Hi everyone, my name is Ashley Wylde and welcome to my channel Ashley's Wylde Life.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about what it means to participate in society
and what it means to isolate yourself. As someone who is introverted, I find that
"isolating yourself" is often somewhat synonymous with taking alone time and I
know that the line starts to get crossed when your alone time is out of balance
with the extent to which you participate in society, but I'm really struggling
here because in my head, I go back and forth. Half of me is saying, "Ashley, you
"really need to get out there and do things. There are people who are going
"places, who have ideas who are having conversations, and you're not there, and
"you're not apart of them, so you're not benefiting from them, and you're not
"contributing to them. So get up, put on your shoes, find something that's
happening, and go play a part in the world." And then there's another part of
me and it sounds like this, "Ashley, as much as participation is this really
"beautiful and wonderful ideal, you're being naive. There are places that are
"not safe for you. Think about how frequently you feel stared at, think
"about how uncomfortable you are to actually be around other people who
"don't understand your experiences. When's the last time that you went to a bar or
"a restaurant or event and you didn't feel alone or singled out? This might
"sound bleak, but trans people are murdered all of the time. One wrong step
"could literally put you in a situation that is physically dangerous to be in.
"The world isn't a pretty place. It's better to carve out a safe space for
"yourself and build a life there." And honestly it's not black and white
One side is not right and one side is not wrong, and to take it to another
level of analysis, a lot of these ideas aren't even mine. A lot of these things
are things that I learn through media, or hear secondhand through other
people's experiences and stories. And that's everybody, that's all of our
thoughts and all of our ideas. I want to be a bold, proud, out trans and queer
person. I want to be a role model. I want young trans and queer people to look at
me and say, "there's someone who looks like me, who identifies like me, whose
"story sounds like mine, who's out there living their lives. There's someone who
"got their degree, there's someone who bought their house, there's someone who's
"banging it out despite the obstacles." And at the same time on a personal level I
do not want to be out in the world and around the vast majority of people I
find myself around. I don't know the answer. I didn't make this video to tell
you guys that I found the answer, and here it is for you. I made it more so to
explain and also explore for myself why it feels the way it does to make a
decision between doing something and not doing something on the most basic level.
If I'm invited to do something, I'm an introvert, and at least 50% of the time
I'm gonna be like "go do something or stay home and read?" That's just me. But
there are other levels. There are things like, well, what restaurant are we going
to? What bar are we going to? What part of town are we gonna be in? Things that are
fear-based. Things that are generalization-based. It's
important for me to look at them as they are. When you are someone who goes out
into the world and faces hostility or ostracism from the people you're around,
when you're someone who never seems to be a part of the group just by nature of
who you are or the way you look or the way you identify, it can feel like a
really big slap to be told that you ought to participate, or to be told that
you're isolating yourself. And that's a negative thing, and at the same time I
want to live a robust life full of plenty of experiences and loads of them
are going to be uncomfortable so I'm just out here living my life trying to
strike a balance. Thanks for listening today. I hope you enjoyed this video and
I'll see you next week Buh-bye