Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

I already live a life of lies. Nobody knows what I believe and I lie to seem normal and socialize-able. I also don't hold any strong desire to "implement" my beliefs. It's just a perspective.. I am an observer with opinions and I don't care to be any sort of activist.

I largely agree with your last post. However it's too late. I no longer believe what I believe out of choice. I have no choice in what I believe. Once these truths crystallize in your head as truths, they stay that way unless someone can point out any logical flaws. Thinking back it would've been better to not have gone down the path of being cursed with knowledge.

I actually wish to be part of certain religious communities because of the great social benefits that come with being part of said groups. But certain knowledge makes me unable to fully participate because the lie becomes to great.

Imagine praying and worshiping and studying about an entity that I believe is a complete fabrication... just for social benefits. The time sunk into living that lie is too great. So usually I'm part of more moderate groups that mostly avoid these topics. But these groups tend to be more ephemeral.

Humans need a shared lie/belief to bond deeply, and if you lose the ability to lie to yourself it's harder to join these more close knit groups.

However as I grow older, I contemplate more and more whether the lie is worth it. Maybe one day when I'm an old lonely man like I'm 70, I'll live the lie and join one of those religious groups.

>Your ultimate objective should be thriving, ideally for you and as many people and creatures as you can afford to account for.

I want to comment on this part specifically. Because there's a problem here. Being aware that thriving is more important then truth and living by that principle means that you are aware that your concept of what is true is on shaky grounds. You KNOW you made sacrifices to what your truth is in order to thrive. You are aware you are lying to yourself and that defeats the nature of the lie.

To truly thrive in my opinion, you must be unaware and ignorant of these concepts. You must not think about or even be aware about the orthogonality of happiness and knowledge. Just go with the flow. These are the people that are truly happy.

From your post it seems it's a little too late for you as well, you're not as deep as me but you're somewhat down that path. You're aware of the shared lie, you just choose not to think about it too deeply. That's an ok place to be. You might not have contemplated about these topics to deeply and have the "I'm not an expert so I don't know" attitude and it works out. Just know that each step forward down that path is permanent, there is no turning back.

Anyway I brought up this thread, the main purpose was basically to point out that although what graham says is true, giving up your identity for rationality has a High Cost. But this point is lost because my "6 bullet points" (designed with the intent to point out our own biases) was way to visceral. It shows how inescapable bias really is.

I'm actually hoping to meet someone like-minded. Someone who "gets it" on the same level that I do. But that seems less and less likely given the flag.

To answer other commenters: sometimes being queer can be as obvious to others as your skin color (because you are holding the hand of your partner, because you are at the beginning of a transition, etc...) and, using PG's criteria, is one of those things that other people will discuss without expertise (sometimes very negatively).

And, even if it is not obvious that one is queer, it is one of those topics where showing that you belong to that group (when you can afford it physically and mentally) is important. Both as a signal to other members (to show them that they are not alone) and as a way to normalize your identity (which, in the longer run and as a group effort, helps a lot to reduce bad reactions).

[...] To my info, the first use of 'queer' for "homosexual" is from 1922, and the term was used for "eccentric" for the last five centuries.

('gay' for homosexual was reported as widespread "communitarian" use in medical texts in the 1940's - the use for "promiscuous" is at least four centuries old. In some territories, 'gay girl' still means "prostitute".)

Edit:

I misread your post. Of course, "of course" ""queer" for homosexual" can easily be a "reclaimed slur". There should be no surprise about it.

And your use of 'gay' in «"queer" as gay» is "queer". That is not ""queer" as gay", it is "queer" as "unaligned in sexual orientation", and not necessarily "gay". Just nitpicking on language though.

It is about how "identification" clouds your judgement. If you can just describe yourself ("happen to be male") that is one thing; if when you think of yourself you cannot abstract from some attributes, there is where you have "caged" yourself.