Musings of the Morgie

The Age of the Feminist is Over

2011-06-09T14:57:00.002-05:00

(X-Posted at my Mangabullet.)

Many people who know me know that I'm not a huge fan of feminism. While I believe that feminism helped to usher in a lot of great advancements, such as women's rights to vote, to work, etc, I believe that a lot of harm comes from continuing to support pure feminism in our day and age.

First off, the very core idea of feminism is to promote equality for women. Inadvertently, this very idea promotes inequality. By repeatedly stressing the idea that "Women should be treated as equals," it is promoting the idea that women are lesser and need to be raised to a level equal to that of men. There is no masculinism. Why? Because society admits that women are the ones who need to fight for their rights, not men. True as it may be that women still do face a lot of unfairness in society and the workplace, we need to get away from the idea that this is because women are different or unequal to men.

Promoting feminism has a gravely harmful effect, as it teaches that things which are considered "feminine", such as dresses, makeup, mothering, emotion, etc., are innately lesser than "masculine" things, such as making money, wearing trousers, being emotionally closed-off, etc. If a woman cries, she is considered weak. If a woman dresses in a feminine fashion, she may be considered beautiful, but she is often also considered a sexual object, not a capable woman who can be taken seriously. If a woman chooses to be a stay-at-home housewife, she is shunned by other women, who often insist that she is "proving the men right", or giving in to inequality.

Feminism actually promoted these things, albeit not intentionally. The idea of feminine as less than masculine is so pervasive in our society that it influences the way we think of equality. It is that idea which needs to be changed. Our mindsets are still unequal.

Some food for thought: Why did women fight to wear trousers and suits and ties for so many years, but men haven't fought for the right to wear dresses? Why is it that women fight for equal pay and positions in employment, but there's barely an outcry for the right of men to stay at home caring for their children? Why do we fight so hard to be stoic, cold and unemotional, while nobody fights for the healthy expression of our emotions?

The thing that feminism has failed to see is that there is oppression on both sides, but we shun one, and fight for the right to have another. Women were forced to stay at home and take care of the children, and make dinner for their men. At the same time, the men were forced to go out and make money to support their families, oftentimes even in dangerous conditions. Women were forced to wear dresses at all times or be considered "improper". Why is that men who wear dresses are still considered disgusting to this day, when neither trousers nor dresses are innately gendered, and both are just pieces of cloth? Why is shedding a tear considered weak, but being able to kill a man considered strong?

These are the questions that society needs to be asking.

It's the men's turn to stand up and fight. Fight to wear whatever the hell you want. Fight to be able to show your emotions freely. Shun the idea that money and possessions are everything. Fight for the right to love, instead of the right to own. Fight until the feminine is no longer considered weak, and then keep fighting until all these things aren't considered feminine or masculine anymore, but simply HUMAN.

Women, your work isn't done either. Fight against shame. Fight to be able to be sexual if you want, and not be called a whore. Fight so that your breasts aren't considered any more vulgar than a man's. Fight for the right to choose family over money if you want. Fight for the right to cry if you're sad. At the same time, keep fighting to work if that's what you want to do. Fight to be able to wear ties if you like them and not be considered a woman dressing in a man's clothing.

And to both, fight so that you can be the truest you, without regards to how you're "supposed to" dress, or act, or feel. Question any time people say you should be ashamed. Act in regards to your rights as a human to choose your own path. Act in regards to what you believe is the truest way to better your world and help your fellow human. Stand up whenever you see someone promoting the gender divide.

Don't act in feminism, or even masculinism. Act in humanism.

And just be yourself.

A Short Rant About Global Warming

2010-12-06T05:11:00.000-06:00

Checking Twitter, I checked up on Professor Brian Cox's Tweets. What I found was Brian (Dr. Cox? What's the proper name to use here?) posting a couple links to articles which berate him over having disagreed with a programme against the validity of global warming. (Consequently, my opinion over the articles is that they were just passionately disagreeing with him over having passionately disagreed with someone they appear to agree with. In other words, it sounded like they were whining.)

I could go into a lot of detail over my feelings on the articles, Brian Cox's lecture that spurred the article, and the programme that spurred the part of the lecture that ruffled so many feathers. Instead, I'm just going to give my two cents on the issue at the core: Global warming.

I'm going to be honest: I don't know who's right. I've not studied the science, so I can't make an informed conclusion. However, I have an opinion on the matter, which doesn't have all that much basis on who is right from a scientific basis.

