For one reason and if at the very least, I have never adopted - almost certainly never will - the title of "therian" or "otherkin" simply because I find the terms and definitions, past and present, inadequate to describe myself. The same reason I go around to begin with presenting myself with any definitions. As an ethos, a personal philosophy, I would rather my presentation and individual being speak foremost for me, not some contrived label which shifts and changes, fluctuates, moves, is adapted and adopted relatively constantly. The language we exist in, more than ever, is to flexible and fluid for that, no less it allows or rather dare I say outright affords and encourages as part of societal structure in humans the type of maltreatment of the lexicon as we see today; not only do there exist an excess of words and phrases to describe existing ideas, of which the words themselves serve as better descriptors in sum and not as components there of people are most content to keep adding new and increasingly abstract ones to fill niches - to fill roles that did not exist. None of this, from the experience to the language to describe it has arisen organically, and I would equally dare any of the bravest sorts to try to allude to how it has; I cannot be convinced it has because the very concept of the thing I hail from, which in root all of that which originates in this too, exists from a time and a place wherein there were no words for it.
This is to say nothing of the fact that the regular person can barely so much as grasp their own belief or their own unbelief. I can present to them any formative, foundational exercise in the discussion of spirits and souls, the idea of karma, the origins of death and resurrection, the idea of rebirth or cyclic nature, and they will happily nod before me because that is all well and good, all things they have heard before. But the idea that one could exist or be something extraordinary, nonmundane, even nonhuman? Unthinkable, if not just because the concept is foreign and frightening. It becomes all too much a lengthy exercise to break the molds of their anthropocentric, anthropomorphic conditioning, to appeal to that which they already know and by in large part belief - only to note, much of what they believe if not all of it is sanitized of the wholeness of the truth, mostly because it is difficult and or unpleasant - to simply even try down that route.
So too is it the case that there is just nothing to gain from explaining it to people. They are vexed enough, absolutely floored by any manner of mundane thing I could tell them, any basic thing they could still find in a textbook or literature of old - which in itself is being stricken from the record for any number of reasons to further obscure and delude any semblance of object fact, of which they already know so little of - that to even branch off into theology, philosophy, spirituality and religion is too much for them to handle. Again, it is almost as though I need bit by bit chip away at the marble to reveal the statue concealed within it, that their whole existence has been hardened up into this confined thing, and even presenting basic knowledge about the universe in front of their face, never mind any of the great mysteries of existence, they can hardly stand footing with. If I come out with it directly, what is to be taken from that or understood? It would be taken as awkward, strange, even slightly disturbed. Anyone, most of all them and those they come to interact with thereafter, stand far more a worthwhile use of my time trying to convey broader strokes to them than anything else.
Likewise, opening up to them is just egotistical, it becomes a spotlight upon myself. I have lived a vast and complex, diversified life, whose details sound like an adventurer-hunter's novel crossed with the profoundly psychological-spiritual, a strangely well aligned martial underpinning, and a copious amount of time spent in research essays and the aforementioned field work. Really need I make it seem as though I am lifting myself up more or attempting to draw attention to my identity? Is it worth making me seem even more important? In the end, I am a servant, I am ultimately no one of significance, and those who come to know my story fully are only those who have not just earned it but have reason to do so, because evidently, it is important enough for them to approach it with over time; over many, many a conversation, and absolute questioning. It is not just some dialogue nested in me I can merely recite or explain or allow some nebulous label to "adequately" describe. Can one really condense an "identity", rather the entire unthread of a being to one word, really? Might I so trust that it has not been so abused and misused as I know it has been to evoke completely wild imaginations of what those words mean to those who have actually heard of them? Or might it just it truly be better to not take the focus of the narrative of life and allow those who sense something else to come to me instead?
If I did and it were to fail, then what? What before they could not have cared about one way or the other but now they are invested with a weapon I provided them. It matters not if I am indifferent, it takes no effort for them to collect the sword I cast at their feet and deliver it to another. Why arm a potential adversary, even if they themselves make no use of it? I can claim indifference all I like but it would take little for any dedicated foe to declare me - or any other of similar status - mentally ill or unfit, or even in some cases, deigned problem enough to require an evaluation which even if all goes well attaches nothing but a stigma; it brings potential for nothing but suffering.
As a result, it remains only my closest confidants, my closest companions, of which are so few I could name them in one breath, who know the truth. Not all of them know the entirety of the truth as it is either, they are satisfied with what they know and what they have been entrusted with knowing. Were they to wish more, they would ask, but it is clear that is not a human desire; it opens too many questions and doors.
