In a past blog I spoke about performativity and performing your gender, how you actually act out being male or female according to societies customs that are coordinated and drafted to each gender, therefore gender is a social construct rather than a biological one. When looking at gender it is easy to see how this is true but when we look at a person’s character this can be somewhat difficult. But you cannot deny that in many circumstances people perform who they want to seem like, rather than being who they actually are. It’s a common practice amongst many teenagers and young adults and at times is addressed as being a part of growing up, but the reality of this is that we in turn tend to fake who we are.

Now I know we are not one to judge peoples decisions, but rather celebrate the fact that people should have a right to be whoever they want to be. But at the end of the day, isn’t being who we actually are our greatest gift to not only the world around us but also to ourselves?

You see my problem does not lie with people who try and become something, even if it isn’t who they are naturally, my problem is when someone conforms to the ways of society, to what’s “hip” and “cool” in order to seem above the rest or in tune with whatever they deem to be acceptable. Being afraid of who you were or are to be is not an excuse for anyone to become something that they see as superior to anyone else, and that in itself is a common trait amongst people who perform society’s wishes as oppose to being who they are. Music, pop culture and icons are all celebrated for the most part by their uniqueness, and when people thoroughly support or admire any of those followings they tend to band together and express a set hierarchy to decide whether or not other people can fit in. And that’s were society has its massive flaw. We rely too much on the approval of others and in turn, we forget that what we immerse ourselves in in the first place is not something that actually reflects who we are. In an effort to seem “better” than the rest, we stay true to it because that’s all we want. To look down at people and pretend that whatever we are obsessed with is actually who we are.

I know a lot of examples spring to mind, the main one for me is when people obsess about Kanye when they’ve only listened to his last two albums and found him out through his breakout behaviour in popular media. Or how people adapt specific traits from celebrities like Rihanna and Nicki Minaj in order to seem like a bad bitch as an excuse to demean and step over other people. In truth it’s all a large performance. These people aren’t actually like that, they pretend or they exaggerate just so they can seem better and in tune with whatever it is around them, rather than stay true to themselves and just be passionate about something, they choose to adapt and abuse there own influence in order to be apart of what is effectively known as the influential part of society.

 

In my time in this world I’ve realised that fake people don’t make it at all. You may like or love things and live according to those principles, but the moment you use whatever you have to try and get a leg up to seem above the rest, is when you no longer stay true to who you are. Its all well and good to lie to other people, because at the end of the day no one really cares, but the real disservice comes to how you treat your own persona, by lying to yourself.

In the midst of all my uni work this week I came across a specific moment in my life that changed me for a long time to come. One of my subjects forced me to reflect on this moment and try and decipher the concepts of being different and being portrayed as what is effectively called the “other”. The incident in question was from when I was a kid playing soccer for our local team and involved an opposing player racially abusing me. Now i’ll probably go more in depth about this in a later blog post because even though it started this whole thought process, my whole point for today is not about racial abuse. It’s about becoming a man.

So throughout my reflection I came across something that was incredibly interesting. A well-known academic writer, Deborah Cameron, wrote about the concept of gender performativity. Now I know that sounds boring as shit but in simple terms, Cameron stated that gender is essentially performed in accordance to what we, as the subject, think is necessary to incline to, when we carry out our day to day lives as either males or females. What I realised was that since this incident, I have always questioned and felt inadequate with who I am as a man and thus performed being a male as opposed to being who I actually was as a male. Not to say I was not sure if I was a man or a woman, what I mean is that because I didn’t react a certain way in that situation, I felt like I was never really attaining the masculinity that society had instilled upon me and thus over compensated for it in my later life.

I grew up with strong male role models, hard working, intelligent men who pushed themselves and others to be better. All of which were striving to do something of substance and have some sense of life fulfilment. For me I could never find out what it was that drove me to become a man and have that same feeling. I lost all motivation and desire to attain that when I became depressed and had to immediately refocus when I was diagnosed so that I wouldn’t fall into an even bigger pit of self-loathing and sadness. But that wasn’t me being a man, much less it was I, making the realisation that life is difficult and you have to make yourself strong in order to get through it, which comes in all shapes and forms.

