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Everything Comes Full Circle
12 years ago
I think it's time for a /real/ journal for a change. It's probably rambling, but that's how I roll.
The days are steadily getting longer. The snow is melting. The echoing rumble of avalanches will give way to the din of mosquitoes and the gruff grunts of bears tussling over salmon. I am hopeful that this summer will bring with it new challenges, new opportunities, and most importantly, new friends. Over time, leaving in remote areas, one truth is clear: to survive in paradise, everyone makes sacrifices.
I've been reflecting on my time in the fandom recently. With the mountains and the glaciers here, as beautiful as they may be, time has a nasty habit of making everything jaded. It's so easy to take for granted that which you have access to every day. I think it is unavoidable: a natural mechanism for our survival. As our brains create search images of recurring environments so that we can focus more on what is different than what is the same, we become prone to missing the bigger picture and focusing too much on small details that are, if compared to a clear night sky, insignificant. So much thought and activity is wasted on the insignificant.
What does this have to do with furries? Well, as
matthiasrat so eloquently put it in a recent conversation: imagination is our way of directly taking part in the miracle of creation. When I first stumbled upon the idea of a furry "fandom" in 1998, the internet was just becoming mainstream. It was a magical experience, really. Discovering a formal term for this idea of combining the best aspects of animals and humanity while living miles away from any other person, using a 14.4 modem in the middle of the woods one distant summer day. It didn't take long to discover the "dark side" of furries, but it also didn't matter because, if you wanted to find the good, you could. You still can.
But over time I was able to take everything for granted. Yerf crashed and disappeared, but ArtSpots and FurAffinity took its place. FurryMUCK's WCOTP got old and I always thought Furcadia was stupid. Then came the Yahoo! Groups and Furtopia. But with everything so easy to access, and with the fandom growing more and more each year, we lose that sense of satisfaction of really having to try hard to learn something about ourselves, or discover something about each other. Age is also a downside. Not because I feel like my age--I feel no different than when I was 17--but with increased life experience comes an almost ironic arrogance. I see younger members now asking the same questions that were asked when I was younger. I see them coming to the same conclusions (good and bad). And so it will go on over and over and over. Each one of us is Icarus and we will touch the sun. We will fall. But what we choose to do when we get up is what defines us.
But time also has a way of offering surprises when they are most needed and least expected. Despite all the artists who will draw anthro foxes or wolves over the next 30 years--and there is only so many ways you can do that--each person will still choose a slightly different shade. The elbows might have longer or shorter tufts. The eyes might have more or less detail. The backgrounds and the clothing will be different. Many of these images will all blur together. But a few will stand out because they encompass everything that is great about the others. People are the same way. This is how I can take a picture of the same place every day because, if you really look, there is something small that is different, and when you take into account everything that had to have happened in order for that small change to take place, every change is enormous. It's like the butterfly effect but everyone is focused on what the butterfly is experiencing when we really should be thinking about what the wind is experiencing around the butterfly before it meanders over the mountain and becomes a storm.
So, for any of you still reading this, perhaps you could take a moment to just think to yourself why you are a "furry". Don't focus on the insignificant details like lifestyler vs RPer or other labels. All of that crazy fetish stuff is just background noise, too. What is the one idea upon which all other feelings originate as it relates to taking part in this fandom as a writer, artist, enthusiast, whatever. This seems like an easy question on the surface, but is so fundamental I personally find it difficult to answer. I always come back to it. In the end, I am fascinated with the combining of the human and nonhuman worlds and perspectives and what that fantasy says about current societal truths. The fact we can imagine such things is monumental in and of itself when you consider our concerns 100,000 years ago.
The days are steadily getting longer. The snow is melting. The echoing rumble of avalanches will give way to the din of mosquitoes and the gruff grunts of bears tussling over salmon. I am hopeful that this summer will bring with it new challenges, new opportunities, and most importantly, new friends. Over time, leaving in remote areas, one truth is clear: to survive in paradise, everyone makes sacrifices.
