A couple years ago, I talked about a concept called Likeness, or -like as a suffix. I feel like it's still an experience that applies heavily to me and matters a lot to my overall alterhumanity, so I want to talk about what it is, and what it’s like to share a likeness with something.
Likeness refers to being… well, like something. The term “share a likeness with x” is very common in casual conversation, so I’m going off of that. It could be based on how you think, your behavior, your instinctual feelings, your mannerisms, etc. being like something. So for instance, if I was catlike, I might share behavioral qualities with cats. I might have catlike instincts or inclinations, or think like a cat. I think the best way to describe likeness is to say that it’s “when you share a likeness with something on an integral level."
Some stuff I’ve experienced:
(Don’t take this as a list of requirements, this is just how I personally experience sharing a likeness with something.)
I feel very symbolically tied to what I share a likeness with. I feel like it could represent me.
I feel instincts, urges, and thoughts tied to what I share a likeness with.
I feel as though I “think like an x,” without actually being it.
I feel as though I understand, or even mimic, what I share a likeness with more than most people do.
I want to look xlike, or have xlike qualities, but not necessarily be one entirely.
I feel as though I could be categorized in a similar place to what I share a likeness with. Similar souls, similar thinking, similar instincts or behavior, similar species, something like that.
I am behaviorally similar to what I share a likeness with in many ways.
The term is meant to be really broad, straight-forward, and simple. What you see is what you get, no funny business or over-complicating it. There will be overlap between this and other things, but I feel as though it’s something that really works for me. I don't think it fits into the framework of "identifying as" or "identifying with" at all, and I don't think you need to have those experiences to share a likeness with something.
In terms of how to use it in conversation, the main way I do it is just using “likeness,” “I share a likeness with x,” or “I’m xlike.” There’s a lot of ways you could word it in a sentence! But, I also made something a bit more differentiated from casual conversation when necessary to do so, which is to use -liken instead of -like. For instance, instead of saying you’re catlike, you could say you’re catliken!
So, any of these would work:
I share a likeness with cats.
In terms of the official “name” for this experience, I considered otherliken, but to distinguish it further, especially from very similar words like otherlink, I think ostalike and ostaliken is better, more unique, and more distinct from other terms. The prefix, osta, comes from ostali, a word meaning other or different in Serbo-Croatian and Bosnian.
And that’s about it! I might start talking about this more on my blog using the #ostaliken tag, just to use the most unique tag possible. Here is where I originally talked about sharing a likeness with something, though I think I covered all the original stuff in this post. Archiving the OG is still good.
If this is confusing at all or have questions, let me know! This is a really personal experience to me, and I’d be happy to over-explain my experiences because it’s really fun. Bye!
