Revelation

I had a revelation while talking to a friend of mine.

I'm always nostalgic for places I've lived. While moving to college, I was nostalgic for my hometown. It was super liberal, full of pierced and tattooed kids, and had the "live and let die" attitude. My college town was different than that - preppy, full of money, uptight, full of pressure to succeed. I wanted the free spirit of my hometown back.

Then I move to Beaumont, which is in a new spectrum. There's the small town, Christian conservative movement. Women who want only to raise kids. People who want nothing but what they know. I felt confined, and longed for both of my previous worlds.

I understand that what I wanted in those areas was to be understood and accepted by my society. I was different from the norm in the last two cities. I wanted the people I knew to magically accept the beliefs and ideas that I have come to accept and appreciate, despite knowing that those ideals aren't the norm. Many people hadn't been introduced to my way of thinking, even. I came with the idea, subconsciously, that I would revolutionize the thinking of the area and bring something to its people while I used the town for my own purposes.

What I claimed I wanted and what would make me happy were two different things, and both were impossible to create. While I am in Beaumont, I am going to have to hide parts of who I am to the casual onlooker to be accepted by society. (Of course I've made friends that can appreciate, and some understand, my way of thinking, which makes me closer to those people.) I cannot change people here to be liberal and atheist and feminist. I cannot mold this world into a personal utopia. I don't know why I thought I could.

Instead, I need to find a way to understand why people value what they do here. I need to be the one to stop hating the traditions that have somehow sustained this culture here. I will never accept them as my personal values. But, instead of the understanding and compassion being me-centric, I have to give it to be happy. The culture has sustained itself for so long, and there is a reason for it. (The reason may be good or bad.) I have to accept Beaumont as it is to be calm here.

Of course, I can't accept this culture as my own, or appreciate it fully. But my goal is to feel compassion towards it, and understand how the culture has developed in the direction that it has. I can't throw it away without understanding it. That has been my folly while living here.

More blogging, possibly with a vengeance, coming soon.