I've been reflecting on my time in the fandom recently. With the mountains and the glaciers here, as beautiful as they may be, time has a nasty habit of making everything jaded. It's so easy to take for granted that which you have access to every day. I think it is unavoidable: a natural mechanism for our survival. As our brains create search images of recurring environments so that we can focus more on what is different than what is the same, we become prone to missing the bigger picture and focusing too much on small details that are, if compared to a clear night sky, insignificant. So much thought and activity is wasted on the insignificant.
What does this have to do with furries? Well, as
matthiasrat so eloquently put it in a recent conversation: imagination is our way of directly taking part in the miracle of creation. When I first stumbled upon the idea of a furry "fandom" in 1998, the internet was just becoming mainstream. It was a magical experience, really. Discovering a formal term for this idea of combining the best aspects of animals and humanity while living miles away from any other person, using a 14.4 modem in the middle of the woods one distant summer day. It didn't take long to discover the "dark side" of furries, but it also didn't matter because, if you wanted to find the good, you could. You still can.But over time I was able to take everything for granted. Yerf crashed and disappeared, but ArtSpots and FurAffinity took its place. FurryMUCK's WCOTP got old and I always thought Furcadia was stupid. Then came the Yahoo! Groups and Furtopia. But with everything so easy to access, and with the fandom growing more and more each year, we lose that sense of satisfaction of really having to try hard to learn something about ourselves, or discover something about each other. Age is also a downside. Not because I feel like my age--I feel no different than when I was 17--but with increased life experience comes an almost ironic arrogance. I see younger members now asking the same questions that were asked when I was younger. I see them coming to the same conclusions (good and bad). And so it will go on over and over and over. Each one of us is Icarus and we will touch the sun. We will fall. But what we choose to do when we get up is what defines us.
But time also has a way of offering surprises when they are most needed and least expected. Despite all the artists who will draw anthro foxes or wolves over the next 30 years--and there is only so many ways you can do that--each person will still choose a slightly different shade. The elbows might have longer or shorter tufts. The eyes might have more or less detail. The backgrounds and the clothing will be different. Many of these images will all blur together. But a few will stand out because they encompass everything that is great about the others. People are the same way. This is how I can take a picture of the same place every day because, if you really look, there is something small that is different, and when you take into account everything that had to have happened in order for that small change to take place, every change is enormous. It's like the butterfly effect but everyone is focused on what the butterfly is experiencing when we really should be thinking about what the wind is experiencing around the butterfly before it meanders over the mountain and becomes a storm.
So, for any of you still reading this, perhaps you could take a moment to just think to yourself why you are a "furry". Don't focus on the insignificant details like lifestyler vs RPer or other labels. All of that crazy fetish stuff is just background noise, too. What is the one idea upon which all other feelings originate as it relates to taking part in this fandom as a writer, artist, enthusiast, whatever. This seems like an easy question on the surface, but is so fundamental I personally find it difficult to answer. I always come back to it. In the end, I am fascinated with the combining of the human and nonhuman worlds and perspectives and what that fantasy says about current societal truths. The fact we can imagine such things is monumental in and of itself when you consider our concerns 100,000 years ago.
It is just the beast spirit inside me. The rest -- even all of the fandom-related stuff -- is just branches on that core... Whether any or all of those branches stay or fall... I will still be myself, and would always keep this spirit inside me.
*shrugs* I don't know what furries are, really... People argue a ton about it. I don't care. As, though, about any other group/label. I know what I am, and that's what important for me, rest is just chaff. Including labels, fandom, anything :)
I wish to be like that. Open and unjudging, my goal as a furry, is to strive to be that ultimate being that prosper from the best from both worlds, and lays aside the negative traits. I see my contribution to the furry congregation as endlessly important. And though I will never reach my goal, I celebrate that human/beast mix with every little step I take towards it.
And yes I am new here. *Giggles*. But I am not a teenager anymore. I am 32 years old. I have a steady job, but still I am young at heart. And I guess furry is too about being playfull and curious. And silly. And a lot of other stuff
Just take a look at Uncle Kage. That man really makes me happy, because he reminds me of: you are what bring to the fandom, and not what the fandom brings to you.
