Stay True

Right now, the most viewed movie of all time on Netflix is Kpop Demon Hunters, and I have loved it.  A lot of people love it.  Few people talk about what it is about, however.  It has actually dovetailed very perfectly with a lot of very similar realizations in my own life, so I will touch on it.

For those that don't know much about my religious and non religious past or have been readers long enough of this blog to hear about my many posts over the past few years talking about the value of darkness, I plan to connect and extend that, here as well.  

I have always been transparent about my questioning of organized religion and my independence of religious thought, even when at times I dated very religious people.  I never hid that aspect of my thinking from them.  Several of them would at the start tell me that they didn't expect me to change and adopt their way of thinking or even attend their church... claims that without fail would be proven to be just words, as my experience... AGAIN... over and over.. has been that religious people feel it is their MISSION to change you and make you believe as they do.  This way of thinking has led to crusades of conversion at the point of a sword, burning or drowning witches, multitudes of wars, and much more.  I've seen some of the most caring and open and accepting attitudes that remain without requiring conversion among atheists and witches and condemnation from the most "righteous" so many times in my life.  Indeed, pointing to the good I learned and saw from a witch with whom I had a relationship led to conflict and condemnation by a religious person in my life within the past year... while mentioning religion to the witch caused no such divisive reaction.

I found myself tempted over the year to hide the dark side of myself in order to please the religious.  Yet, even hiding that darkness I would still find myself judged, blocked, and condemned by the very ones for which I had made those changes... because even if I wasn't bad in one way I would find I was bad in another.  I would realize what I had already learned in the past.  If someone is determined to judge and condemn you, they will.  If someone is determined to love you, they will.  You cannot control that part of what will happen in your life.  All you can do it stay true to yourself.

Thus, we circle back to Kpop Demon Hunters.  In that movie, the main character woman is hiding her "demon" side from her friends, when that was what would make her special.  Ultimately, she learned to accept all of herself and love all of herself, and that would empower her and bring her back from the condemnation she was feeling.  

People will choose how they respond to you.  Some will stay in your life, regardless of your choices, because they care for you apart from what you can do to validate them and because they care for you enough to let you decide your own life.  Others will leave your life, even if you try to please them.  In the end, the only advice from a life of facing joys, struggles, hiding light and revealing darkness is this.  Be yourself and be happy in being that.  It is your life, and you should definitely be the main character in that story.