The roles I play - Part 12. Chorus

Today is the last day of April 2015 and I found it fitting to end this series at the end of the month.


 Part 12. Chorus

A Greek chorus (Greek: χορός, khoros) is a homogeneous, non-individualised group of performers in the plays of classical Greece, who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_chorus

We are assigned a large variety of roles and stereotypes just by being alive. Everyone who looks at us gives us a category, a role, and most of the time we are unaware of these roles. At the moment we are born, we are given a set of roles to which others are later added. Those first ones are usually the hardest ones to break out of, not rarely causing suffering for the individual.

The gender-queer person born with male genitalia.
The male identifying person born with female attributes.
Basically anyone born as inter-sex and assigned the wrong gender by doctors and parents.

For me these roles were
- Female
- Daughter
- First-born
- Heterosexual
- Child

As I grew older, I gathered more role titles. It is as if we are individual black holes and the simplified definitions are drawn to us, flung towards us, by the force that is our existence.

Older sister. Student. Good Reader. Victim. Quiet one. Distant. Imaginative. Different. Freak. Musician. Writer. Swimmer. Nerd. Linguist. Helper. Reliable.

Most of the roles I have been given are true in one way or another, but none of them describe ME. They describe the idea of who I am, a simplistic take on a complex being.
 A role in a chorus, designed to blend in with the rest given the same role. Shakespeare wrote

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts

Just as people are actors in their own plays, we also need to be the lead actors. Not the chorus or the extras. It is incredibly hard to take charge of your life in a society that both demands that you're a free individual and that you adapt and blend in with your surroundings. (Check this video by Veritasium for a discussion on Learned Helplessness). It is hard and you will feel miserable and you will hurt. I know I did. Once you are through, though, you will feel free. Because taking charge of your life is not only about making your own decisions, I've noticed. It is also about shedding the parts of you that are false. It is about being true to yourself and to others.

It is about not hiding behind masks others have crafted for you.

This series of posts started with an idea I got when I was watching the documentary "Kink", and it evolved into something I never could have imagined. Writing forced me to think, and thinking forced me to realize that I can do much more than I give myself credit for. I am stronger now than I was just a few weeks ago and I am at peace with myself.

Ego sum qui sum. Intellectum tuum grata est sed non requiritur.



DFTBA 




Below are the previous posts in the series

Part 1. Sparkle
Part 2. Darkness
Part 3. Liberal Arts
Part 4. Heterosexual
Part 5. Wife
Part 6. "I'm OK"
Part 7. The Student
Part 8. The Good Girl
Part 9. Fearless And Strong
Part 10. Mother, Maybe
Part 11. Grown-Up