Make a Child Smile

Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/carl1226/

Make a child smile. Not because you should. Because you can.

Gender

Image from http://www.livescience.com/37087-dsm-gender-dysphoria.html

What is gender?

There are biological aspects to gender. Each gender provides the gametes for a new lifeform, but that's just sexual reproduction. The long chain of several lines of evolution.

What is gender when contained in a social context?

Why do girls play with baby dolls?
Why do boys play with military dolls?

Why do we believe that gender is something inherent when it is obviously something that is taught.

I am a male with a feminine body (I've had my arse groped more than once in a club cos some misogynist thought I was female). If it's down to stature then my world should have consisted of being brought up in a feminine world.

I was lucky enough to be brought up with enough of a view of several different struggles for equality in a local world that was fighting for a rejection of prejudice to come to a number of generalisations.

Some languages don't have gender. Instead of She or He it is simply They.

Social gender is not inherent in genetics.

There is only one Human Race.

So where does your gender come from? What is derived from social conventions and what is genetically you? Are you defined by social context or by you?

I'm a human ape. What are you?

Life's a Game

Image from http://theskyfx.deviantart.com/

I read Luke Rinehart's The Dice Man as a child, probably pre teen. I consumed huge numbers of books as a child. You do that when everyone's telling you to sleep and you have a wonky circadian rhythm, no torch, and you know how batteries and bulbs and wires work. At least until you get an old valve radio or big black and white television and start listening to the world service or watching open university on BBC 2.

The Dice Man was an influential book along with Stephen King's IT, James Herbert's Rats, and a bunch of other adult drama and horror.

The Dice Man isn't a way of doing something, it's a way of thinking about something.

We make decisions all the time. We apparently make all of them subconsciously long before we make them consciously. I see this in effect all the time.

Two times recently in my life I saw two different people act out an identical act for similar reasons and goals. The resemblance was uncanny. In both cases both seemed confident that they were making the decision at the time they were with me. In both cases they had made the decision long before. In neither case do I believe that they had consciously made the decision. In both cases their conscious was genuinely trying to decide between two courses of action.

Most days as I go through life I see discussions that have an obvious outcome. The decision has already been made.

When we think we're rolling the dice has nothing to do with when the dice were rolled. This is an element of The Dice Man. A friend of mine uses a coin toss to expose her subconscious. Her approach to ambivalent decisions is to toss a coin. If you agree with the coin's outcome you go ahead with the coin's "decision", it either means you didn't care or you agree. If you disagree you'll tell the coin to fuck off. This exposes the unconscious decision. It forces you to accept the choice you have already made.

This is how we travel through life. We make decisions. The decisions we make have consequences.

We roll the dice to deal with those consequences.

The Slippery and Darkened Spiral

Depression is a spiral for me.

Each person I know who's been through depression has a different way of seeing it. The classic feeling for me many years ago used to be one of feeling like I was in a tunnel someone else made and mostly I couldn't see the light at the end of it. Occasionally there'd be a glimmer but it was impossible to tell if it was an actual light or if my brain was just making things up due to the long term meta sensory deprivation.

I got out of the tunnel. I had 15 years or so of living in the light. I occasionally got depressed, everyone does, but let a day or so go by and whatever it was wasn't important any more.

This time it's not a tunnel. This time it's a very dark and slippery spiral.

In recent weeks I've sat at the bottom of this spiral well a lot.

Occasionally I scramble up the slippery spiral or I jump from level to level and briefly get to see the light. It takes a huge amount of effort both to get anywhere near the top and a huge amount of effort to hold on to wherever I have made it to up the spiral.

While my strength lasts I try to use being in the lighter shadows to improve my situation. I call out to those around me and let them know I am still alive. They matter to me.

When I'm sat at the bottom of the spiral I rest and plan for my next assault on the spiral. This time the plan will work.

The worst times? When you have an obligation and your state of mind is fighting you every step of the way to fulfil that obligation. I'm useless, I can't even get out of bed and make a coffee, let alone do my duty. You kick and scream at yourself from inside. You lie to yourself about how things will be if you just get on with it. You try and work out who you used to be and how you got here. You go round in circles.

If you're suffering from chronic stress as well... you shake, you're cold, you're hot, you're thirsty and by the time you've made a drink you're no longer thirsty. You're hungry, you make food, you throw it away with only the tiniest nibble taken to justify having made it. Food disgusts you, people disgust you, you disgust you. You spike on adrenalin and then crash and become comatose.

Nothing is enticing. Nothing is worth it.

Nothing.

You sit in the well at the bottom of the spiral.

I Feel Like...

It's the most common thought in my mind, I feel like...

I feel like taking photographs, but I can't just go wandering around as the opportunity arises, the weather sucks, my ankles hurt (broke them both a couple of months ago) and I can't justify funding suitable lighting to effectively take photos indoors. So I don't take photos.

I feel like fixing up my broken house, but the state of my house just reflects the state of my mind - messy. There's always more to do to it but I give away half of anything that will increase it's value till I'm free of previous legal encumberments.

I feel like watching films, but I know I won't concentrate on them so what's the point.

I feel like company, but company is complicated. It means many things and the company you get is not always the company you want.

I feel like writing code, but my brain won't settle on an idea long enough for it to become a mathematical model of reality that is stable in my head.

I feel like setting up my new Raspberry-Pi HiFi computer in the living room (it rocks), but I need to do a lot more before I can make anything permanent in the living room and I won't sit in there on my own for any length of time so what's the point.

I feel like making something wonderful to eat, but there's only me to eat it and I won't care if I eat or not. It wouldn't be the first time in the last few years I've made a wonderful dinner and thrown it all in the bin a couple of hours later.

I feel like going out and socialising, but it takes a lot at the moment to even walk out the door and I just can't afford it most of the time.

I feel like catching up on work, just to help out, but work hasn't given me a pay rise in a few years now so my inclination to help them out when I've never got any spare cash to have fun with is limited.

I feel like... so many things... and yet they all seem to have their own counter feeling creating a general state of mass ambivalence.

Stalemate.