I’ll Pretend. Pretending is Safer Than Believing
A Response to “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
September 2015 issue of The Atlantic
Words have always been a weapon that have cleaved into my soul. And although they embedded themselves securely within me like talons seeking out their prey, they have also resulted in cauterizing and defining.
Throughout my formative years, words sneered at me as they dropped like hot saliva from the lips of those who recognized in me what I did not yet recognize in myself. As a child, my uncle, lashing out at his own covert homosexuality or perhaps in a subconscious need to rescue me from the demons that fed upon him like maggots on carrion would refer me to as a maricón out of earshot of my parents. And, yes, I guess I was a maricón since I preferred practicing my violin, reading, and working the soil with my mother, to playing war games with neighborhood boys who smoked surreptitiously and smelled of stale urine. I guess I was a maricón since I enjoyed bathing with my mother’s heady, exotic soap and was more interested in learning words from the pages of my books than ripping them out to use as spit wads. In a burst of unrestrained anger one day, finding myself alone in the front garden, my uncle approached me, grabbed my testicles and with a pen knife he brandished, threatened to emasculated me, to castrate me, to shame me into manhood. Feeling violated, I lashed out angrily, and even though I was blinded by my tears, I managed to reach for rocks with which I drove him off, pelting him and yelling childish obscenities at him as he fled. We never spoke of it again, and he never touched me again, though the memory of his words and actions defined my childhood.
In high school, I was a natural target, studious, sensitive, and vulnerable. I was lonely, having no friends except for an occasion outsider like me. I preferred the company of men who visited weekly on our black-and-white Zenith, men such as the principled and compassionate Richard Chamberlain from Dr. Kildare, the brooding romantic-lead Joel Crothers from Dark Shadows, the masculine cigar-smoking John Astin from The Addams Family. Often, I would find safe niches at school simply to be alone or would slip away from the building during lunch and walk the streets free from judgmental eyes. At such times, I would soar away, always aware that soon enough the back-to-class bell would demand my return back to the realities that mocked at me with derision. I discovered that I did not like to company of other boys, for cruelties erupted more virulently at such gatherings. In my physical education classes, I was constantly subjected to words like joto and maricón and was always the last one chosen to participate in team activities but the first assaulted on the the field or taken down on the wresting mat by would-be assassins. Although I never missed a single day of high school, at 3:30 when classes were over, I ran toward home like a runner pursued by contempt. Needless to say, graduation became my reprieve, and I never looked back, never sought to reconnect with those years of imprisonment that further defined my childhood.
In college and in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam years, out of fear of discovery, I carefully hid my occulted secret, like a Hershey’s milk chocolate kiss hidden under a veneer of silvery foil. My grades suffered during my sophomore year at the University of Texas when I started to recognize that I might have homosexual longings. Although I spent many hours beseeching God to release me from the nightmares into which I was awakening, ironically I would walk home from the university, hoping that one day my knight-on-a white-charger would pull up and vanquish my fears, offering me the chalice containing a spirited distillation of self-love and acceptance. Unfortunately, my first tangible connection with a homosexual man was at a greasy spoon where I worked as a dishwasher when I was fifteen. Alone one night, the cook approached me with lust in his hand. Even though I longed to unravel the skein of curiosity, my fears compelled me instead to bolt out the door and never return. Nonetheless, I concluded erroneously, that the words directed against people like me by the cultural, political and religious pundits truly reflected a valid identity. I concluded homosexuals did, in fact, succumb to deviance, mental illness, and antisocial criminal tendencies. The words directed toward me became ingrained within me. They served to exclude me from mainstream society while simultaneously include me in the pathologies of negative stereotypes. Even in the army, I remained closeted in my self-hated. Being that I was company clerk, I once had to sit in an initial court martial investigation of two fellow soldiers who had been caught in a homosexual interlude. I sat at my desk dutifully taking in their testimony on my shorthand pad, which I was then expected to transcribe and submit as evidence of their crime. Although I maintained my military composure, I wanted to reach out to them and assure them they had a friend in the room, but words I heard thrust at them, homosexual, deviant, abnormal, aberration, sodomy ultimately made a coward out of me. No doubt, the transgressors, like me, feared the degradation of being classified as degenerates destined to trudge through life as neurotic, pitiable, psychologically damaged deviants of society. We recognized one word directed at us from the medical, psychiatric, and psychological field would result an an immediate and humiliating dishonorable discharge that would only serve to catapult us into further socially unacceptable isolation and self-recrimination. A few days later, I saw them dispiritedly walk away after their court martials, having been pilloried publicly by the stigmatizing actions of society. Once again, words defined my life.
