Prejudice: Wrote a Blog About It. Like to Read It? Here It Go.

One of the first lessons every gay man learns about "the community" is that we are a very judgmental people. We pass it off as having high standards, but it's a defense mechanism. Feeling constantly judged by mainstream society, flipping the judgment on our own constructed other is a natural protection. Everybody is too fat, thin, bald, hairy, crazy, normal--you get the point. We live our lives in constant frustration that our unrealistic expectations of others (and ourselves) are never met.

My last entry was about my trying to give up things for my own betterment. Judgments are another thing I'm having a hard time releasing.

Earlier today, somebody very dear in my life posted a Facebook status filled with ignorance and intolerance. However, I don't feel like he sees it the way I do. I feel he sees it as standing up for his beliefs. But where does standing up for your beliefs end and disrespecting the beliefs of others begin?

I began to debate de-friending him on Facebook and in real life. He had crossed one of my deal-breaker lines: devaluing the beliefs of others. However, the more I thought about this, the more I began to see the hypocrisy of it. His comment devalued the beliefs of those that did not agree with him, and I was devaluing his beliefs because they do not agree with mine.

I often rail against those who are intolerant of others. But isn't this also a form of intolerance? Am I justified in disliking my uncles because they demonize gay people? Hating haters is still hating.

I'd be the first to agree that everybody can't agree on everything all the time. However, we can't let our disagreements turn into prejudice, intolerance, and hate. To partially quote Yoda, "Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." So, it stands to reason, happiness leads to love, and love leads us to thrive.

This is my challenge to myself and to you: love the haters, and prove them wrong by responding with love even when it is most difficult.

I did not de-friend my friend, and I did not respond to the comment directly. I decided the best path was to live my life from a place of love. Hopefully, he will see this and realize that, though we may disagree sometimes, we all have value and shouldn't judge others by their faults but by their assets.

Who knows? If we start loving one another, we my start to love one another.

Giving Up For Good

"These excuses, how they've served me so well. They've kept me safe. They've kept me stuck. They've kept me locked in my own shell." -- Alanis Morissette Excuses

I'm giving up a lot of things for good.

One thing I have come to realize is that I will never be good enough for myself. I haven't dove deep enough into this yet to know where it stems from, but I have always been this way. Maybe it is part of being gay-- rejection by society leading to the constant need to excel in order to gain approval. Regardless of its root, I have never been good enough at anything to reach my own personal standards.

When I graduated fourth in my class from high school, I wasn't good enough because I wasn't valedictorian. When I finished college a semester early with a 3.74 GPA, it wasn't good enough because I didn't have a 3.8. When I weighed 30 pounds less than I do now, it wasn't good enough because I didn't have "ripped abs." When I was in a relationship, I never felt worthy of being loved. The list goes on and on. I have always fallen short of my impossibly high standards for myself, but I am giving up on this.

I am giving up on not being good enough. I may not be the best at everything, and that's alright. There are tons of things I don't do well-- pretty much anything athletic, for example-- but nobody is going to hate me for that. From now on, I will try my best, and that will be good enough.

I am also giving up on holding grudges.

A few months back, I realized that my thirtieth birthday is on the horizon, so I made a little list of things I wanted to do before that day. Number one on the list was "undo the mistakes of my past." I have been amazed how this has come into my life. First, I get a Facebook message from one of my best friends from high school that I stopped speaking to over bullshit high school drama. We realized we're both much better off now, and are actually friends again after not speaking for about 15 years.

A month or so after that, I ran into my college roommate on an online dating site. We were good friends for our freshman year but parted ways after a series of screaming matches and drama. I felt horrible for several years about how I treated him, so I sent him a message of apology. To my surprise, he felt the same way. We realized we were both wrong, and now we plan on having dinner in a few weeks to catch up on the last eight years we didn't speak.

I thought all my hatchets were buried, but the final one totally shocked me. Again, I was on an online dating site, and I met a guy I was really interested in. We chatted for awhile, and it eventually came up that he was friends with my former roommate's ex-boyfriend... the same boyfriend that had been the subject of several of the screaming matches I mentioned above. So, I told the guy I was interested in about all of the drama between the two of us, and he said something that really struck me, "So, how long ago was this?"

"About nine years," I replied. Then I realized that I had been holding onto my hate for him for so long that it didn't matter anymore. Frankly, if I could, I would punch ten-years-ago me in the face; he was a total self-centered jerk. I have changed so much over the past ten years that I'm hardly the same person, so why should I expect any different of my former roommate's ex. Maybe he has changed, maybe he hasn't. However, I do at least owe him a chance.

Finally, I'm giving up excuses.

Sabotaging myself has almost become a hobby. Combined with my setting impossibly high expectations for myself, it's a toxic combination.