From where I stand, my view on global warming basically just determines the choices I as an individual make during my daily life. If I think global warming is a bunch of bollocks, then what does it matter if I recycle or not, use renewable resources or not? What does it matter how big my carbon footprint is? But if I agree with the idea of global warming, then I need to make Green choices. I need to do what I can to make the world a cleaner place and do what I can to prevent myself from being a contributor to the problem.

So here's the clincher: One of these choices could potentially destroy the world. The other one might just inconvenience me a bit, and will cause me to make choices that affect issues that go beyond "Is the world heating up like a giant greenhouse?" From my standpoint, then, the choice is obvious. Recycling and supporting renewable, clean energy isn't going to do anything to hurt the world. It can only help. From my viewpoint, the only reason to discount that global warming might be a possibility is for selfish interests.

I support the theory of global warming. If I'm wrong, then what harm have I done? I've been proven wrong? I've prevented a bit of pollution and smog? Cleaning up our world is a positive endeavour, regardless of your position on the issue. But if we all discount global warming and continue on as we have been, what's the risk?

There's a world at stake. A little bit of worry over the state of that world, and a bit of inconvenience aren't that big of a sacrifice to make.

Yet ANOTHER Life Rant

2010-10-03T12:52:00.001-05:00

Do you ever have those days where everything hits you in the face at once?

I'm having one of those days.

As it often goes, I just woke up from a dream. I dreamt about starting this coming quarter's Animation Portfolio Preparation class, and about animating a walk cycle. I woke up to my mind working out all the obvious implications of this dream.

I have two quarters left in school. However, these quarters are the most terrifying for any student at my school, because the most important classes (Portfolio Prep and Portfolio) have stifling failure rates, which are up in the 80-90% rate. We've had quarters where nobody passes portfolio. It's more than a bit intimidating.

Add to that the bigger issue: I don't have the money to fail. I fail one of these classes, and there's nothing I can do for my financial aid. I have 4 classes left. I have to take 2 each quarter to sustain any financial aid at all. If I fail one, I have no buffer. I will have to pay out of pocket, and I and my whole family are in debt right now, working our ways out of it.

If I fail, I'm probably not going to graduate. If I don't graduate, then I'm out of school without a degree, without a path. And that means I have nothing to show for, nothing to fall back on, when the tens of thousands of dollars in loan debt come crashing down around me.

I have a distinct problem, which has plagued me since I was a kid, and it's a big one: I have a lot of raw talent, but I lack the motivation to be as good as I know I could be. I should be a better artist than I am now, a better writer. A better animator. I have it in me. But do I have the patience? Do I have the drive?

Talent means nothing without the motivation to back it up. You can be an amazing writer, but what does it mean if you never finish a book? You can be an amazing artist, but if you never draw, your talent withers, while others with less raw skill pass you up, simply by force of a stronger will.

I have a tendency to get frustrated and give up if things don't come easy. I spent a lot of my life believing the whispered lies of the people around me: "patient", "hardworking". Things that are true only on the surface. That look true, until you take a deeper look.

I've lamented myself for a while now. Basked a bit in my own self-pity. "How have I become so lazy?"

I haven't. I've always been like this.

I'm hardworking, in bursts. Times when I need to crack down, and I'll spend sleepless nights, catching up to deadlines, pushing myself through. The times when I can't quit. But the rest of the time, I am lazy. Even with things I should enjoy, if they take longer than some impatient internal clock of mine thinks they should, or if I have trouble, I give up. Again, on the outside, it doesn't look like giving up, because I mutter the fatal words, "I'll do it later." But it's an illusion. Most of the time, it's giving up. It's giving up for newer, fresher, easier things.

I've not become lazy. It's just become more obvious, when I've lost the ability to coast through life, looking like I practice endlessly or study for ages, simply because I'm naturally pretty darned good at things. It's blatant now just how lazy I am, when reality hangs over me, forcing me to see the truth. Being pretty darned good isn't good enough anymore.

My friends can see it. It's embarrassing, too, and I'm ashamed of myself. I have a story called Twisted Religion, which has become kind of the bane of my existence lately. It's a fan fiction that clocks in at just over 100 pages at the moment, which has taken me years to get to where it is now. It's not finished. But something I've known for most of that time, albeit subconsciously, is that it's not the bane because it's a hard story, it's not the bane because I don't have time to do it. I've had years.

It's the bane of my existence because what it shows of me is a picture of me, stripped of the masks of a hardworking, patient person. It shows me bare, because I can't finish one little story. I have trouble bringing myself to work on it for more than about a half-hour at a time.

