Pride

That word used to be more flexible. It could actually be used to express something- anything you're proud of. But now, things are a little different.

When the word "Pride" is used, and I say it with a capital P, one of two things come to people's mind; gay Pride and national Pride. Those two aren't exactly bad things, or bad types of pride, but with the way our society has constructed itself around the word Pride certainly comes with its drawback. The draw back is simple. We have limited ourselves verbally so we can't really use the word Pride for anything else effectively. Yes, one can say he is proud of his career success. That nearly does not have the same impact as one saying he is proud to be gay or his nation.

It took a while for our society to accept gay people, and we should all be glad we can accept this change in our society instead of sticking to the old traditional ways all the time. However, one can say out loud in the streets, "I'm PROUD to be gay!" and people can cheer. If one were to yell out, "I'm PROUD to be straight!" not much will really happen depending on what city you are in. That's the kind of impact I'm talking about. Sexuality wise, you can't be Proud, unless the church hates doesn't love you too much and others who totally love you for it.

The national Pride is what really gets to me and starts to really draw lines for people, which has its own ups and downs. Canada, especially Toronto literally is full of people from all over the world. People can be Proud to be whatever nationality they're. Hey, it's something you can't change so you might as well like it, right? I mean, it even brings a community together. It also separates said community from other communities, marking borders within the country, and even down to the city itself. When you go over board on this national Pride, you stop to see others as individuals as well as yourself. You begin to generalize and just throw the word "individualism" out the window. You also see other nations as nation full of faults and imperfection and think your people are God's greatest creation (Unless you're Jewish, in which case I can understand)! Even if you do suck up some of that national Pride and admit your country of origin does have some issues, you'd want Canada to do something about it. By a messy looking protest/march no less. Canada has enough issues of its own.

I could go on, but I'll end it here. Pride should be available to be used in a sentence that has nothing to do with homosexuality or patriotic national love and still have an impact of using the word to its full meaning. In fact, if it takes a word for this society to accept gay people into it, go head, take it. Heck, take other words, too. A lot of colours were already taken, anyway (and I am actually not being sarcastic).

But keep in mind a few things about national Pride (because that's the one I'm really attacking here). Keep individualism in mind. Because you want to be proud of what you did, not what your country did a long, long time ago. If your country wins something like.. let's say the World Cup. If your country wins the World Cup, that doesn't automatically make you a better soccer player, either. Sometimes, it's more about where you're heading instead of where you came from. You only have (little) control over one of the two so you should focus on that instead.

By the way, I am Proud of being able to say this stuff people like to dodge talking about. I even say this nonsense in person, too. I should be Proud of that one at very least.

Or shouldn't I..?