What is is...

"You considered neither 'faggot' nor 'homo' nor 'queer' as slurs because you were none of these things. You were simply a handsome man who enjoyed beautiful boys"

- The Seven Moon of Maali Almeida, Shehan Karunatilaka

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I feel this quote is simple yet stunningly beautiful (not for its homosexuality content) because it points to the meaninglessness of naming and defining things and how far names and definitions could be away from the truth. It mocks compartmentalizations and isms and rips straitjackets. Your emotions and the essence of your existence are dynamic and fluctuating every moment as the universe itself (And concerning 'moment' I'm yet to know if it is a second or a millisecond or a femtosecond or even smaller). By the time you call someone gay, their mind might have slipped into some other shade of sexuality or even one of the million subtle nuances of being gay itself. Language fails and is inadequate as it cannot name and define everything. What is, is. You cannot be someone all the time. Like Walt Whitman, you must be containing multitudes. Names and definitions build identities. And names and definitions that are false - which is often the case - confer false identities on you. And you get perfectly qualified to get hurt at the drop of a hat. When you think you are an Indian (whatever that is) and someone despises India, you get hurt. When you believe you are a Muslim and someone lampoons your Prophet, you get hurt. And then you go around returning the hurt to others. Identities and names cloud your vision. When you leave them behind, you emerge from your blindness.
The quote could be politically incorrect too. The book has many such political incorrectnesses. Whether correct or not as per some conviction or the other, what is, is...

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