A huge shock

Not....

Noise

Many of us may have developed our own little pathologies. We over work, we over eat, we exercise to excess or have use other drivers or obsessions to keep us busy and distracted from facing our core in silence. 

The idea of just being quiet and existing in our ordinariness can be a challenge. The impetus to always be "on" can be overwhelming and we will doom scroll in favor of being tranquil and reflect in stillness. 

I have been guilty of this myself and work towards detaching myself from technogical temptations which is why years ago Ieaving social media became mandatory. I wanted to simplify my life more than ever and detach from the unnecessary. 

A good chunk of our lives can be spent ridding ourselves of our childhood baggage to finally seek solace in our authenticity and personal truth. One which is free of needless noise and societal pressure to perform for the amusement of others.

Lab experiment

Trumpism has been a perfect laboratory experiment for witnessing how a society can fractute into historically predictable groups. You put an incoherent imbecile in charge and suddenly people fall into buckets which include the hapless cult victim, the disinterested and obtuse, the ruthless agenda-driven schemers/haters and finally those who will fight back for justice with dignity. 

Trump lost his trade war with China because they know he is a toothless flip-flopper and because that nation will fight to the end before backing down. So playing a game of chicken turned out not to be a winning strategy for the orange man. 

The wheels are predictably coming off the bus as in the first term and as more Trump voters begin to feel the impact of his stupidity, some members of congress and the senate may yet find their spines and begin to think of impeachment because waiting for midterm elections risks a lot more damage being done. 

Letting this man make things up as he goes along risks seeing much more damage than what has already been done.

True friends

I met a friend for coffee yesterday who I have known since we were both 27 and worked for the same company at the start of our careers. We would lose touch for selected periods and then reconnect only to have busy lives get in the way again and see us drop into another lapse. 

We were in that beautiful old Montreal 1928 bank building now converted to a gorgeous cafe where we caught up yet again on how life has been treating us. 

I haven't lost him despite my outer shell looking different and he deals with the same person as before. He says he can't imagine being in my place and the challenge involved to which I respond that we run out of road eventually and must become fully whole. 

To date I have only lost one person (a former work colleague) and it wasn't a great disappointment. Some people are more into what you provide for them than appreciating and accommodating your personhood. 

As others have repeated to me, it is their loss and they are right.

Nostalgia

YouTube has videos featuring 2 hour-long segments from 1970's radio station programming as well as department store music ready to stoke the fires of our melancholic nostalgia. Suddenly we are 14 again and taping music off the radio or going with our mothers to buy a new pair of pants at the newly minted mall. 

It works well and as I listened to snippets it immediately took me back and reminded me how fast life goes. It is now that I have slowed down that I can fully appreciate that unavoidable reality. 

It is good then to live one moment at a time as much as possible and to savor without wasting energy on needless worry. 

The brief nostalgia trip told me so.

Famous words

In 1943 Anne Frank wrote the following in her diary: "terrible things are happening outside. People are being dragged out of their homes. Families are being torn apart. Children come home to find that their parents have disappeared" 

That this could have been written today in Trump's America or in Palestine proves why humanity is unchangeable. The same limitations exist because emotionally we do not progress as a species. Thus, society is broken down into proportions which are unaltered and we repeat history because of it. 

Frank was an empathetic and beautiful soul who didn't understand the cruelty she was witnessing. She asked herself deep questions about why human insecurity invariably leads to conflict and chaos and her young mind never attained the level of experience it needed to digest and process it all before she died.

Abide

When I was maybe 8 years old I would ask my father why I needed to go to church. I needed to have it explained to me since I hadn't chosen to be born and yet I was supposed to praise a deity I had never seen. 

I approached things, if not as an outright cynic, than at least as a deep questioner who wanted more evidence if I was to convince others that my belief system was solid. 

The topic of gender variance was no exception and I wanted to understand the variables involved, the amount of choice being exercised, the balance of nature versus nurture. Yes, there was brain chemistry involved but was it steeped in delusion and illness? I proceeded to try and find out to solve my own personal life riddle. 

In a sense the answer came through the realization that there were far too many variables at play and that ultimately people don't choose to suffer or be shunned. To be sure, there are those for whom this is nothing more than a pastime but I think they are not the majority. 

Also, the societal prescription for gender behavior was completely invented and overly rigid. It curtailed the public through intimidation and fear of shunning. As a result some people developed deep stigma and guilt which in some cases became fetish. In other words, much ado about nothing encouraged obsession where it need not exist because suppression can do that. Lifting it carefully can help to provide answers.

That society is full of idiots is beyond question and the longer we live the easier they are to recognize. But in the lifting of the blinders we may find ourselves fortunate to be free of obligation and stress from the irrational that many would just as soon not question and simply abide by.

Where they are

I try to meet people where they are. 

This morning sitting over my coffee a lady maybe in her early 70's waits for hers close-by and we chat briefly. She is holding a very docile schnauzer under her arm and she tells me she has driven across country from British Columbia and that she loves Montreal. You could smell the authenticity from her right from the outset. 

People give off vibes and their aura either shines through or it is blocked through not feeling able to be themselves and stew in frustration. By now I can detect someone who is open and in touch with who they are. It becomes almost a scent they perennially give off. 

There is already so much suffering in the world that we don't want to make it worse for ourselves. We should want to drop our shield and let moments happen without trying to control all.

Flexibility, openness, kindness and calm should be the governing principles by which we live and so I work to refine that goal.

Empathy

There is a man who exposes emboldened bigots online in Trump's America. He looks for their identity and posts their name after they have attacked others for no reason other than to feel power over them. 

A couple berates a man for brandishing only a Mexican flag on his truck while another riding a motorcycle asks a driver to roll down his window to utter a racial slur. 

In another incident a subway rider sits uncomfortably close while telling a young transgender woman that Trump is her daddy. He insults her repeatedly until she begins recording him and other riders come to her rescue and tell him to go to another car which he finally does. 

Empathy is a lost art which has never really caught on in society on a big scale. Some people's own shortcomings oblige them to prey on weakness thinking it will help their own lack of self-esterm. It doesn't work but they can try. 

There is plenty of everything in this world but it would be a lot better if people dealt with their own insecurities before deciding not to mind their own business.

Regret

I don't have a problem with Ray Williams regretting his transition. My issue is more with him using his own decision to feed into the gender critical movement as his motives are uniquely his own.

He started out identifying as a "crossdresser" and later got affected by the transgender movement's expanding umbrella. In the past there was more delineation between transitioners and other gender variant people who compartmentalized and dressed for various reasons which could include sexual pleasure as primary driver. Thus, as gender variance became cross pollinated, he decided that being "trans" was superior to being a "crossdresser" which he felt delegitimized him in the eyes of society.

Yes, it's a complicated subject and here Blanchard's AGP is accepted as fact without question when it could simply be called arousal. Williams admits to weaker dysphoria and less identity driven motives which is why medical transition was ultimately not for him.

You may find this frank discussion interesting even if the aim of the channel seems to be to denigrate transgender people and gender variance as a whole....

Pleaser

If we try to please everyone we end up pleasing no one and mostly displease ourselves. We can end up in a wasteland of dissatisfaction where our self-esteem is compromised. 

This lesson can take time because we begin life bowing to public expectation except that some of us never leave it. It takes effort to escape when we've been taught not to try. 

Protecting the self should include some flexibility because we want to be kind but not so much that our essence begins to be affected. When authenticity is compromised at the altar of expectation we will feel something is off. 

It becomes easier with age to recognize what is pomp versus what is essential aIthough I wish I had learned to make the distinction sooner.