I was raised by the nightmares of my parents. Quite literally, I was born into the darkness; molded by it. That first glimmer of light within me did not occur until I was already a man.
My mother faced sexual assault at an early age from her own father and later developed Dissociative Identity Disorder. My father faced the onslaught of hatred from African American teenagers because he was white while living on the poor side of town in the late 1960s. He was five-years-old when Martin Luther King was shot. My father’s brother’s life ended too soon on Christmas Day, 1984 because of a mistake that never should have been made.
These are just a select few of the horrors I grew up hearing. Then my own battles and horrors began. A lifelong struggle of understanding and a search for purpose have been the motivation and inspiration for me to change the world for the better. I studied theater and feel a strong connection with performance and self expression. Am I the best? No, but that is not what self expression is about. It is about creating something. The opposite of war is not peace but creation. Creating something channels that darkness into something good.
My identity is unusual. I am an asexual, masculine male with high functioning anxiety. My goals and achievements are literally all I have. Yes, I have friends and acquaintances but few of them understand my own drive. I want to create a better world with fewer nightmares and more dreams coming to reality. I can achieve this through theater and self expression. As a mad scientist once said, “Don’t dream it – Be it!”
James Pack 