I recognize that in spite of the power of words to burn like iodine on a raw wound, those words can also disinfect. Of course, the targeted victim can practice cognitive behavior therapy, thus minimizing distorted thinking and seeing the world more accurately. Of course, he can tell himself that The Buddha taught that our life is a creation of our mind. Of course, she can remind herself of Marcus Aurelius’ powerful words, “Life itself is but what you deem it.” However, it’s not that simple since even when a victim learns to practice mindfulness, the continued sting of envenomed words linger like burns inflicted by chemical terrorists. In my case, I was somewhat fortunate, but I suspect I was an anomaly. Throughout my life, words of derision have been directed at me whether because of my being gay or Latino or simply because I’m a ready target. When a large percent of ethnically diverse candidates, myself included, were hired to teach in Jefferson County Schools in 1980, only after the courts had recognized discriminatory hiring practices in the District and mandated changes, I frequently heard vitriolic words from my new teaching colleagues, as well as from students and their parents. Words like greaser, wetback, non-English qualified, spic, beaner, and the list goes on ad nauseam, vomited out and were quietly broomed into the closet. In 1986, I was recognized as one of the outstanding District teachers of the year. Of course, whispers swooped down like birds of prey that I had been nominated only because Jeffco sought to demonstrate political correctness. Although I agreed that I was meant to be a symbol of inclusiveness, I accepted the award, not only on my behalf, but on the behalf of the untold numbers of the past who had sacrificed for me. In addition, I recognized that in my own way, I offered a hand-hold to future generations. One facet that has consistently defined my struggles is that words have been the challenge that have nonetheless prompted me to action. Nevertheless, I allowed myself to believe, to pretend, that I could thrive within my carapace in spite of the tenderness of my lacerations. Unfortunately, words are harpoons that remain forever lodged in a fragile psyche. Although my wounds allowed me to become strong and resilient, I believe that if only my detractors had not directed misguided words at my still healing scars, I would not have been weighed down by fears of self-revelation. I might not have squandered so much energy attempting to prove myself, so much energy doubting my own abilities. As César Chávez said, “We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.” To that I add, but why should we have to endure such despair?
© January 2016 Denver
Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.
Throughout my formative years, words sneered at me as they dropped like hot saliva from the lips of those who recognized in me what I did not yet recognize in myself. As a child, my uncle, lashing out at his own covert homosexuality or perhaps in a subconscious need to rescue me from the demons that fed upon him like maggots on carrion would refer me to as a maricón out of earshot of my parents. And, yes, I guess I was a maricón since I preferred practicing my violin, reading, and working the soil with my mother, to playing war games with neighborhood boys who smoked surreptitiously and smelled of stale urine. I guess I was a maricón since I enjoyed bathing with my mother’s heady, exotic soap and was more interested in learning words from the pages of my books than ripping them out to use as spit wads. In a burst of unrestrained anger one day, finding myself alone in the front garden, my uncle approached me, grabbed my testicles and with a pen knife he brandished, threatened to emasculated me, to castrate me, to shame me into manhood. Feeling violated, I lashed out angrily, and even though I was blinded by my tears, I managed to reach for rocks with which I drove him off, pelting him and yelling childish obscenities at him as he fled. We never spoke of it again, and he never touched me again, though the memory of his words and actions defined my childhood.
In high school, I was a natural target, studious, sensitive, and vulnerable. I was lonely, having no friends except for an occasion outsider like me. I preferred the company of men who visited weekly on our black-and-white Zenith, men such as the principled and compassionate Richard Chamberlain from Dr. Kildare, the brooding romantic-lead Joel Crothers from Dark Shadows, the masculine cigar-smoking John Astin from The Addams Family. Often, I would find safe niches at school simply to be alone or would slip away from the building during lunch and walk the streets free from judgmental eyes. At such times, I would soar away, always aware that soon enough the back-to-class bell would demand my return back to the realities that mocked at me with derision. I discovered that I did not like to company of other boys, for cruelties erupted more virulently at such gatherings. In my physical education classes, I was constantly subjected to words like joto and maricón and was always the last one chosen to participate in team activities but the first assaulted on the the field or taken down on the wresting mat by would-be assassins. Although I never missed a single day of high school, at 3:30 when classes were over, I ran toward home like a runner pursued by contempt. Needless to say, graduation became my reprieve, and I never looked back, never sought to reconnect with those years of imprisonment that further defined my childhood.
