I think I'll end things here

I think I'll end things here. 

For quite some time now, writing became a daily habit and not a need. In 2012, when I first dipped my toe into the public online sphere, it was essential that I wrote about a lifelong dilemma I didn't know how to adequately grapple with. 

Today, at 62, I understand myself and the world much better than I ever have but even then no life is perfect. The world I was born into in 1962 was a very different place and yet the core motivations of people have stayed exactly the same because those fundamental human yearnings never change. 

To become your authentic self you need to stop being constantly afraid and carefully examine what holds you back and why. You need to question ideas about yourself that you accepted as gospel truth and allow for a forging of new paths which eschew complacency. 

Saying "this is just the way my life is" is not going to help us grow nor is sticking with the herd because we are afraid of being singled out. We don't mature fully while cowering in fear. 

Taking your own path is certainly not the easiest road but it is ultimately always the most fulfilling.

Goals

Everyone wants to be both understood and loved for who they are; not necessarily warts and all. 

I spoke to my son today and he read me a passage from his personal journal which impressed me as it was so well written. It was the same type of angst many of us have when we don't feel we quite fit in and want to get to a better place. 

Whether we are autistic or gender dysphoric or have some other aspect of ourselves that requires effort, we all have the same basic goals underneath it all. 

We want to truly live instead of just exist.

I'm not buying

I'm too old to get fooled. 

The host of the Metaphor of Gender Channel is a Blanchard disciple and critical who is trying to remake her image by painting a softer and kinder version of her ideas. 

Fortunately I did my homework and saw her appearances on toxic channels where the same old poison was being peddled. 

Where I agree with her is that not everyone should or needs to medically transition and that much thought needs to be put into this type of decision. Where we disagree is in painting transgender people as creatures of dysfunction who need to be saved from themselves. 

Which is to say, that doesn't mean that no one should transition. 

Gender critical philosophy is about transgender people as predatory inconvenience to society and the place of women being usurped (they have less trouble with transgender men of course). Helen Joyce is the archetypal critical. 

Thankfully the traffic to the channel is tiny and she isn't going to gain many converts. However if she does manage to convince some youth to think carefully before leaping then I suppose that's something.

The work never stops

Living life successfully is a learned experience. It doesn't come automatically because so much of what we are exposed to is unnecessary drivel except we do not know it at the time. 

We eventually learn to recognize what feeds into our essence and well-being and what detracts from it but often through harsh lessons which aren't wasted if we have emerged from them with deeper insight. 

Some people say they would like to go back to some part of their life and relive it with greater appreciation that they didn't possess at the time. I don't share that yearning but instead look back at my experiences as a road I needed to follow to get here which isn't perfection.

My father used to say that life begins at 40 and he was correct. By then you have developed some skills and some basic defenses which get you through the rest. 

The work never stopping until our time here is done.

How to respond to societal collapse

Morality is not a buffet

Touche....

Careful with using only one paintbrush

Because gender dysphoria cannot be perfectly decoupled from sexuality things can become confusing when faced with life strategies to deal with the incongruence. 

Sexuality can be a driver but also form part of a larger portrait which is why we need to tread carefully when considering what to do. The reality is that since all human beings have a sexual component to them, we cannot analyze ourselves in isolation from it. 

People who have tried to turn gender variance into pathology (like Blanchard) used a single paintbrush approach which ended up making their theorizing convoluted since outcomes were not consistent with their postulating. Some people were quite happily transitioned because they had resolved a disconnect while others sometimes mistook a sexual motivation for a need to transition and then later faced regret. 

This is why getting to the underlying root of our dysphoria becomes pivotal. If the gender disconnect existed well before puberty and persists without interruption until it is treated, this type of person will have a better outcome with some form of transition. 

However, if there is no history of dysphoria to speak of prior to establishing a pattern of cross gender expression, then this person is more likely to regret some form of medical intervention.

This is one of the reasons for us to avoid self-labeling until we understand ourselves better.

World press photo of the year

The portrait, taken by Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf for the New York Times, shows nine-year-old Mahmoud Ajjour, who lost both arms in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in March 2024.

Abu Elouf, who was evacuated from Gaza in late 2023, lives in the same apartment complex as Mahmoud in Doha, Qatar.

The 25th

Illinois governor Jay Pritzker says it's time for the 25th amendment and he is right. If Brazil's former president Bolsonaro got 27 years in prison for organizing a coup, Trump was instead rewarded with a 2nd term in his own country which has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

Next year will mark 250 years since the American Republic was established and the man who is easily the worst and most frighteningly stupid person to ever lead the country, has no business being there because he is a national embarrassment. 

When the founding fathers set up their republic they arranged for an electoral college because they feared the general public couldn't be trusted to vote intelligently and they weren't wrong but then when your nation is in the right place there are usually enough voters to counter balance the clueless. 

Even as bad as things currently are in America, only a plurality and not a majority took a risk on Trump whose poll numbers are in the basement for good reason.

40% of people don't have 500 dollars to spare for an emergency which, for the supposedly richest country in the world, is a seriously fucked up statistic.

Maybe that should be a priority for another president who isn't a malevolent dipshit.

20 years go

Twenty years ago (or more) the people most likely to transition were those whose dysphoria was impeding their quality of life. They couldn't wait for social norms to change and opted for stealth transitions (as much as was possible) which then gave them a shot at a somewhat normal existence. Most often these people were androphilic (man loving). 

The model that Harry Benjamin built was a snapshot in time which captured how much a person could avoid or succumb to transition. At the low end of his scale were people more apt to enjoy cross gender expression (whether sexually-motivated or otherwise). 

Fast forward to the 80's and 90's and some of the social parameters had changed but not by much as gender variance was still frowned upon despite being fodder for daytime television entertainment. 

It wasn't until well into the 2000's that sufficient exposure of this issue to the public produced a sensitive response to the subject matter. 

Thus transition has gone from last resort to viable option which is why there is so much confusion regarding what one should do as well as what people should call themselves.

Shiny objects

Life involves a constant series of mental adjustments which are increasingly required as we age. We slowly come to understand the way the world operates and our place within it. The irrationality we face daily must be put into perspective if we are to retain stability and a sense of meaning. 

In some ways being young shields us because a sense of mystery about the world's machinations keeps away disillusionment which comes later; a time where we are less likely to be distracted by shiny objects. 

However, many people, irrespective of their age, navigate life by avoiding introspection and look for the next event or purchase to bring them what eludes them.