INTERSECTION :: This is my final post for the summer. My team and I are neck-deep in our busiest time of year and after this weekend I’m taking the summer off of blogging to focus on other projects. Ahhhh!
Meanwhile, today marks the start of my favourite time of year in Toronto: Pride Week. For those who have never been, what a celebration. I can’t tell you how many people have said to me over the years that they wish every day could have the same peace and love vibe that begins today and will culminate on Sunday, Toronto’s official Pride Day.
I remember far back enough to recall Toronto Pride as a small-sized event, attended almost exclusively by gay people. These days, having been down the huge Pride Parade route several times, it’s incredible to see the hundreds of thousands of faces watching the parade – and note just how many straight allies young and old are also in the mix.
First (rainy) Pride with my future-husband.
We’ve come a long way, yet still there are haters hating, here at home and more so, it seems, around the world in places with less advantages than I enjoy as a Canadian in Toronto. But here’s the understanding I’ve now reached about the true nature of the relationship between homophobics and homosexuals. In my hate of them and that which they are, I am no better than them in their hate of me and who I am. And from that understanding, I now understand that it’s not their hate of me that will ever hold me back, it’s my hate of them and my hate of what they believe to be true. The only one truth is that there is no one truth.
Therefore, it’s not up to me to change them, or anybody, and it’s not up to them to change for me. It’s up to me to change. Instead of hating haters, to appreciate that everything that I enjoy – such as being a free gay man married to another man – couldn’t be so without first being an idea born from experiencing the unwanted. Without appreciation of the unwanted, all I have is a life looking around me pointing out what I don’t like, never getting to arrive at the expanded reality it’s helped me create. In other words, making it me and only me holding myself back from the fullness of who I really am, in this case using a hate of homophobia and homophobics as my excuse.
I think the greatest deterrent to homophobia is excellence, and it is that which I strive for in every subject of my life, including reaching new understandings of that around me which I once didn’t understand, like homophobia.
This, I think, is real gay power.
Shaun Proulx Media celebrates the 10th anniversary of its flagship platform with the creation of the White Bengal bracelet valued at $4000.00. Click here to find out how to win it!
2012 Toronto Law of Attraction workshop dates:
- September 15th
- October 13th
- November 17th
