The personal heraldic title which I submitted earlier this year was accepted and registered on this month’s LoAR, which has prompted some to ask: “why a gadfly?”
I chose the name Gadfly not because of a particular affinity with the family of insects also known as horse-flies, but rather for its metaphorical connotations.
As Wikipedia puts it:
A gadfly is a person who interferes with the status quo of a society or community by posing novel, potentially upsetting questions, usually directed at authorities.
This description capture my impatience with broken systems, and my willingness to annoy the powers that be by asking probing questions that highlight the possibility of a better world. (Society officers who have suffered through my persistent chains of email messages will no doubt recognize the allusion.)
It’s true that the term “gadfly” does not capture my willingness to invest effort in building new and improved structures to replace the old, but that work mostly speaks for itself, and so I think it’s reasonable that my title reflect this other aspect.
In short, I hope that this title will serve as an introduction for those who might be encountering me for the first time: yes, I might be pain in the ass, but it’s in the service of truth, and it’s no use trying to brush me off, so you might as well just deal with whatever issue I’ve raised.