In response to the post on the PB-CLE list of the statement "if you dress like ___, expect to get laughed at" Ratana made the following response...

Read it... it's good. Perhaps we all just forgot...?

What I liked about raves was being able to go and expect to NOT be laughed
at, to NOT be judged based on my appearance. To avoid the negative,
judging attitudes (such as my own) prevalent in every other social
gathering of strangers and friends. Basically to just be able to dance
and enjoy myself, lost in comfort, solitude, or if I wanted to, to be
social, to say "hi" without people expecting alterior motives and have
friendly conversations.

Everyone is beautiful in their own way. Every single person on this earth
has something that makes them them, and it is beautiful, waiting to be
discovered. We, I, by judging too much may never find this in the people
we are judging based on too little information. It is easy to throw
people in different categories and subcategories and at the end of the
day, unless you have a really deep conversation w/ the people you are
doing this to, you will most likely be right. I think some of us are
afraid to find out that all of our stereotypes and categories are all
wrong and useless beyond the surface. It would make life more
challenging, less certain, it would make everyone in the world suddenly
become more important to us, it would make us try to discard years of
stereotyping and pigeonholing. Maybe that is not such a bad thing.

Adam
ratana@chemlab.org
as posted on the PB-CLE list 06 january 2001