 

You see, like it or not, men have been the foundation and stronghold for society throughout history. We have built things, destroyed things, fought for things, died for things and most importantly LIVED for things. But nowhere in society could I find where and how to become a man. I was criticised by everyone, people calling me scared and afraid and how it wasn’t “manly”. People who looked at me in pity as they watched me become sad and alone. People who talked down to me because they think that they know who I am and what I should do.

 

The truth is, I think that throughout everything, I was waiting for what ever it is that was supposed to help me, that’s supposed to drive me, that above all else was going to make me not only a good man, but a better person.

 

And that’s what sucks. Too many times I have heard a number of people desecrate what it means to be a man, what is means to be who you are. I’ve seen guys use it to their advantage and abuse other people, places and things to feel superior all because they have to over compensate for a little dick. I’ve seen women victimise themselves and claim that men are all worthless, that we just take things away, barbarians who think, again, with our dicks instead of our hearts and minds. It’s all bullshit.

 

At the end of the day no one really knows. All you can do is hope that none of these people will hurt your life just as much as they did to me, and even if they do, its up to you to stand up and be a man, to fight for what’s yours and attain and become the person that you want to be. To face everything and make sure you do with your greatest efforts. Because there comes a time in every males life where being a boy is no longer needed. The fears and insecurities that held on in our boyhood have to be faced, even with failure, in order for us to step out of the shadows, one foot in front of the other, into the light and become a man.

 

In a world were people live hard and die young, our experiences are always limited to short moments that can be the be all and end all of everything. One moment can come back to being a regret, a loss in a relationship, a ton of heartache or the most amazing experience for your life. When we continuously abuse our bodies for a good time one has to wonder whether or not we as youth will last, and in that, ask ourselves the ultimate question, how long will our youth last. We are not young forever, and we could potentially die in the next second, minute, or day. Life is short, is all I’m trying to say. And with all the grudges and unnecessary anger left to us from a string of poor decisions and lack of understanding we are left with the un challenged notion that it is all trivial.

Amongst an amazing group of friends that I had not seen in a long time I realised the importance of letting go of any past regrets that I once had to anyone. The thing is was this was not a new feeling for me. What struck me as surprising was the re-realisation of the fact that the people who actually care about you will make an effort, they will always bring you up and never look down on you because your self worth is what they value as well. For others you’re as nothing as anything else in the world. Disposable, replaceable and never ever good enough.

These people disguise their selfishness with care and their need to have you around, but really all they are threats to what you have the potential to become. MY greatest regret is trying to fit in with people who quite clearly judge and carry pre-conceived notions of who I am as a person rather than finding it all our for themselves. They’re happiness is a façade, because they cannot value you in that special way that others can.

When we lend our trust to these people we forget why we had issues of trust to begin with and instead let them in and invest our feelings and time because we have this false notion that it will be worth it. The thing is, more times than not, it isn’t, and that is the most discouraging thing that could happen… for us to lose faith and trust in another person based on their selfish values.

BUT, they’re is always that one time, that one instance where it pays off because you in turn have met and connected with something so amazing that you cant believe that what’s in front of you actually exists. Whether that is with an object, an experience, another beautiful person, or a large 40kg canine that somehow captures your heart, it doesn’t matter because that revives hope, and is all we need as part of the human experience.

In order to feel that, to realise all that good, one must let go of unnecessary hate, of all the things bringing us down and tearing us apart little by little, because even though that person, place or thing deserves our hate, it does not deserve us to lose our hope, our faith and most of all ourselves as we become slaves to it.

Life is short, it is in our youth that we can die, and that is where we hold the most regret. Life is worth living and let no one else tell you otherwise.

Brussels was a tragedy. You know it, I know it, and the whole world knows it. What comes with violence ends with hate and contempt, and this was no different. In a world were we are under threat and many people could lose their lives everyday, we still manage to focus our attention on the small irrelevant things that annoy us, rather than the overall picture. People died. People are still dying, That’s what is actually happening right now, every single day, in Syria, in Afghanistan all over the world. For crying out loud one of you could be dying as I’m writing this. And yet, despite the horrors of our world we, instead of uniting against fear, choose to criticise the common person for posting a photo or tweeting a quote saying “#prayforbrussels” because they are too naïve to realise that this is happening all over the world  and not just in Belgium.