The implications of this sink in, as well. I have a book I want to write, but the inner priorities list in my head clicks in. I have Twisted Religion. I have another story, called The Mannequin Garden, which has had an unfinished chapter sitting on my computer for longer than TR. I have Parallel Threes, which will never be finished, but which needs to have a summary written up and posted, so that the people who watched the story before it, and who are waiting for a new chapter of it at least know what was supposed to happen.

But if I can't finish these, I'll never finish my book. Point blank.

It's a hard truth to bear. Talent is easily fixed, by a person with drive. All anything takes is practice. But to fix a person without drive, well…

Honestly, I don't know how.

But it comes down to a few things. If I don't fix it, and soon--if I don't learn how to get past this, right now--then I fail my portfolio classes and don't graduate, and the story I've been planning since I was 12 never makes it out of my head. I'll probably be stuck in a dead-end job, all of my raw talent and my mind, wasted.

I have no doubt of my abilities as a writer, as an artist, as an animator, as anything. I have no doubt about my mind. But I don't trust myself for the simplest and most important thing of all: Of just stepping up and doing what needs to be done. I'm too lazy, perhaps too cowardly.

I've liked to believe that I'm like Mello, but his primary defining trait is his ability to act on his impulses. It's the trait of all real-life heroes, too. They're the ones who said, "It doesn't matter. It has to be done."

I want to be like that. I think that's the reason I like to RP as Mello so much.

I know this isn't something anyone can help me with. I know what the problem is, I know why it's there. But it's so, so hard to fix a lack of drive, when you don't have the drive to fix it.

For the next two quarters, I need to live and breathe animating. I need to be hard on myself, not let myself quit. I need to ask for help from people who are better than I am. I don't know if I can do it. My instinct is to curl up in my hidey-hole and do what I've been doing, which is basically sticking my head in the sand and not really getting much of anything done at all.

I'm sick of it.

I'm hoping being sick of it's enough to make a change.

I do have a plan, but as my plans tend to go, I'm not sure if it'll work, or fall through like usual. To make my animating better, I need to not only practice on the computer, but with 2D drawing, as well. I need to observe people and force myself to draw. Seeing the way people move will help with animating. Plus, if my drawing skills improve, I'll also be better at 2D animation, which means I'll have twice as much to fall back on when I get out of here. I need the most impressive portfolio I can put together in two quarters, which means that I'm going to be working hard, almost every day, for the next 6 months.

I'm trying to decide if I need to get a job or not. I'm thinking commissions would be the way to go, because it'd be extra practice. If I can get any money at all, while also getting practice in, it'll be worth it.

More Self-discovery

2010-08-20T15:13:00.004-05:00

As it goes, I'm documenting some of my personal progress. If that's not what you want to read, then you can safely skip this one.

On the other hand, the nice thing about human discovery is that it's very rarely applicable to only one person. I've talked to a lot of people about how I've had little motivation and will-power, and it's a common problem. Maybe someone else can find something that will help them in here.

First off, to wherever in the aether he may be, I have to thank Father Anthony de Mello. I think that it is in part because of his teachings that I've come across these epiphanies. I think the thing that makes having discovered him so important is that he reaffirms some thing I already knew, but which I'd never let come to the forefront of my mind.

Those who know me have probably heard it multiple times. I'm tired, I'm apathetic, and I can't get myself to do what needs to be done. This has become a panic point for me for multiple obvious reasons, not least of which that I, for one, am about to graduate and I need to get my shit in gear, and, for another, that I've never thought myself to be a lazy person. That's not the kind of person I want to be.

On asking others, I was given tips, hints, techniques. All of these invariably failed. Reading The Way to Love (Father de Mello's final manuscript), as repetitive as it may be (I swear, there was a section that was, word for word, in the book twice), pointed me in what I think is the right direction. I couldn't "Just do it". I couldn't put myself through rigorous schedules and lengthy to-do lists to break the habit. What I had to do was look at myself, and figure out WHY I was doing (or not doing) it.

For one, I've had a rant to a few people lately on the fact that, with my sister's help, I've realized that I literally never learned how to put in 100% effort. Mainly due to abysmally low educational standards as I was growing up, I estimate that about 95% of the time, I was putting in 50% effort or less, and getting "A"s. Only on rare occasions would I have to actually work to improve. I love learning, but I was bored. I wasn't challenged. And rather than creating challenge for myself, I learned to stagnate, and create excuses when I was expected to put in more effort than I had before. In reality, I realize, I'm not the one who's changed and grown apathetic. I've been this way most of my life, but the change was that I could get by, then, with only minimal effort, and now I can't.

