| So, what do you call yourself? |
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| I've noticed a problem and maybe you have too. People seem to want to say that they are all kinds of things regardless of what they really are. Maybe it's because they believe that if they say they are a thing it truly makes them that thing. What do I mean? For instance, I may be sitting at home one day surfing the 'net and I come across an article on China. "Wow, there's a name I recognize!" I think to myself. You hear about China on the news, and it's really big, and a lot of people live there. Oh look! They eat with chopsticks, and sometimes they bow in greeting out of respect. I know how to eat with chopsticks, and bowing sounds cool! So I throw away all of my forks and start bowing, and I tell everyone "I'm Chinese! I can teach you to be Chinese too!" Now, I am not a citizen of China, nor am I even applying for citizenship. I was not born there and there are no Chinese people in my ancestry. I have "adopted" two little bits I think are neat and easy and am claiming membership in a rich, vast culture that I think is "cool." Maybe it's getting me some attention. Maybe it makes me feel like part of a group. Maybe it gives me access, at least initially, to groups of Chinese people who take me on my word. All it really does is make me look stupid, and it probably seriously offends most actual Chinese people. At the very least they find me to be a pitiable fool. The conclusion here is that I can call myself whatever I want, it doesn't change what I am. What I actually am is determined not by what I say but what I do. The message I'm trying to get across is that calling yourself Wiccan doesn't make you a Wiccan. If you refuse to abide by the fairly simple code of Wiccan ethics (especially if you get off on it) in your life, if you refuse to live by Wiccan belief (it does have it's limits, not everything goes) then you are not Wiccan. Please do the rest of us a favor and stop calling yourself one. You'll be doing yourself a favor as well. After all, it makes you look really stupid. |
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