In college and in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam years, out of fear of discovery, I carefully hid my occulted secret, like a Hershey’s milk chocolate kiss hidden under a veneer of silvery foil. My grades suffered during my sophomore year at the University of Texas when I started to recognize that I might have homosexual longings. Although I spent many hours beseeching God to release me from the nightmares into which I was awakening, ironically I would walk home from the university, hoping that one day my knight-on-a white-charger would pull up and vanquish my fears, offering me the chalice containing a spirited distillation of self-love and acceptance. Unfortunately, my first tangible connection with a homosexual man was at a greasy spoon where I worked as a dishwasher when I was fifteen. Alone one night, the cook approached me with lust in his hand. Even though I longed to unravel the skein of curiosity, my fears compelled me instead to bolt out the door and never return. Nonetheless, I concluded erroneously, that the words directed against people like me by the cultural, political and religious pundits truly reflected a valid identity. I concluded homosexuals did, in fact, succumb to deviance, mental illness, and antisocial criminal tendencies. The words directed toward me became ingrained within me. They served to exclude me from mainstream society while simultaneously include me in the pathologies of negative stereotypes. Even in the army, I remained closeted in my self-hated. Being that I was company clerk, I once had to sit in an initial court martial investigation of two fellow soldiers who had been caught in a homosexual interlude. I sat at my desk dutifully taking in their testimony on my shorthand pad, which I was then expected to transcribe and submit as evidence of their crime. Although I maintained my military composure, I wanted to reach out to them and assure them they had a friend in the room, but words I heard thrust at them, homosexual, deviant, abnormal, aberration, sodomy ultimately made a coward out of me. No doubt, the transgressors, like me, feared the degradation of being classified as degenerates destined to trudge through life as neurotic, pitiable, psychologically damaged deviants of society. We recognized one word directed at us from the medical, psychiatric, and psychological field would result an an immediate and humiliating dishonorable discharge that would only serve to catapult us into further socially unacceptable isolation and self-recrimination. A few days later, I saw them dispiritedly walk away after their court martials, having been pilloried publicly by the stigmatizing actions of society. Once again, words defined my life.
I recognize that in spite of the power of words to burn like iodine on a raw wound, those words can also disinfect. Of course, the targeted victim can practice cognitive behavior therapy, thus minimizing distorted thinking and seeing the world more accurately. Of course, he can tell himself that The Buddha taught that our life is a creation of our mind. Of course, she can remind herself of Marcus Aurelius’ powerful words, “Life itself is but what you deem it.” However, it’s not that simple since even when a victim learns to practice mindfulness, the continued sting of envenomed words linger like burns inflicted by chemical terrorists. In my case, I was somewhat fortunate, but I suspect I was an anomaly. Throughout my life, words of derision have been directed at me whether because of my being gay or Latino or simply because I’m a ready target. When a large percent of ethnically diverse candidates, myself included, were hired to teach in Jefferson County Schools in 1980, only after the courts had recognized discriminatory hiring practices in the District and mandated changes, I frequently heard vitriolic words from my new teaching colleagues, as well as from students and their parents. Words like greaser, wetback, non-English qualified, spic, beaner, and the list goes on ad nauseam, vomited out and were quietly broomed into the closet. In 1986, I was recognized as one of the outstanding District teachers of the year. Of course, whispers swooped down like birds of prey that I had been nominated only because Jeffco sought to demonstrate political correctness. Although I agreed that I was meant to be a symbol of inclusiveness, I accepted the award, not only on my behalf, but on the behalf of the untold numbers of the past who had sacrificed for me. In addition, I recognized that in my own way, I offered a hand-hold to future generations. One facet that has consistently defined my struggles is that words have been the challenge that have nonetheless prompted me to action. Nevertheless, I allowed myself to believe, to pretend, that I could thrive within my carapace in spite of the tenderness of my lacerations. Unfortunately, words are harpoons that remain forever lodged in a fragile psyche. Although my wounds allowed me to become strong and resilient, I believe that if only my detractors had not directed misguided words at my still healing scars, I would not have been weighed down by fears of self-revelation. I might not have squandered so much energy attempting to prove myself, so much energy doubting my own abilities. As César Chávez said, “We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.” To that I add, but why should we have to endure such despair?
© January 2016 Denver
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