Kilts and Self-Identity

**Erisianmonkey** · 17th May 07, 05:52 PM

Who am I?

I am a born-again Pagan.

Despite having a multitude of races blended in me, I am a proud Celt.

I am a "goth."

I am separate from the herds of sheeple you see passing everyday.

Does my kiltwearing constitute a definition of myself? No. It is instead a tool that I can use to express what is inside me. There are several tools that I use to silently express my identity outward: my long hair and beard, my mostly black clothing, my pentacle, and my kilts.

It becomes a question of direction. Do my clothing choices affect my inner identity? No, they do not. I am the same person whether I am in a kilt or in the accursed things. I am the same person whether I am sensibly dressed in all black or strutting colors like a peacock. I am not Samson, I will not be immeasurably weakened by the cutting of my hair. My pentacle...well, those of you Christians who wear a cross tell me. I wear a pentacle for much the same reason. (Besides that, even though you cannot see it, I have a pentacle you cannot strip away from me residing forever on my right thigh.) My kilt is not my blood, I will still be a Celt, kilted or no.

Coming from the outside however, there is something very different going on. When someone starts attacking clothing and appearance choices from the outside, there is a lumping together that is done. The cutting of long hair is often called "cleaning up," although the vast majority of people that I know with long hair keep it scrupulously clean, those of you who wear or have worn long hair know why. People trying to get colors into my wardrobe (--pre-kilt--now I wear colors because I have another way to set myself apart from the sheeple--) thought that it would "lighten me up" or some such tosh. The people who want to strip away my pentacle think that I will undergo a sudden conversion. (No, I am not exaggerating, the one and only time I've ever gone to jail, that was the deputy's excuse for taking away a religious article- despite the screaming illegality and the fact he let my Catholic cellmate keep his rosary.)

Do I define myself internally as a kiltwearer, no. Do the fierce sheeple who want me to be the same as they define me by my kiltwearing, yes. Will I fight tooth and nail any attempt to let them define me? You can bet your life on it.