WHAT WE BELIEVE VS. WHAT WE ARE

(Warning: This post may not be for everyone. Do understand that I feel like I'm taking a big risk posting this here. Do understand that I'm not doing this to hurt anyone, but to possibly inspire people to take a good look at themselves, to bring understanding and clarity, and to help free them from the chains that bind them.)

So I got into a conversation with a friend tonight. We spoke about fursuits and I got into talking about how I could never wear a full suit. I'd put on everything but the head and why? 

I told her, because I don't think I could hide my face, because the only time that I ever choose to do so, is when I feel ashamed of myself and honestly, I feel like that's the same way a lot of furs - No, not ashamed of the fandom, but ashamed of themselves. At the time, we were doing a sort of soul seeking "exercise". I had put up a white board and on it, I drew a line in the middle. One side was labeled BELIEF, the other, ARE.

The purpose of this exercise was to bring to the surface the difference between WHO WE BELIEVE WE ARE and WHO WE ACTUALLY ARE. At first, I honestly believe that anyone who has had internal conflicts had known this lesson, but I know that I've met a few people who have not learned this lesson.

Now, the people that I've met who haven't learned this lesson is usually people who give off the aura of FALSE PRIDE. From the first link in a google search, a man describes FALSE PRIDE as: False pride is presenting yourself to others (and yourself) as something you are not - a man without flaws. Joe Cool, always in the know. The smartest guy in the crowd always and never in doubt. It is pride not earned-style over substance. Not honest.

Now, although I feel that definition pretty much hits the nail right on the head, I feel that FALSE PRIDE is gained when one person does not properly recognize his own struggles and achievements, someone who lacks self-worth for some reason or another. Now why I feel that this is relevant to the fandom and to this group is that the other day, there was a link posted with a video of furs going around and asking the general public if they knew what a fur was and most people on the video were absolutely clueless. The caption to this video was "And this is why people shouldn’t watch the media about Furries. LEARN IT FROM THE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN THE FANDOM." 

What this video did was made me ask myself, "Why do furs feel such a need to have to be recognized by the general public?" and "Why do furs feel so strongly unjustified by the way that media portrays them?". My conclusions to these two questions were "Because furs are unsatisfied with the current image that they represent." Now at this point, many people would begin to argue with me that I'm wrong, that not everyone in the fur fandom is like what's shown on the media. But you see, we're not looking at individuals here, we're examining the fandom in it's entirety. If the general public really has no idea what furism is, then we haven't presented a great enough or awful enough image for most people to care and if we feel that the media only covers the perverted side of the fandom for shock value, I think we're going to re-evaluate the way we see ourselves.

So with that said, I'm going to begin the list with the same issue that I presented before and what many of you agreed to be the darker side of the fandom.

WHAT WE BELIEVE WE ARE:
Perverts

WHAT WE ARE:
Artists ( This not limited to just images. Writing, Drawing, Dancing, Singing, Acting, etc. Any form of creative output can be considered an art, thusly we are all artists. )

At this point in time, we can no longer deny the fact that the fandom puts majority of it's time, energy, and money producing work that's just sexual in nature. The art, the writing, the paraphernalia - How can you blame the media for having the wrong image of furs, when we OURSELVES have the same impression of the fandom?! 

In order to change this image, we're going to first have to see the TRUTH of it. We are ARTISTS. We spend all our time and energy developing our craft, be it creating imagery, writing, music, suits, characters, heck, even freaking tabletop RPG campaigns, TCGs, websites - THE AMOUNT OF CREATIVITY THAT POURS FROM THE FANDOM IS LIMITLESS. But until we stop convincing ourselves that we're something that we're not, then the media's impression is not going to change, and the public will continue to never know who we truly are.

Because as much as we don't want to admit to it. Fur is a lifestyle. We walk around with the collars and the ears and the tails, we purchase things that peak our furry interests, we check our FAs everyday, we can't WAIT to hang out with our furfriends everyday. We base our lives around the fact that we're furs and nothing is EVER going to change that aspect.

But if we're so unsatisfied with our own image, why haven't we done anything to change that? We've matured to the point that we can confront our own problems. So why are we so afraid of that conflict? Why does there even need to be a conflict to begin with? We're all furs.

It doesn't matter who the individual is. We represent the Fur Fandom and the Fur Fandom represents us.

So there's the list, furs. I've started it. What are some of the things that WE BELIEVE WE ARE and what are THE THINGS WE ARE?