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The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir―The Transformational Power of Facing Yourself Fearlessly

Book by RuPaul · 5 quotes · Baggage, Black History, Confidence

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The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir―The Transformational Power of Facing Yourself Fearlessly Quotes

“But in that time the RuPaul idea was born, and people outside of my world were inspired to talk about me and androgyny and drag in a way that was unprecedented. Not long after that, the questions came: Why you? Drag had been around forever. Why had I been able to crack the code after so many false starts and almosts?”

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“Even when I didn't have a dime, I always felt rich, because I knew that I had imagination. Having money to me was like having a tank full of gas—it didn't mean much if you didn't know where you were going or didn't have the curiosity to enjoy the ride. Money made things easier—much easier. But no matter how poor I'd been, I had never felt as impoverished as the rich people I knew who had no imagination, whose capacity for fun was stunted.”

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“Sometimes the thing we are not able to let go of isn't benevolent. Sometimes we hang on to past hurts and old ideas. We refuse to let those die, that old darkness. But we have to let go - both of the things we despise and, often, the things that we love. Every ascended master will tell you the same thing: It's the ego that grips, and nonattachment is the path to freedom. But it never stops being difficult to let go - to say goodbye.”

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“All the Black people in our neighborhood were transplants from the South, and so they had inherited a kind of slave mentality, which was based on fear. When you hear stereotypes about Black people who can't swim or are afraid of dogs, it's because for so many generations, they were afraid of swimming across bodies of water to flee, or afraid of dogs because they were scared of being chased. Those fears are epigenetic - they burrow deep into the subconscious, creating an internal paradigm of rules that you forget can be broken. Systemic oppression created walls that can feel impossible to scale, but so, too, does the inherited belief that you are victim. People hold on to that victim mentality so fiercely; it becomes a defining feature of their identity. Nobody's going to take that away from them. It runs too deeply to take out and examine under the light.”

PsychologyRacismBlack HistoryStereotypes
Book:The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir―The Transformational Power of Facing Yourself Fearlessly
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