Earlier this week I tweeted a whole tirade on why this is the reason we are losing a devastating war against an unpredictable enemy. It is because we are waging a stupid insignificant battle amongst ourselves. We refuse to live in the real world and instead pretend we do by making other people feel like the dumbest beings on the planet. In a world were 500 000 die in bombings in one country and 50 die in another, we forget that these were situations were lives were lost and instead demean people for trying to show some sort of consideration. In the midst of all of this mess comes the one question that I want to ask anyone who thinks they know anything about our war on terror, anyone who criticises others for not showing compassion for Syria and Afghanistan when they get attacked. I ask you this, when did you ever show you cared? When did you ever pray for the hundreds of lives lost in those countries? When the fuck did you ever look at footage of cities now completely destroyed and then surrounded by complete and utter silence as a drone flew through surveying the wreckage of what used to be peoples homes and actually stop to think that whatever little problems you face in your day to day lives is insignificant compared to the tragedy that has befallen anyone who has had to endure even a minute of that.

In a world were social media is our greatest ally in uniting people; it has also become a tool for the masses to demean and condescendingly act superior to hundreds of other people. Now the fact remains that the ignorance is real, our naivety is real, but isn’t it our job to educate people in the happenings of the real world? Isn’t it our responsibility to make sure that the next generation or even the people around us know that Brussels were not the only victims of devastation? The media can only do so much, after all they are in all sense of the word a business and therefore don’t show as much compassion as one might hope. But making people feel bad for watching anything they put out is never the answer. Educate, Inspire and achieve, don’t leave behind the rest of the world because you’re “better”, take them with you, show them that they can make a difference and stand up to the evil of our reality.

Because people die everyday, and sometimes there is nothing we can physically do about it, but dividing ourselves based on ego does not fix anything, it makes the problem worse. Its time we realised that the problem isn’t the naïve, but those who let them stay that way.

 

 

There is only you. No one else. You are your own person and the only one who can convince yourself that that is true, is you. We maybe a race consisting of 7.3 Billion, and the world is big and full of people, but that does not mean you are replaceable. Throughout my life I lived in fear of always being replaced. My fears became reality on a number of occasions and the feeling of being one of many was lonelier then ever. That feeling is shared by so many people today and as much as we want to do to try and fix that, our feelings of being a mere object to the outside world are supplemented with the fact that to most people that is all we are.

The world is full of users. We are all a product of misplaced insecurities and manifested egos and as a result fall slave to the lawful injustice that is feeling like we are another grain of sand. But the one thing we forget is that that one grain of sand makes up a beach. We forget how important we are not only to society, with what we bring to the table, but also who we are individually. The other people, the ones that constantly want more, feed their ego and make you feel shit for who you are and who you care for are the ones that should be replaced, replaced with a better version of who they are and delete all that hate so that they cannot curse anyone else with it.

You are who you are; no one can change that but yourself. You can choose to live out your life accepting that you are replaceable or you can get some self respect and realise that the person who tossed you aside are the ones who are going to regret ever thinking of you as being an object. Making yourself realise that you above all else is what is going to get you through this world, giving up on that concept is not an option because yes, other people may not realise it, but in the end that doesn’t matter, because once you are able to prove that to yourself you can show the world the creation that you have made yourself become. Do you think that someone like me, aesthetic clad and fully awesome got to where I am through self-doubt and dwelling on other peoples mistakes and misgivings on me and my ability? Fuck no. I allowed me to be me and I make sure everyday, every minute and every second is dedicated to making me become the best version of myself. No one can take that from me and then replace it with an empty lump of mindless zombie that suits there needs and wants because I am irreplaceable. Just like you and just like the next guy, because we are artists, we are creators and we are in control of who and what we become.

There’s a reason why we all have different characteristics, why our fingerprint is unique, its because our mark on this world is exactly that, its OUR individual mark. And no one can wash that away.

“The world isn’t split into good people and death eaters”- Sirius Black

This line hit me right in the feels from when Harry Potter And the Order and the Phoenix first came out. What sucks is as true as this is, as a young person we’d love to think that that’s the case. That bad people and good people exist in this world and that’s it even if it’s not the case at all. But throughout our lives the worst people on earth skim through our existence and are determined to bring us down through the deadly sins that man are victim to. From a simple act of misjudgement we are condemned to what seems like a lifetime of ridicule because people are too cruel to forget that everyone makes mistakes. And the worst of the worst continues to torment us even when life hands us a bad hand.