Be yourself. Be proud. I suppose :3
That was a wonderful journal (the best one that i have seen so far).
I belive i am a furry because I have something inside me that wants to be different, to roam free, to climb and pounce and play. But I also have a part of me that wants to fight, be fierce and cunning. The artistic mind that I have tries to put these conflicting traits together by depict my self as an animal and more specific: a gray fox. I also choose to discover my furriness because have always loved animals and have decided to place myself in an animals "shoes"(or paws) and exemplify them in some way. I would also be liying if i didnt tell you that i think foxes are adorable and cute :3. But I digress. In conclusion I will never truly know why I chose to be a furry, All I can tell you is That I am young, a teenager, And proud to be alive. I feel at peace, and thats enough for now ^^
I hope you are able to stick with it over time :) A lot of people I've met from those years have dropped out of the scene--for them it really was just a fad. But every now and then one of them comes back, like I have come back before, because for some people, it's one of those ideas that is just a part of you and you can't quit. I think another problem for me is that as you get older and older, it can be harder to stick with because of this whole idea that cartoons are only for kids, or cartoon characters. Luckily, with Adult Swim, Family Guy, South Park, and the like, and the increasing popularity of anime, that idea is starting to go away, but it is still there for a lot of people.
I signed up to my first forum around the Fur-Piled comic. I started talking; communicating. I discovered I wasn't alone, and that there were hundreds of people sharing the same interest. I still remember the first time I came to a chatroom, and being surrounded with various people I knew and trusted. Suddenly, they started snuggling and doing the RP thing. I watched, shocked at first, then surprised. People were having sex in front of me (textual, but still), and they were real people I knew (just online, but still), and then, I knew I was rewired. All the porn I've been watching suddenly became humane, understandable. Something that could happen to me. Something I could do to someone. And then the porn lost it's appeal, because I understood it was something regarding fetishes, fuel for the jumper wires that our animal brain was putting over our neurons.
Just then, as I was watching something beautiful, a friend RP-licked me. We started playing. It... It was a miracle. Someone actually showed affection! To me! I licked back, and snuggled. And we had sex. I had it for the first time.
Next morning, I had the most beautiful wake, ever. Sun beaming through the window felt different, it was a new sun. Air in the room was a new air. And I didn't feel like a virgin anymore. It didn't matter that I lost it through the screen and keyboard, and that I didn't cum afterwards. I learned my lession: virginity was a state of mind.
Fast forward one month - I think it was mid-november 2009 - while I was relaxing on my bed, listening to Knotcast, it all finally came to me, the whole big idea what life is, and what the whole furry fandom meant to say to my subconsciousness. There are masks and under those masks are people, humans, nude, smoking a cigar or reading a book, or brushing their teeth. Bam of illumination! All those thoughts that I had, were also shared with multitude of others. I'm not a special snowflake, I'm just like the rest of them, and they're just like me. Looking at people, I did look at my reflection. My own species. It was a delicate and powerful sensation.
And one day, I would eventually find my human, and we'd be open about everything, we'd be like a pair of animals, but still humans. And we'd be like dogs, fighting in the dirt, and we'd be still humans. We'd be like raccoons, biting each other and stealing food, but we'd be still humans. And we'd be like horses, watching ourselves poop big time and then eat grass, and we'd be still humans.
And I realized, it's a love of life that I craved for, something that only animals and small children had. Throw away social constructs, throw away identities, nationalities, religions... Just live. Be fully ignorant and fully immersed at the same time, at same intensity.
It was like waking from a dream. Well, I think Darwin saved me that day, because I was ready to out myself to everyone I knew, and that would probably end up with me being beaten to death or thrown away on the streets with the hoboes. But I was fearless, like a dire wolf. No problem seemed unsolvable. I didn't have an image to keep, I didn't have any self-esteem issues anymore, no poison to spit out. I wanted to do what felt right, what made me feel good. It was a kind of nirvana. As I said, Charles Darwin saved me that day. Oh good Darwin, make me understand this isn't Netherlands, Sweden, Canada or Belgium! In this place people get their brains spilled over the pavement for wearing rainbow bracelets!
