Popeye Theory Kaput

 There are those who view the world with pre-Einsteinian philosophies.   They're not convinced that the world is round or that gravity curves space.  I refer to a popular philosophy of these people as the Popeye Theory.  Everything in this world-view is based on a utilitarian theory of life.  Smack a zebra into an oak tree and you get zebra coats on wooden hangars.  It's a formulaic approach to life that doesn't necessarily lack imagination but does hinder the possibility of different realities.  Popeye physics is in direct opposition to the wave and particle theories which are a natural extension of Albert's algebra. 

Simplified, particle physics holds that everything is always in motion.  Therefore an object that appears solid is really a trick of the eye.  Popeye physics says you can't be both a particle and a wave, you must be one or the other.  This world-view is famous for the creation of zebra coats and dichotomies.

When someone pigeon-holes you, puts you down, or simply, calls you a name, they're practicing the Popeye Theory and living by its mandates.  One of these mandates holds that if you’re a such and such, that's all you are. Nothing else.  You can't be a lesbian and a fully functioning human being at the same time.  It's one or the other.

Objectified as such, you're perceived as a human target not a human being.   The world of strip malls and highways, beaches and offices is turned into a Robin Hood Festival and Popeyan people take aim at you as if a bull’s eye is central to your core.  Under these circumstances, it's not difficult to appreciate the hard work in coming out.  If you're a queer, dyke, faggot, fairy, lezzie or lesbo then you're an automatic finalist in the Run the Gauntlet Arrowfest.  That's why coming out is more of a process than an event.  There will be many, many arrows heading your way. (Some, hopefully, will be Cupid's.)  Stripped down to the bare essentials in a Popeye universe, your diminished self is seen as a target for every pot shot from amateur and pro alike. 

Many gay people hate how other gays use the names mentioned above as well, though some believe, as I do, that the sting of the epitaph is reclaimed when you take it back and make it your own.  They become words of power and privilege.  Privilege, because when you use that word you're infusing it with content and meaning.  You're extending the definition of the word to include pride in an aspect of your being; you're adding a cultural reference to your identity; you're being defiant and strong, and claiming the ones that you refuse to stop loving.  Popeye physics, by limiting realities, makes your love invisible when it's most successful or an object of ridicule when paradox creates a crack in its fragile world-view.   

I hold to the Theory of Relativity.  Like it or not we're all connected.  If you diminish someone or a group of people you diminish yourself, reduce your possibilities, and limit your world.  Don't buy into that.  Even pigeons can't return to smaller pigeon holes.   You're worthy of a full spectrum of rights, dreams, lives and honors.  And don't stand still when they try to close the borders on our lives.  We're here.  They can't take that away from us.  Not in this reality. 

Coda:  Make nice; be good. Peace.