Food or medicine

 

Development

It's the Fete Nationale du Quebec today and I left the house wearing a dress which is something I don't do very often. It's usually jeans or a skirt.

The lady at the metro station ticket counter wishes me a lovely day and I do the same.

My routine on Wednesdays is that I make my way to the public market to have 7:00 am coffee with fellow retiree Sylvie and after that it is with my friend Sonia at 9:00 at Jean Talon market. 

Being retired means having a lot of time on your hands which I try to fill without urgency or obligation. It means having plenty of opportunity to think. 

I have changed dramatically since I stopped working because I had left much more introspection incomplete than I had estimated; something you don't realize until you are faced with the full capability to do so.

As people, we are in constant development mode. 

I have made a resolution to be kinder to people and lower my indignation towards them after having developed life weapons which includes, if need be, an acidic tongue. It's easier to be dismissive when you determine someone is rude or stupid (both of which are plentiful in this world) but my job isn't to judge anyone else. 

My job now is to be peaceful.

At the same time I can be very protective of my dignity and my self-respect.

Like a stone

Birth rates are dropping like a stone everywhere in the world such that the global population will begin slowly to decline. 

Marriage rates have tanked as has the concept of dating. More people than ever in our history are living alone and not everyone by choice. 

It seems that our social skills have taken a hit along with gender role expectations that kept our society humming, albeit imperfectly, for millennia. 

Many women have rejected the idea of domestic life in favor of developing themselves personally. Their traditional role of home organizer and child rearer is less appealing particularly when they see some of the shortfalls within the framework of their career path. 

Both sexes have had to rethink what each brings to the table in a fast-moving world of economic uncertainty and high dependability on a technology which has atrophied their social skills. 

This has left less genetically favorable people to fend for themselves thanks to hypergamy which isn't helping matters. 

Both platonic and romantic relationships have taken a hit with no simple reparation in sight.

Technically speaking...

Technically speaking, gender dysphoria could be considered an illness or a condition. It tells your brain that something is wrong with your gender identity or role and it must be tended to. 

This is not meant to denigrate being transgender only that it forms part of the profile. The person feels somehow stuck between two poles until something is done to address the incongruence. 

Every response will and should be different. 

For me it was about attaining as much  authenticity as possible while at the same time avoiding medical transition which was ill-advised as per my endocrinologist. Also I wasn't entirely convinced that this approach would take care of everything. 

I took note that many people who transition continue to suffer with bouts of dysphoria even years after transition. 

Splitting myself into two halves for years was less than ideal but worked because it felt mandatory and I was busy enough with work and kids to navigate the psychology. 

My life became an exercise in dysphoria management.

However dysphoria seems to worsen with age which forces you to ramp up your game. The psychology must be worked on constantly particularly when life distractions are mostly removed. 

I have watched plenty of regret videos which have shown me that despite being a small percent of transitioners, there are cases where complications have soured their experience. They don't necessarily revert but end up in a limbo state where they must come to resignation. 

Because dysphoria is graded it presents different levels of challenge for people. The most severe forms seem to be destined for medical means but even there some have chosen a hybrid approach. For example, they may have opted for FFS and HRT but no other interventions. 

People who are older have the most trouble converting their psychology because their indoctrination around gender was so pervasive. They feel stuck because life decisions made to escape their feelings now end up as large obstacles as they come to understand themselves with age. 

Some may have gone through a "crossdresser" phase (forgive the older term) only to realize that the roots went far deeper. Regretably life works like peeling an onion where discoveries are made slowly over time. 

The way dysphoria is dealt with today avoids years of silent suffering but risks putting trans youth on a path they may later realize wasn't for them. Fortunately we seem to have developed enough safeguards to largely prevent irreversible changes. 

The gender critical movement paints all this as a zero sum game where regret cases are pointed to as examples of all transgender people. This is of course false because there are a myriad of success stories however the difficulty still exists in finding a customized solution for each person. 

In the best of cases, a solution is found which is free from comparison and full of personal confidence through avoiding the worst of the societal poison every transgender person is almost always exposed to.

Be careful with stereotypes

My youngest sister is returning from a trip to St John's Newfoundland where she noted a sizeable presence of LGBTQ people. She tells me she saw many gay and lesbian couples as well as transgender people living openly and going about their business. 