I heard of the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to a family ever. And yet there were people out there that used that as a base to demean and destroy someone rather then leave them be, so that they can live and get through what was going on around them. That’s where the fault in humanity starts, our inability to convince ourselves that something’s that we do are wrong, fundamentally and morally out of place and a disservice to the people who fought to make society great, even if they did fail we should respect it. The young generation that I am a part of are a victim of selfishness and just being plain fucking dicks. Our men are disrespectful and weak in mind and heart, they refuse to live in any kind of moral or ethical framework and instead decide that the things that were once looked down upon are considered the norm. Our women are just as disrespectful but play victim to an unbalanced society and instead of helping it they lose strength and give in or over exaggerate force and demean others. Now I’m not saying that everyone does this, like Sirius Black said, the world is not split into good and bad, rather we, day by day lose to the hate that keeps resurfacing, that insists that it must intrude in our lives.

But for once I saw something different that made me feel immense pride and adoration for someone who was given no respect. They stood up for themselves and their family and didn’t give into hate.

I’ve said it in a previous post that hate is the most detrimental and devastating weapon in today’s society. And the only way to stop it is to make sure that we fight back against assholes that think that it’s ok to torment people, and maybe, hopefully, change them for the better. But, unfortunately I’m not getting my hopes up.

By making sure that we stand up for the little guy, those people who continuously try and bring us down will still fight, but at least there not fighting a weak cause, at least they are feeling the wrath of compassion and unity through even just one person.

Remember the world isn’t split into good people and death eaters, but also remember that my boy Harry Potter cheated death and fucked up the most evil dark wizard of all time, and he did that with bravery, compassion, a good heart and a dead old white bearded wizard who taught him that love is our greatest trait as a human.

I spent a week trying to figure out if I fit in after I came back from India. The reality for me is that I will never know how I would’ve done over there, and if it were to be any better than how I’ve done here. But throughout my time there I knew for certain that Sydney is home. The alienation that I felt here was apparent and the fact that I still feel somewhat as though I don’t fit in anymore is still a lingering thought and is somewhat shit but being around family, friends and experiencing a whole support network that was unknown to me before allowed gives me all the motivation I need.

There is nothing like being here. The fact that the people that were so apart of your life before, have somehow moved on are all reasons as to why I do love being back. It hurts but it’s a fact of life. The pace of everything here is so fast that they days pass in minutes and before you know it your in university studying something that you never thought you would. Not to say that the lifestyle is slow in India, quite the contrary everything moves so quickly, but here we are able to move in a much more positive direction than the many unfortunate people over there.

I learnt so many new things about not only other people and the culture but about myself, and I don’t care how cheesy that sounds. The specific traits and habits that I thought that I only did, I in fact share with a large group of cousins, uncles and aunties. Yes living on a farm for more than a week was tough but what made it the best was the fact that I could hang with my two youngest cousins, help my aunty cook and spend time with my old granddad who had about more stories to tell then he had teeth. I stopped caring about all the negativity that was around me while I was there and focused on all the people that made me happy in the last year and made it my mission to make sure I did the same for them, that I would work on my relationships with those specific people because they are worth it.

And then came the confusing part…I had to ask myself, where was home. Was it a place that I visited every couple of years, where my blood had been brought up through dozens of generations in the soil of Kerala. Or was home where I was born and raised, where all my friends were, amongst the comforts of a Western lifestyle, a place that had caused me endless happiness but surrounded me with pain as soon as something went wrong.

In the end I decided that home is where my dog is. Truthfully as stupid as that sounds it made sense. Roman is my responsibility; from the day he came into our lives and everyday since. And that’s where home is; it’s where you carry yourself with everything that you’ve learnt and how you act with that knowledge in your day-to-day life. You see its not up to us to feel comfortable all the time, we have to take the good with the bad and realise that life is worth living only when you choose to do something with it. And that is totally up to you. We have to live life with some sort of responsibility, not only to ourselves but the people around us, to make sure that we do what is needed so that we add some sort of value to this world. And that’s what makes home, home is where we are and who we are, we make our home in how we live our lives and that is what’s important…us.

