Can One Lead a "Normal Life" and Be Furry?

Papa bear,

I'm a 19 year old college student and have recently accepted that I'm a straight furry. But, coming from a religious and slightly strict family, it is hard for me to want to fully commit to the entire "furryness" I want to. Even though I have plans to get some furry body art, what I am trying to understand is, and this may be a problem that some flurries have or not I don't know. But in my personality I have a problem with getting too attached to things. For maybe an extreme example, and embarrassing, is that I have even formed a fake life that I keep updated on my personal device for my own enjoyment and I keep it very detailed. But what I want to know is how does someone as a furry run or live a normal life without letting the urges or wants of the furry life getting in the way of a successful life. Not that I wouldn't want to be commuted but the major I'm in and also the area I live in is very constricting on this sort of thing. I'm new and I just want some advice. This is my first letter so does seem like I rambled on. Thanks.

Wolf Furry

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Dear Wolf,

It’s starting to be a mission of mine to explain to furries—especially those new to the fandom—that being a furry doesn’t mean you are living a life of shame like some crack addict committing armed robbery for drug money. Lots of furries lead very successful, productive lives, and being a furry doesn’t interfere with that in the least. Look at me, for instance. I am a successful freelance editor and writer. Look at Uncle Kage, a pharmacist with a doctorate. Look at my friend Tycho Brahe (aka Tycho Aussie), who is an aerospace engineer and happily married father of three.

Whatever your college major is, whatever your career goal is, being furry will not be a deterrent to your success. Furry can be a simple exercise in imagination, and some people get into it more than others. Your interest in creating an alter ego with lots of detail in his life is a creative way of expressing yourself and nothing to be ashamed of. Why are you ashamed of it? It’s no more silly than novelists creating completely fictional worlds, such as Tolkien creating Middle Earth (talk about detailed! Complete with functioning languages and highly detailed history and mythology!) So, don’t look at it as a “fake” life, look at it as an exercise in imagination. It is imagination, after all, that leads to creation and innovation.

Too often we feel pressured by society to conform, to be “normal” so we can be “accepted” and “successful.” Pardon all the quotation marks. A lot of what you’re feeling is probably caused by your conservative upbringing. Conservative, by definition, means lack of innovation, lack of thinking outside the box, lack of imagination, lack of trying anything new.

But now you have discovered your furryness and your creativity. Please do not suppress it, and please don’t think that it will prevent you from achieving great things in your life. Quite the contrary: it can inspire you to achieve new levels that dullard conservatives fear to rise to.

Good luck! Welcome to the fandom!

Papabear