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Originally Posted by Razor Leaf
Hi Nicholas! Is it Nicholas or Nick or don't you mind?
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Nicholas! Mother named me Nicholas and haaaaaaaaated it when people call me Nick so I prefer that. Usually I don't bother on correcting people though because it's not the end of the world but if people ask, Nicholas.
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What do you think lead you to the whole social justice thingymajig?
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I think a large part of it had to do when I started to think I was a gay man. I was just sort of isolated in the sense that I couldn't really talk to people about it (I'm from a small town - The way I grew up I still don't really feel comfortable bringing it up offline) so I ended up doing a lot of work into it online. I eventually joined some fandoms and started to meet groups of diverse people which helped me expand a lot of my worldviews. The internet became a really good resource for learning and reading and I enjoyed it.
Then I started to talk about some concepts I'd been reading with my female friends both online and offline. At first I sort of started to scoff at some ideas, but then I started talking to them and they told me their own stories and that was a huge eye opener for me. A friend had to talk about how she didn't feel comfortable walking to her car at night and that was just a huge deal for me. I'd never really thought about it before, but when I you know, actually talked to my female friends about problems that feminism starts to address I started to gain a lot more respect for the movement.
I think my final evolution of that was tumblr, although I have a love-hate relationship with the blogging platform. I find it really toxic in the sense that there are people who refuse to see the good in anything, and that's not something I really enjoy spending time around. At the same time I'm able to learn a lot of things that I haven't... so it's about proper balance I guess.
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You say that you've spent a lot of time getting walked over - do you feel comfortable elaborating on that at all?
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Hmm it's not an interesting story but I'll give it a shot.
I suffer from depression and anxiety (Don't we all? Pfft) so I didn't really have a chance to invite many people over as a kid. The kids that I did latch onto were really toxic for me and I had a hard time trying to separate myself from them because I just didn't have the skills to do it. Around my grade 12 year of high school I finally got the confidence to put my foot down and I haven't really looked back. I was always prone to sarcasm and joking online but I finally threw it in a real life setting and ditched some terrible friends for me. People say things that hurt me and you know, while I don't always cause fights over it I also let people know that I will stand my ground over it and that makes me feel really good about myself.
The other one is my eldest sister. We're in a bit of a fight right now (over stuff I'd rather not divulge - I won't go into specifics I'll just give the general here). Basically she sort of thought it was her place to control my life. After a while I finally told myself that it was my life and I can do what I want with it. She had plans for me and while I didn't outright say that I was doing things my own way, I sort of tipped the situation into my favor. She's currently not talking to me because I stood my ground over the fact she nearly outed me to my other sister after a fight we had at Christmas. It's a very long story muddled in family drama which I'd rather not bore you guys with.
Those are the two major points though. I'm glad to be the person I am - even if some people think I'm pretty harsh at times :P