Back there I was happy and comfortable because I was surrounded by endless love and compassion. Times are tough but my family made me feel welcomed. And they might not always be there, but that’s ok because that’s life.

And in my life here my family and friends will come and go on with their lives because that’s what’s important to them, even as sad as that sounds, but what I choose to do with my life, whether I choose to stay or go is where I can find solace, its where I can find home.

I think I’m done trying to conform to societies notion that to be manly I have to be big. I”m done hiding behind a mass of unnecessary supplements and wasting money on things I don’t actually need. being healthy was my choice and my choice alone, but my insecurities got in the way and it became an unhealthy way of me to not communicate how I feel or what i was actually thinking. Its taken over my life. My identity has become the gym and I’m more than disappointed….I’m scared that thats all its ever going to be. Do I really want to be a husband and a father to my future wife and kids that constantly has to go to the gym. I think that despite everything else I lost the one underlying piece of me that made me happy in the first place. I love to active and healthy. I didn’t like being skinny and weak so I became bigger and stronger, and thats ok. But when I constantly obsessed over stupid details that don’t matter i discovered that despite what anyone else though I would never be satisfied. But I convinced myself that any bad thought I had towards myself was all because of Society. That I wouldn’t be able to have a girlfriend or a wife because I wasn’t physically perfect, that no-one would respect me if i was skinny and weak or that I felt like a failure because I had nothing else to be proud of besides my body.

I thought those things because I thought they were true. I still somewhat think that thats true. Ive lived a life of nothing but physical attainment for the past two years because I though I was never good enough. It’s depressing and sad but its how it was. I am not a bitch. I know when I’m wrong, but whether i believe that or not is part of me growing. And thats when the decision has to be made. I am not going to be a professional bodybuilder, I’ve never wanted that. But I love working out and keeping healthy because it runs to my core. So I am choosing to do what is right by me and live my life the way I want to. Not because a bunch of girls want me to have a good body and not because it garners the respect from little boys who don’t have a clue about anything. The only respect i’ve ever needed is that of the other guys in there working their assess off to be the best they can, from the other people who can watch me be true to the person I want to be.

I’m done with my body image problems because I know I look good. I’m done because thats not who I am and it is definitely not who any one else is. So many people are killing themselves just to fit in. No, fuck that,  no-one deserves to live in a constant state of sadness because they’ll never know if they’re going to fit in. I want to be healthy, the whole way through…and that means knowing that I am solid and so are you.

 

Rant over.

 

I’ve never really enjoyed the weddings I’ve been too. Especially since weddings for Malayalee Orthodox Christians are not the same as the north Indian weddings that I grew up watching in Bollywood. Which sucks to say the least. It’s a pretty low key highly anticipated ritual that all it is pretty much an excuse for the brides parents to splurge on some expensive sarees and jewellery and the guests chance to rush into a hall and eat good food. To say the least I wasn’t looking forward to any of my cousins wedding for two reasons. One being that it was going to be at all like my heart was set on and two because it meant that tensions were high and the stress would make me agitated. The reality was much better than I expected, with lots of traditions and family I was instantly surrounded in a place full of love and recognition. I was the son of a well-known woman and man in their respective neighbourhoods from a western country that with great opportunities. Already I was labelled as bright, open and loving all from my mum and dads descriptions of me over the phone and face-to-face t all my relatives. Things were looking up, and the loneliness that I felt subsided.

 

That changed on my cousin, Dary’s wedding day. The extravagance of the engagement made me less surprised with the actual wedding itself, with dozens of photographers taking an enormous amount of photos with family and friends. The last moments that my cousin would have as part of our family were that of the hysteria of the wedding, which then led to the unification of two good people that can now share a lifetime together. But quickly as the hype died down and my 24-year-old cousin that always showed me love, and consideration from the day I was born, suddenly had sadness in her eye. The last time she would spend in a well built home that her father worked so hard in making for her and her brother began to become a memory as she welcomed a new home and chapter in her life.

