The Overman: An essay in which I come to terms with becoming a man

(Contextual note: I wrote this three days before I started taking testosterone.)



It is time.

"It is the hour of your greatest contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becomes loathsome to you, and so also your reason and virtue."

For happiness, as well as everything cerebral, and everything emotional, that does not resonate with one's rendition of truth, is militant to the mind in which it resides.

So implied Nietzsche when he passionately spoke of The Overman, an idea in which a man rises above humanity by establishing his own values and severing his dependence on the predetermined. He fills his home not with comforts, but with constant reinterpretation inside a castle of his own reality.

It is time to be real.

For a split second, I curse the scientific method, and that avenue in which we are analytical at every turn, because it has become more of an alleyway than an asset. It is a scene that incriminates, deprives us of blood, bruises us when we rebel, infringes risk upon us, and paves our road with regret instead of who we really are.

I am afraid, but I am also the Overman. I am, not less than a biological male, but something more than, something in addition to, and that in-addition-to is the implication of strength, courage, and empathy that I would not possess, had I not been born something other than a biological male.

The Overman. I have decided to challenge the gender binary. We are taught to leave the world a better place than when we found it, to venerate those who live in a manner that is consistent with altruism. But I venerate those who live in a manner that is consistent with entropy, those who leave the world in an increasingly chaotic state. It would be a privilege to add disorder to the universe, to expend from the system every iota of wisdom that we take for granted, to compel other people to mark up and annotate the nuanced gender spectrum, and ask that they leave it acronym-laden.

I am petrified by the act of creation that is necessitated by living in a world that is meaningful solely because we will it to be, as this act calls for change. I fear the changes- the emotional, the mental, the physical, and the unfathomable. But does this mean that I should fear art, and music, the birth of classical literature, and theory formation? Why can't the creation of a self incite the jubilation associated with initiating any other kind of change that is meaningful and lasting? Can change not be beautiful?

The Overman insists it is.

Look at the keys that unlock music. The piano creates beauty out of a binary-and so will I. Black and white will no longer be the prestigious tones. It is time for other colors to be considered. So disproportionately represented are the shadows, as I am among men. It is time to intercept the prevailing position on a man and what he should be, to interrogate every type of masculinity so that I may wear his secrets and his authenticity every day and without shame. The road not taken is that which is not an archetypal man, and I walk with shoes that I refuse to fill. The entire industry of striving comes to a standstill as I announce that my distance will no longer be in accordance with societal ideals. Rather, I will beat my own drum.

Some people will never know how to react, but catering to their confusion is not my mission.

I aspire to be multi-faceted. The columns of man are monolithic. The empire of man was built with shallow stones. There is no room for sorrow that is wet and does not dry quickly, for cheeks that are burdened by the visible proof of despair. Despondency makes a name for itself with anonymous men, with those who would rather be caught cheating on their partner than weeping.

Well, I am going to instill a new kind of man with the soles of my feet. I will walk the journey of a thousand miles uncensored, insecurities and all. I will never auction away anything of my own. They are more valuable than the greatest jewel that I do not have, my unguarded sorrows, the ease with which I am moved to tears. These are qualities that I covet highly, and I will not relinquish them simply because I am to become a man.

I am creating a new man, my own man.

I spent these last few days in the terror that I would lose myself, that the devastation induced by my inability to uncover the most prized aspects of my personhood would be irremediable. In some time, my current self will be a tenant of another time zone altogether. Our satellites will no longer be partners in space. And that is a terribly sad concept for me to consider. But I can assure myself that continuity is temporal, that it can be touched, that all of the qualities we love about ourselves can be lured back to the surface, if only we keep our core luminous. There is really nothing to lose except fear.

Oh yes, I will still be afraid. This is inevitable. For one really can be polygamous with one's principles, in the sense that we can commit as equally to the arduous as we can the pursuit of happiness. I can shake interminably and at the same time feel like the luckiest man alive for having this opportunity at all. Is it possible for fear and happiness so profound to occupy that same space?

It is so, for I will it to be. I relinquish lawfulness in the name of self-love. It is the anarchy of who I am. Everything that I am supposed to be surrenders to what I actually want.

With order usurped during these tumultuous times, we find that the root of all evil is not desire-it is a debt to ourselves. We sue our standards in court, then lead protests in order to end their imprisonment. We let them free, and then we let them in. We resuscitate them every time, because we are afraid of living unabashedly. Staying true to oneself with wild abandon takes strength.

These past few months have stripped me down to my weaknesses and my darker elements. But I am proud to say that the velocity of my shortcomings is not as swift as my ability to overcome them.

These are the physics of epiphany. It is the energy used to create light, in a world where the natural state is darkness. And it is the understanding that even that which is lost can never be destroyed.

Who I am, the Overman, is just being born. With so much creation, there is no room for loss.

The fibers of continuity are not a soul, but a strength exhibited by oneself. It doesn't mean that we never change. Rather, it means that we do not let go. It does not mean that we stay the same. Instead, it implies that we are giving ourselves a chance, at whatever that may be.

I understand that I am scared of losing myself. And yet, there is already a part of me that remains inaccessible, and that is my participation in the male role. In a sense, I have already lost something valuable. It is worse to live a partial truth than a lie, for at least those who live a lie are impervious to how rich and rewarding an honest living may be. Yes, at times, pain will inhibit my true potential, and reduce me, and weaken me, but as my preferred gender, I am automatically true. I am, intrinsically, a truth. I am an ideal, honesty; without having to be a perfect man, a strong man, an integral man, I can still be an ideal, without exhibiting any of them, purely because I am a man.

And I do not need to lose someone that I love. I can evolve without erasing what I like about myself. All of the qualities that I hold in high regard need not become part of the past in light of this new potential self that looms on the horizon. My beliefs will rub their decibels against each other like diamonds that don't have the heart to tarnish the surface of something that they can sympathize with. Everything that is important enough to define me will endure. I need not be afraid to take this next step.

Gone are the days when I must appease the agony of being misgendered by biting my lip and holding my tongue. No longer must my self-control release endorphines as it is exercised, constantly, by people who refer to me as "ma'am," "miss," and "she."

Gone are the days of facing the unmistakable scrutiny of strangers every time I enter a public venue. No longer must I notice their incredulity before I notice the color of their skin.

I am harnessing this concept of Nietzsche's in the hopes that I may live sincerely from this moment on.