Fast forward to present - I became cautious as before, but now keeping the spark well hidden inside. Hidden and protected from the ratsbane sandstorms of sarcasm and vitriol. Protected from the everyday ugliness and the 'homo homini lupus est' spirit.
I don't think I'm going to leave the fandom anytime soon. It would be like leaving the humanity.
(What's funny here, is what Aristotle said: 'He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.' I find that utterly amusing... Yay furries.)
It is cool that you were able to get that connection through technology. The internet helped me as well as I grew up in a rural area myself, and technology was my access to a wider world. When I first wanted to be an animal, though, I was surrounded by people and life has always been pretty good to me all things considered. Ultimately, I've never been content with just one point of view, one life, one perspective on consciousness. I'm too intuitive and curious. Anthro has always been a way to explore that curiosity and imagination more concretely. I love the idea of becoming an animal, but also retaining my core self in the process. And I understand full well that what I perceive as an animal's qualities are probably inaccurate, idealistic, and colored by my individualistic human consciousness existing in a perceived finite timeline. Even still, that idealism is why all of the fetishes annoy me as they do.
Given your detached upbringing, I think the approach outlined in your post makes sense. But I also wonder how unhealthy being so engrossed in fantasy might have been (and is) for people who are so detached and don't have those personal connections. There are a lot of people who are not furries and have nothing in common with the idea and are just hitching a ride because they can be accepted. While acceptance is great, it's possible to be too accepting to the point where it becomes negative. "Fuel for the jumper wires" as you say is very true!
I like your idea on masks and I have experienced similar ideas. The problem with a mask, though, is that you don't always know if you really see past it, especially online. I want to extend that concept further, though.
Replace the idea of a mask with tapping into a foreign (difference, not necessarily outside) intelligence. The mask is just the tool, and it is what that tool does and why that is ultimately important. For me, I like the idea of using the mask not to experience life as a human wearing a mask, but a human removing humanity via the mask to see what else is there. Animals are just "people in animal clothing" as the saying goes. Humans are animals in people clothing. As animals, we aren't always in full control over ourselves as much as we'd like to think we are. But as human beings, armed with imagination and technology, we have to be particularly conscious of our flaws as we have enabled the means by which to completely get lost within those vices. All of the absurd fetishes on this site are a great example. There is nothing cute about vore, or scat, or any of that shit (pun intended), and I think that people know that and toss furry animals into the mix so that it becomes "cute," and it isn't. It is a distraction and I get annoyed. Part of that is due to my own personal beliefs and that same "society crushing the individual" attitude that I occasionally wield just like any other person. There is a difference of goals and philosophy, the root of all war.
A lot of people use the idea of furry to better know themselves as a person because they are too uncomfortable with it without that filter. I suppose that is a key difference with myself. For me, it's not about knowing myself as a person or becoming a better person, it's exploring the opposite: losing the person to see what is the real difference compared to being a nonhuman animal. It is something I can never truly know in this life, but it is still fun to think about. In the process, I do learn a few things. Many people on this site are a bit more shallow and are doing it just for fun, or cause they are bored, and that's fine. The fact they are here at all shows that there is some deeper interest in the whole "furry" thing beyond that, despite what they may think. And there are plenty of people here who make an honest effort to explore and see how far they can take the whole furry thing to see what it might tell them about themselves.
Understanding that, and understanding myself, I'm not going to be leaving the fandom any time soon. I've "left" several times in the past but always come back to it. And really, leaving in the past wasn't due to furries specifically, but due to shallow people in general. Furries are very image based, and it is so easy to get shallow and superficial There is something about expressing myself as an animal that accomplishes something in a way that nothing else can. It's a reflection of who I am versus what I might want to be if given the choice, an insight into the kind of world philosophy that exists when exploring those kinds of ideas, and a snapshot of what actually constitutes my conscious existence beyond the obvious physical world. There is the person people see when they look at you, there is the person you see when you look in the mirror, and then there is the real person inside, who nobody can see accept (though often times not even) yourself.
I didn't mean to get all philosophical heh heh, but I notice that you are a writer yourself (and a rat person!) so you probably know how it is! :)