 

The worst thing that could ever happen in life is saying goodbye to something or someone. Especially if you know that when you do see them it will only be a short time in the future. And yes we were happy to see her marry a nice guy that was part of a nice family with a nice life, but our selfishness got in the way as the women who had raised her began to say their farewells. My mother does not cry often and when she does you know it’s a sad time, but the worst wasn’t even seeing my own mother shed a tear. It wasn’t Dary’s parents either, my mothers brother and his wife. It was my aunty Alice. Born with an illness that caused her to be disabled for the rest of her life, making her unable to attend the average school or live an average life, unable to do things that we take for granted like walk or run or have a family, Alice took her solace being a source of guidance and an extra mum to all my cousins on that side. She learnt how to sew beautifully and was able to mend and alter any piece of clothing expertly. To say the least I couldn’t explain how much she meant to us but what I didn’t realise was how much we meant to her. WE were all her children and the closest that she ever had to a daughter and most of, all her best friend, was Dary. Dary and Alice aunty shared a room together, they sat with each other regularly stitching and mending Dary’s sarrees and they were always in each others company when Dary had to study or do any kind of work. My fondest memories of my cousin and my aunty were when they were always together gossiping, shopping or sewing out on the balcony with the sounds of Waynad, Kerala surrounding them.

 

It was tough to see someone cry that hard, that silently in a corner as she watches someone so important to her drive away with a family she only met a year ago. Now she’s without a daughter and Dary, without that extra mum. Watching her go was a sudden slip into dozens of memories of the time we had as kids. My brother and I surprising her and our other cousins with a water fight, yelling and screaming, waking her up early in the morning just to piss her off and walking around our uncles land picking random fruits from trees to eat. Those days are done.

 

She’s gone, not for good but that chapter in our lives where Dary was our sister in our home away from home was now done. Now she’s a wife and with other people with the rest of her life. And although we’re happy that she got what she deserved, we were sad to see her go. With sadness, happiness and tears she said goodbye and as a man you have to stay strong so she knows everything’s going to be ok, when deep down inside you want to hug and shamelessly cry as well. But that’s how life is. You write some stories in the book that we call life but only so you can move onto the next chapter and then look back on all those times when we’re older and leading our own.

 

So, to Dary, here’s to all those times we had and the times that you will continue to have for the rest of your days with your new life.

Some things you leave behind and other things you take with you. The worst part about leaving behind he life you once led is that sometimes it haunts you. I’m away again, this time for two weddings in India. Some would call it a holiday were I can enjoy myself thoroughly and have a good time, and whilst I am enjoying the company of my family its hard to say that it is in fact a holiday. The stuff that I was supposed to have a break from still keeps me up and its gone past the point where I can say that the lack of sleep at night is from jet lag. The thing is no matter where you go, the things that are within you, all the emotions and thoughts that were sources of strength or made you sad still happen to be there. There is no escape and the sooner you realise that the sooner youll come to accept that sometimes going away and getting away from everything that makes you upset is not always going to fix the problem.

 

A lot of people would think that this is depressing as fuck. But this is life. You can smile and be happy, even more than you would at home but at the end of the day, facing what’s inside of you is going to always be harder than facing something face to face. The lies that people tell, and the mandatory status that you have to keep so that society remains content with you are always going to be there, the scariest part is not all that shit. It’s the fact that the trouble you felt hits you no matter what, like your own personal truck that comes at you whenever your mind wanders. And if your looking for advice on how to face it, simply put you actually cant. It’s all part of being human. Some have it more than others, sometimes much more and that, put bluntly, is plain bad luck.

 

He point is that you should learn to accept that life gets tough especially in our young years. We think that the key is to find ourselves, and while that is true, if the hurt that keeps on entering your life does so even when you choose to leave, that means that your doing it wrong. Whatever makes you happy you should treasure and nurture it, not shun it away because as soon as these moments come along, whether your away or at home those little things will keep your spirit up.

 

Because I am away I thought it would definitely be a time where I would be able to finally feel comfortable and not on edge, that I would continuously be surrounded by love, and while that is 100% the case, I also at times feel the loneliest ive ever felt. People tend to forget you so quickly and focus solely on their lives that you tend to forget yourself too. And that internal struggle then creeps in all over again. But being alone means that you have yourself to face and only yourself, which is the hardest but also the most rewarding, your ability to face all that makes you feel like shit and continuously fucks you up can mean that you can finally face it and give it the middle finger. Some things we leave there, other things we leave behind, its up to us to face it and make sure it doesn’t bring us down again.