editors' note
So I woke up this morning with a bug bite on my eyelid.
Yeah. You heard me. A bug—a nasty God-forsaken disease-ridden BUG — decided to rest its cruel microscopic jaws onto my fleshy juicy eyelid. It’s swollen up to the point where my eye is hardly distinguishable behind the pink swelling. I seriously contemplated buying an eyepatch, because hey, it’s Halloween season, so they’d probably be sold cheap, right? But then I’d have to buy a pirate costume or something to match, and that’s just too much effort.
Tonight, I bravely decided to step outside my house and face the outside world, swollen eye and all. Of course, the first reaction people had when seeing me was “AUGH. What happened?” with a horrified expression. But after the initial shock and horror, people relaxed, and then reassured me by saying, “no, it’s not that bad.” But I’m still left trying to (somehow) casually cover my eye with my hand, or duck my face behind my bangs.
The shame I felt over my eye wasn’t really because other people were constantly reacting to it. It was more so that I was ever-conscious of its abnormality. The more I saw people looking, the more I wondered “Are they looking at my face?!” It wasn’t really about everyone else: it was about how I had assumed others were seeing me. And I think the more I thought about it, the more others knew too, and could focus on nothing else. Whenever I talked to someone, that was all we could talk about. Conversation proved awkward and uncomfortable.
Can’t the same be said for our identities and how we acknowledge them around others? (did you like that transition? haha) Sometimes people are so ever-presently conscious of all the labels they carry—Democrat, conservative, Christian, feminist, Asian, gay, etc. to the extent that it’s hard to relate to those who aren’t the same. I think sometimes these strong affiliations with labels can blind us at times from being able to communicate past those identities. Not to say that these identities are unimportant or should be ignored, but rather, we should not let these labels limit us from our interactions with one another. I realize that my bug bite is pretty crazy looking, but what made it worse was my constant obsessing over how I looked. It might have been better to accept how I looked, take it in stride, and not let it define my conversation with others. It’s there, yes, but whatever—tell me about your week! I’d like to know.
How best can we learn about others? How can we learn more about tolerance? Through conversation, openness, interaction, and the ability to see past yourself. Don’t get me wrong: it’s definitely good to be aware of your identity, but let’s not let it limit us. There will always be people who we don’t understand, who we can’t talk to, and who we’ll disagree with. Let’s make those interactions less abrasive by focusing on others, and not ourselves and how we differ.
I hope those analogies made sense. Or perhaps that bug bite had a little venom of some sort in it and its slowly seeping into my brain. Whatever the case, I hope everyone enjoys this issue and gets something out of it! Tell me what you think. It’s okay, I’ll listen: I’m interested in what you have to say!
elaine chen
layout editor