I decided the other day that I really wanted to begin a blog. I have no idea what direction this is going to take or whether it will even develop into anything, but I feel like a have a lot to say, and, now that I am no longer a wanderer in the world of Academia, I needed an outlet for my musings. As the title of my blog reveals, I consider myself an aesthete. I have always been ferociously attracted to beauty, so I decided that I would at least attempt to have the unifying theme of beauty in some way underlying my blogs. This undercurrent may become less and less apparent; however, since my love for beauty has been such a standard in who I am and what I like, I feel like my essence is most perfectly termed "aesthetic," and my musings will most likely be inspired by this aestheticism.
Over the past few years, my life has undergone extreme changes. I have just recently become fully comfortable with myself as a human being (well, I think I at least more fully understand who I am...). I have been raised in a house that puts a Divine Creator before all other earthly things, and although I have become my "own person"--one who does not simply accept facts or faith because others have told him to do so--I will always love and fear God. My faith in a Savior, however, does not exactly fall under the normative/dominant/prescriptive views of "Christianity" of which many people claim to be a part; I worship a God of love, a God of beauty, and I am a follower of Christ...but I am not a "Christian."
In the past few years I have learned a very important lesson. I learned that the God I love also loves me. He loves me. He loves Jamie, the gay aesthete. I did not understand that for 20 years, and I tried to change myself--at least in the eyes of everyone else--to be what one would consider "normal." Christian? I wanted to look like a Christian. I would go outside, and I would see how beautiful the world was, especially flowers--oh how I love flowers! Their beauty alone makes me feel light-headed, and their intoxicating scent makes me want to stop time permanently, just so I never have to stop inhaling them. They are my drug--and through the beauty of everything around me, I knew that God was there. My friend and I were talking the other day, and we both agreed that the beauty of creation acts as a reminder for us to worship the Creator. I loved God. I wanted God to love me, so I began to forcefully insert myself into a mold that no human can actually fit into, and yet so many pretend to fit into, especially those "Christians." I was not normal. I could never be normal. I had thoughts and desires that those-who-identify-as-Christians would vomit over--and yet, many of these people had the same desires too, secretly. Humans so easily open their mouths to vomit out words over another person's iniquities, even when they too share in those same thoughts and desires, secretly. I was confused--God wants us to pretend that we aren't perpetually sinning, that we are like these "Christians," who are afraid to be themselves because false conformity is so much better than exposed iniquity? Well, that's what I thought for the first 20 years. And then things changed, drastically.
Thanks to a group of my fellow aesthetes--those who will one day be professional aesthetes, my fellow interns at the Met in NYC--I began to question my two-dimensional life. Why was I conforming to what everyone else expected me to be and perpetually hiding from myself. I had no idea who I was as an individual because I was too busy being everyone else. I was a mirror--people could look at a reflection of themselves, and if they didn't like what they saw, they would blame it on a flaw in the glass. I was sick of being a mirror! In a dorm room, on the 23 floor, overlooking a Manhattan that was celebrating America's independence from tyranny, I celebrated my own independence from the tyranny of conformity--I came out of a very comfortable closet and was left exposed in a much-less-comfortable world. I took the first (and probably biggest) step towards finding out who I am.
Do I know who I am now? Not at all. I do, however, have a much clearer understanding of who I might be--an understanding that I would not have even dared to imagine three years ago. And guess what, God still loves me.
I hope you enjoy my musings.
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