky, I don’t care what my methods are called, so long as they work and make this dream that much closer to becoming a reality. Whatever that looks like, whoever I appear to be, the result will speak for itself.
