Finding Yourself

 I've been wondering how to start this blog.

The hardest part is always supposed to be coming up with a name or a title.  But sometimes, I think, figuring out the beginning is even harder.  You not only have to live up to the title, but you have to live up to the idea itself and sometimes that can feel almost impossible.  And so you write and you re-write.  You erase and edit until you're not even sure if what you're looking at is anything remotely like what you need or what you started with.

Finding the Gods is a lofty title.  It is also a very vague title I feel like.  I love it.  Don't get me wrong.  I have no interest in changing it.  But I realize now that it doesn't necessarily give me much in the way of direction.  And maybe that isn't such a bad thing.  Once you start putting labels on things, they tend to end up in boxes that can limit them.

The same thing happens to the gods and to ourselves.

Now before I get into this, I want to preface all of this by saying that you don't need to have your life figured out to stand before the gods and start to learn about them.  You don't need to find yourself before you start seeking them.  I think that is very limiting and those who say such things tend to be doing a bit of disingenuous gatekeeping.

And I can't stand gatekeeping.

But I am saying that sometimes we have to start on the journey of finding ourselves before we can really connect with the gods.  If you don't know who you are, or even have an idea of who you are, it becomes harder to find who you should connect to.  It's a bit like a friendship.  How can you know if you like someone if you don't even know what you like yourself?  But once you start getting an idea of what you like, even if it is just one thing, you can start reaching out to others.  You can start to relate even if it is just one thing that you have.

In my case, I still don't know a lot about myself.  I have been trying to figure it out.  I have been trying to figure it out for years, but I have hit plenty of bumps.  I think that can happen to anyone in their life.  There is no shame in it.  And even more, there is no shame in not knowing how you feel about something.  I feel the only shame comes in not being able to acknowledge those things.

Well and bigotry of any kind, but that is a discussion for another place and time.

This blog isn't here for proselytization.  This blog isn't here to tell you who you are or how you should act.  I'm not going to, generally, tell you that there is a right or wrong way to do things.  That isn't my place.  We all have to figure that out for ourselves.  No one should be the one standing there telling you that something is right or wrong unless what you're doing is actively hurting someone else, and even that can come with prefaces.

One thing that you should know is that the world is not black and white.  There are shades of grey.  But even more than that: there is color.  There is color everywhere.  The world is about balance and about living and learning and growing.  It is about loving and finding yourself.  And sometimes in finding ourselves, we find the gods.  Whether you choose to follow one god, many gods, or no gods at all, that is your choice.  No one gets to decide who you are or what you do with your life.  Never let anyone tell you otherwise.