The algebra of wealth

Absolutely correct...

The missing ingredient

I see Roger on the street again and this time he tells me he is becoming a Jehovah's witness to which I smile and say nothing. I accompany it solely with a slight nod.

He has found God he says and I suppose that is what counts. The structure which I find restrictive may be for him precisely what he craves. His knee has given out at only in his mid forties and he is looking for something new to replace his job in the fruit and vegetable store.

I was still finding out who I was in my mid 40's and although I thought I had things figured out with my rigidly calculated structure, it all needed to unfold (marriage and all) so I could be remade.

Life is a mystery and even within its journey the stages are felt when we realize where we are isn't working. There is a missing ingredient which has been left out which begs adding.

We part ways with me genuinely hoping he finds contentment where he is going and if not he will adjust yet again as we are prone to do.

Where AGP went wrong

Ray Blanchard wasn't the least bit interested in motivation. He saw phenomena and went to label it for he was impacted by his own zeal and prejudice to sell the idea of perversion. Whether you had ever been aroused by dressing as or imagining yourself as a woman was the only point worthy of consideration.

The problem is that all the nuance resides within the sphere of motivation for there are people who are (to varying degrees) dysphoric and misaligned between body and mind just as there are those who dress mainly for sexual pleasure. For Blanchard, both were one and the same which was the only way to sell his hypothesis. Introduce doubt and the whole thing risked crumbling which was definitely not allowed if one was trying to sell something even remotely approaching science.

Today no serious clinician still considers AGP to be valid (at least not the ones I know and read) and the disciples who are left are the gender criticals and the keenly motivated haters who gobble it up whole.

Closets

The definition of the word transgender needs to include both expression and identity within it. After all the word is about "transcending gender" which incorporates what the world sees but much more importantly what we see inside ourselves which is what determines motivation.

Therefore what one wears should in theory be a reflection of how one feels and perhaps also wants to convey to the world. Here it can get interesting because masculinity and femininity can be independent of birth sex which is why some women tend to be masculine and some men feminine. Their leanings can be conveyed both through mannerism and way of dressing often in direct contravention of what is expected by society.

The definition of transgender needs to go beyond solely expression because otherwise what we wear effectively becomes a costume we don on occasion (which can indeed be the sole objective of some people). Ultimately we wear clothing which we enjoy, we find comfortable and can also vary depending on the masculine or feminine energy which predominates in the moment.

In the past, society heavily constrained both natal males and females to pretense by giving them very prescriptive rules about how to dress and behave. There were some who flaunted those rules but they existed within a very miniscule minority. Over time that minority has kept growing and what I like is that with each successive generation these people aren't trying to "pass" as anything other than themselves. Some may be gender dysphoric and possibly transition but certainly not all. 

The point is that they are increasingly ditching their fear as society becomes progressively used to them and they no longer need to live inside closets. For I can scarcely think of anything more depressing than hiding from the world and the opinions from strangers that are ostensibly worthless.

We just might be growing up as a society after all. At least on that particular front.

They may just have a point

A 10 year old understands that presidential immunity is ridiculous and yet here we are.

Kangaroo indeed...

Le fil conducteur

What we need and should desire is balance which impacts everything. Every aspect of our lives is related such that a weak link somewhere will affect other areas. For example when we are stressed it affects our sleep which then affects our ability to operate in the world with others.

Finding the weakest link in our lives and dealing with it will have significant positive effects that work like a domino chain. Ignoring that weak link we do at our own peril and what we often do is mask the problem with distractions that avoid rather than address.

As I've aged I have been able to trace the common thread (le fil conducteur as we say in French) for what most impacted me in my life and the ways I found to circumvent rather than attack the issue directly. My dysphoria is the most obvious example but there have been others.

Humans use obfuscation such as overeating, consuming en masse or other ways to avoid staring directly at issues because of fear that their lives will fall like a house of cards when the truth is exactly the opposite.

Dealing directly with issues will invariably yield numerous positive effects which will be felt in all areas of our lives.

Broken dreams

 

Living solo

 

For public consumption

Many people don't follow politics very closely but have made up their minds regardless. They will glance at their favorite channel, digest key talking points and then go back to their lives. It's no wonder Trump has such high poll numbers with the right wing media machine working 24/7 in full image reparation mode.

It's all been a interesting lab experiment because when I was growing up propaganda wasn't as overt as it is today. America did not then have its equivalent of Pravda and politicians at least seemed to be less emboldened to spew venom we have now become immune to. There was more fear of looking stupid and expertise still counted for something.

I am a bit of a political junkie but people who aren't used to be able to count on more balanced and careful journalism instead of crafted narratives meant to bolster their own cause. If there was political leaning at least it was far more carefully wrapped before presenting it for public consumption.

Amalgamation

My version of a female has incorporated everything about me because gender does not dictate what one should want to do. Thus I needed to marry my entire history into one person and Joanna is a fleshed out amalgamation of everything I am and always have been.  She used to be what I had then surmised and hoped was at most an expressive outlet which did not ultimately work.

In retrospect I realize that I was born to have certain instincts and suppressed them to the point that I believed they weren't truly me. Eventually accepting that they were natural and organic simply let them speak for themselves only that it took a very long while for me to buy into it.

Accepting our nature necessitates removing preconceived ideas of what a man or woman are supposed to do. Otherwise we fall into stereotypes which can be tempting. When we live for the occasional outing we want to fit all the femininity we can when we get the chance. Wearing a skirt and heels used to be almost mandatory whereas today it depends on what I am doing.

The work of a transgender person is overwhelmingly mental and the physical trappings which sell our gender presentation to the world become secondary. The more entrenched in identity we become, the more they lose importance.

Ultimately people believe in who we are because we do.

Succinct

I try to be succinct with my thoughts. Brevity allows me to get to the grain and I prefer that my stream of consciousness reflection be a bit fleshed out before. Posts are for me impressions or sketches and not full blown reports.

On another note I think about how we are almost never satisfied where we are at the moment. The human spirit seems to be always unsettled and trying to bridge the gap towards some desired state. Living this way it seems we are always bound to be less than content.

If happiness doesn't exist, what does is resignation regarding some human baseline that we can accept as the best we can do. It appears that the more choice we are given the more we are apt to be dissatisfied. Maybe it is the effect of embarrassment of riches that perturbs. We want more money but when we get it we worry about how to keep it.

We have no solution.