===”Are you an elf?”
===Depends on how you look at it. I find the concept useful. I find the conceptual feel of the “otherkin” very good, even if I personally cringe at some of the interpretations that some use.
===Otherkin is a personal acknowledgement of there being “something else” to my blood…some link that makes me both “human” (whatever that really means) and “other” at the same time. I think of otherkin as those that have that singing in the blood of something that has that mythic feel. I do not think in terms of past lives. Some ‘kin have them, but you know…that really is not the point.
===The point is in the acknowledging of that song.
===Otherkin is NOT about avoiding the self, or silly delusions of grandeur. It is not about persecution complexes, or “social scenes”. It is not about the social games people play, using group identities to make themselves feel “superior”:….(I look at a lot of the folks that had wanted to be “leaders” who now degrade the community as a “scene” pretty much the same as I look at the ones that are vapid sorts that use it as an identity to rally around….about equal in worth.)
===There is something in the blood that needs awakening. It needs to be worked with and honored. I personally think a lot of folks have forgotten that. When I first went active, that is the focus I had. I wanted to find others that felt this way, and I wanted to explore the various ways that this could manifest.
===I still think that this is a worthwhile goal. A community of this sort of folk is what I strive for.
===On the functionality of a culture….
===One of the things to look for is how well the culture actually remembers the past. Do they acknowledge and stand behind what they have done in the past, or do they play games and try to claim that they never said or did something, hoping people will misremember or not have been there?
===A tradition is only as good as the memory it has.
===A tradition is only as good as how honorable the people that carry it are in walking it.
===One of the issues that faces the Otherkin is that too many are willing to forget when they forgive….or more accurately: They are too willing to re-write the past, and not acknowledge that they have done so.
===Memory is part of the Dream.