Just Charly by Charly Boy
Twitter: @Areafada1
I must ask you this question.
In our pursuit for happiness, do we focus on the dictates of life based on our social environment or on our own personal need of what individually makes us happy?
For the past few days the global social media has been agog with Bruce Jenner’s sex change, he now wishes to be called Caitlyn.
Surfing through some of our local blogs, I have read some Yahoo Yahoo comments from Nigerians who feel that their yeye comments are really of any importance in the decision taken by this great Olympian, now, the gender bender.
Yes, I saw Bruce Jenner’s Vanity Fair interview. I read it over and over. It sounded so gutsy, sincere, truthful and so free. Bruce had always been married, had kids, and a successful career but for a long time he had never been happy and content with being a man. Sometimes we find it difficult understanding what prompts one to make those kinds of changes that are physically and emotionally permanent and we start to speculate.
Maybe he wanted to re-brand, wanted to put himself back into serious reckoning again. Yes, sometimes it can be about the drama and the almighty dollars. Who is to say? However, It just may be devoid of all those and just be a spiritual journey to finding self, purely a pursuit of happiness, about being free, and finding strength to be that which makes one feel complete irrespective of whose ox is gored!
My take
It is not one’s masculinity or femininity alone that defines one’s identity. It is the harmony between the two that determines how comfortable and integrated one’s identity is going to be. In other words, shocking as this may be to the more macho in our midst, inside some men lies an unexpressed woman. And even more shocking is the proposition that the object of masculine identity development is not the elimination of this woman, but acknowledging the existence of, and fine-tuning, the feminine side with the masculine part of the identity. In other words, blending the two fundamental principles of yin and yang to influence our behaviour.
The “masculine woman” has become more socially acceptable than the “feminine man”, who is still an object of derision. And herein lies the root of the gender conflict. Women find it easy to pursue their masculinity; men find it disagreeable to even acknowledge, let alone pursue their femininity. A few people have been able to find that balance and I am happy that Linda lives here, in me? Yesoooooo!
So to those of you in your personal pursuit for happiness whatever it is, climb every rainbow and follow every star till you find your dream.
