Never Apologize for Being Who You Are

Never apologize for being who you are. If anyone cannot accept you as you are, they are the ones who should apologize. Great literature, art, music, and discoveries were never made by people who let others dictate how they should act or think. Progress is made by people who are not happy with the status. One of my heroes, Quentin Crisp, spoke of going with the flow only faster. I do not remember his exact words, but I believe that was the basic idea. Gains in civil rights were not made by people who silently sat at the back of the bus. Progress in rights is made by people who are willing to take the risk of arrest or being killed to stand up for what they rights. Many of us were taught that Rosa Parks did not move to the back of the bus because she was tired. What has been left out of her story so many times is that she had been elected as a secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and had long been active in the civil rights movement. I do not think I need to go into detail about how much impact the Stonewall Riots had on the fight for LGBTQ rights. In the realm of music I have mentioned Beethoven. Most people today do not realize that many of his compositions went against what was accepted in formal music at the time. There were people who were scandalized by some of his pieces. People thought of Andy Warhol as being shallow, but some of his insights are proving to be very true today. He spoke of people who were famous for being famous. This is especially true today with the rise of some of the reality TV stars. He started as a commercial artist, and he was making a large amount of money. He decided that commercial art was not the path for him, so he stopped doing that to pursue another art career. He did this with a very big loss on income financially. He ventured into painting, print making, photography, music promotion, film, writing, etc. The opinions of him and his work are mixed, but he followed the path that he felt was the right one for him to take. Malala Yousafzai at a very young age showed great courage, even after being shot, in fighting for women's rights. She became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. I seriously doubt that I will have the impact that the people have had, but I am striving to make an impact on the world. If I can entertain people or get them to think I will have succeeded at least in part.