I looked it up and sure enough the statistics don't lie. Apparently it has to do with the tight community roots as well as the strong advocacy movement in the province. 

This does seem to fly in the face of the idea that only very large urban centers offer support to LGBTQ people. Of course I won't surprise you by saying that the province of Alberta (our Texas) represents a sharp contrast to Newfoundland. 

I have been to Newfoundland once for work and found the people there to be charming and folksy. The reality that they can be so accepting of diversity flies in the face of the idea that small places always contain ignorant populations. 

When we educate people, we can succeed anywhere.

Universal

There is an almost universal gap in our understanding between what we think we want and what we need. This applies to any subject you can think of and is emblematic of the human condition. 

We imagine that when something is acquired or allowed to be changed we will then attain a level of satisfaction that will cure many of our current problems. 

Of course this is false but a nuanced exercise could permit us to determine what percentage of what we want will benefit us in the long term. 

When people feel constrained they dream that some change will liberate them but this psychology can be misplaced. They think that when they retire, win the lottery or have that procedure everything will be so much better but it won't. This will simply introduce new concerns and elements into our lives that weren't there before. 

This is where understanding the gap between want and need becomes pivotal. 

One important clue is that need should be governed by trying to reduce our suffering which helps us confirm that acting on the issue will be the right call.

Growth

For helping with growing out my hair I am using Shia Moisture rosemary and vegan collagen essential oil on the scalp plus starting to take vitamin D (as per my youngest sister's advice who swears by it and has the healthy hair to prove it).

I haven't cut it for 2.5 months so let's see how it's doing by December.

The psychology of fear

The approach of gender criticals is to state that the existence of transgender people represents an imposition on their own rights (the rights of women in particular) which is completely disingenuous. 

The reality is that they are deeply perturbed by the idea of allowing other people to live freely because underneath they have own personal issues to contend with. Thus for them it becomes a zero sum game. 

My life experience has taught me that people who are well adjusted don't have any problems with the way others live. 

By using terms like "transgender ideology" which implies choice, the criticals paint transgender people as deliberate usurpers of society. They say we are undermining the governing rules for nefarious purposes rather than to uphold their own authenticity. 

I have always been fascinated by the psychology of people who are racist, homophobic or transphobic because understanding them sheds a light on the darker recesses of the human condition. 

Fear breeding intolerance is a universal tenet of humanity; one which regrettably we seem destined not to completely escape. 

Thank goodness then for the many people I know who save my faith in humanity.

Comparing notes

My son and I compare notes on our respective psychologies during our daily evening calls. We are each on our own journeys of course but there is much in parallel.

We are both not overly busy. He works towards a return to finishing his university while I make small adjustments to my life as a retired person. There is reflection process in both situations with the added challenges we both face infusing another level of subtlety which must be navigated. 

Our adult children are predisposed to offering us advice and they will make us think about the appropriateness and value in our approaches to things. We take in their words and weigh them with consideration because their opinions imcreasingly matter to us. 

It is what I like about their current ages.

We are no longer the type of provider they once needed and we can take advantage of a redefinition as they progress into adulthood.

They have their own wisdom to impart.

Empty space

Thomas is an overweight young man who escapes to the town where his deceased grandmother had owned a cabin. He lives there while he works washing dishes in a small local diner. 

One day he goes to the town laundromat where he meets Lilly a blind girl who works washing and folding. Her disarming frankness and confidence catches him off guard. 

Thomas doesn't have much confidence but is a good person and young Lilly begins to bring out his qualities ever so slowly. 

"Empty Space" is a short, touching small budget production which will surprise you with its earnest portrayal of humans trying to rise above their limitations. 

It reminds us how under the surface we all deeply crave the very same things from life.

On Tubi.

Overhaul

Trumpism is almost over but the clean up will take decades. 

The flaws in the system have been exposed so at least there's that. The fact that someone this deeply stupid, incompetent and criminal was able to climb to the top of the ladder means that a major overhaul is in order. 

Supreme Court term limits plus getting big money out of politics is just a start but they must happen if the average citizen is to matter once again. 

Fair taxation is yet another important step because the latest development of the world's first trillionaire should be a clue that something is deeply wrong.