Well, it's Wednesday; you can't start a diet on Wednesday. I don't feel like it. I have to buy that first. That's too far away. I need to practice more before I'm ready. He's out of my league. It will hurt too much emotionally. It will never happen anyway.

I have noticed that I like to create false obstacles for myself and set myself up for failure. Then, I beat myself up internally for failing. This can't be healthy, so I'm giving it up too. This doesn't mean I'll pursue every option or path, but I'll try to realize what is a real goal and what is just a distraction I've created for myself to deter me from my actual goal.

This brings me to why I'm giving up on going to law school. It's not that I don't feel that I'm good enough or that it's an unattainable goal. I have just realized that it was a distraction. It was a way to put off addressing other problems in my life... a detour disguised as a goal. Rather than focusing on getting my debt paid off, losing weight, getting over my ex, and bettering my career, I distracted myself with trying to get into law school. Maybe I needed a distraction; it did help me pull myself out of the funk I was in. Now, however, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it isn't the light of a law career. It's the light of being good enough for myself, ignoring the excuses, righting wrongs, and giving up things that are keeping me trapped inside myself.

Seven Things I Learned This Week (Bourbon Edition) | Week 12

Barrels from one of Heaven Hill's rick-houses.

One of the things Kentucky is extremely proud of is our bourbon industry, so the Kentucky Department of Tourism does quite a bit to promote "bourbon tourism." Being drunks fans of bourbon, some friends and I decided to go on the "Bourbon Trail." You get a little passport containing the locations of six distilleries throughout the region, and each location will stamp your passport when you take their tour/tasting. Upon completing the trail, you get a free t-shirt. This weekend we visited three of the six distilleries, so I figured I'd share what I learned on our trip to Maker's Mark, Heaven Hill, and Jim Beam.

1. Bourbon whiskey was named after Bourbon County, Kentucky. Bourbon County was not named after the whiskey.
2. Bourbon must be at least 51% corn in the mash; the rest is barley, and either wheat or rye.
3. All non-wheated Heaven Hill bourbons are the same recipe; the years it is aged and the proof are the only differences between the labels.
4. Australians must pay a 70% tax on any alcohol over 80 proof. Maker's Mark dilutes their bourbon that is 90 proof in the rest of the world so it isn't crazy expensive there.
5. Bourbon distillers are taxed at about 50%. Heaven Hill pays about $3 Million per week in taxes on their bourbons.
6. A "Number Three" char on a white oak barrel is 50 seconds of flame exposure. Heaven Hill uses a 50 second char, and Maker's Mark uses a 40 second char.
7. 95% of the bourbon produced comes from Kentucky, and half of that 95% comes from the Jim Beam family of distilleries.

Seven Things I Learned This Week | Week 11

1. Some species of hummingbirds migrate over 500 miles across the Gulf of Mexico, powered by 1.5 grams of body fat.
2. My mother does not have thyroid cancer!
3. Old grudges will come back to haunt you when you least expect it.
4. Something worth fighting for can make you willing to do things you never thought you'd do.
5. Republicans are generally nice people, but they are all crazy in one way or another (outside of their political views).
6. Chopin wrote about 120 more Preludes than we have today, but they were lost in a fire. His sister copied the first lines of all of them, but not the whole pieces. So, we just know what the first 5 bars of each would sound like.
7. The law of universal attraction is real, but it doesn't always work the way we expect.

Seven Things I Learned This Week (Deluxe Edition) | Week 10

I feel horrible in my neglect of you last week. Sadly, there will not be a Week 9 edition of "Seven Things I Learned This Week," but I decided to make week 10 include ten things from the past two weeks. I would like to thank all my reader (because I think there's only about one of you) for sticking with me through this journey.

1. There is a porn version of The Biggest Loser. No, I have not seen it.
2. The Rufus Wainwright concert I had tickets to in February has been canceled.
3. Peter Hinwood, who played Rocky in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is now an antiques dealer in London.
4. I scored a 152 on the LSAT... 8 points below my goal of 160. While I had just decided to call it a day on the whole law school thing after that, I've decided it's probably better to re-take the LSAT in December and try for a higher score.
5. Vegan tofu scramble is awesome. Yes, I know it sounds gross to most people, but it's actually really tasty. I've always hated eggs, so this might be a good breakfast substitute.
6. Sometimes things not going as planned is better than the plan would have been.
7. Heine Brothers' Coffee is more expensive than Starbucks and less tasty. Sorry, Louisville, I know you love them, but someone's got to keep it real.
8. It is possible to integrate freestyle rap into a marching band show. However, I do not recommend doing it.
9. There is an art project going on in New York where someone has embedded USB thumb drives into random walls on the street. The idea is to plug in and share files with other people that have visited the drive.
10. The winds on the Indian Ocean flow one direction for 6 months then reverse and flow the opposite direction for the next 6 months. This is what allowed a vibrant trade community to develop all along what has been called "Monsoon Asia."