The second, and interconnected part of this is that I'm afraid. Up until about 10 minutes ago when I had yet another small epiphany, I thought that the fear came when I came to this school, as a product of the fact that I did need to go that extra mile to be in the top group of students. I thought that I had blamed that on myself, on my own lack of abilities. I feared it meant that I just wasn't as good as I thought I was.

While this is all true, it goes back farther than that. I only generally bring it up to people I'm really close to, but I had a very nasty running experience in high school. I won't go into detail, but in short, I had a kind of stalker, someone who claimed love for me one moment, and then switched on a dime to claiming that I was the scum of the earth, and that I and everyone I held dear deserved horrible pain and death. While the threats to my life were scary, the thing that was truly disabling from that experience was the constant, pervasive assurance that I was worthless, that I was flawed, that I deserved everything I was getting. I realize now that I believed part of it. Somewhere between three to four years of that, and it'll get into your head.

The thing that suffered the most, I think, was my confidence in my abilities having to do with things that aren't concrete. Things like writing, my theatre life that I had at the time, singing, and now modeling and animating. Things that I can't do it, and like with math, be told, "That's perfect, move on." I grew unsure of my own capabilities, because I couldn't prove that I was doing well (There can always be a mistake), and I became afraid. I learned to doubt myself. I became afraid in high school, and it was compounded more and more as the years after went on, and I had to face myself, without a lot of the stability and protection of my younger years.

The reason it's compounded so heavily recently is that it's hit a point in my life where I've run out of concrete endeavors. I don't have general education classes where I can do the work, and it's right, and I get an A. All of my classes, all of my hobbies, all of the things I'm learning slowly to do in my daily life are abstract, subjective, indefinable things. I lost a part of my stability, and my foundation crumbled with me on top of it.

Realizing that this was all at the crux of my problem hasn't disheartened me. In fact, quite the opposite. Two nights ago, I had a moment of perfect and refreshing clarity. I had this moment of, "Wait a second. This is stupid. You're trying to fight your fear of laziness and failure by not trying?" And I realized it was all a fast and downward spiral.

In response, I already feel more energized, more inspired. Still, there's a niggling thought in the back of my head that this kind of thing never lasts, but I'm doing my best not to listen. It'll last this time, and even if it doesn't or I have a hiccup, I just have to reassure, get my bearings, try again. Any progress is better than no progress. Just like with my language studies. I don't study every day, but I haven't given up completely. I have days where I don't, and days where I do, and every day I do, I keep learning and getting more used to doing the work. Just don't give up.

It isn't just schoolwork these niggling thoughts have affected. It's everything, from getting up in the morning, to working on my art and writing, to the "more important" things like doing my homework and job searching. This brings up another point: What's really important in my life?

Another portion of my problem is that I've listened too much to suggestions on how I should arrange my priorities. Too often, I'm caught up in the circling thought of "I don't have enough time". This thought then leads into a common train, which goes something like this:

1.) There are things I want to do other than schoolwork and job hunting. But everyone says schoolwork and job hunting are more important.
2.) Schoolwork and job hunting take up a lot of time, which leaves me no time to do what I want to do. This depresses me.
3.) I begin to MAKE time to do the things I want to do, a bit angrily, putting off my schoolwork and job hunting. I view schoolwork and job hunting as burdens, even if they are in themselves rewarding endeavours, and even if the schoolwork is things I actually enjoy. They take away time from my personal projects. Thus, they are evil.
4.) I go to do the things I want to do. I then feel guilt about doing these things rather than doing the "more important" schoolwork and job hunting, so I lose my focus and end up trying to do schoolwork instead, while still being angry at said schoolwork for keeping me from doing the things I want to do.
5.) I end up not doing anything at all.

This, needless to say, is a bit of a problem. For one, I've come to terms with the fact that I need to do things I enjoy, even if it means I'm not constantly doing schoolwork and job hunting, and that guilt about enjoying myself needs to go the fuck away. It's important to me, and everyone else can bite me. This, however, doesn't mean that I'm going to let my schoolwork suffer and that I'm going to put off job hunting forever. However, at my current stage, I'm already procrastinating until the last minute. How much worse can it get, save for not doing it altogether? I figure, if I'm getting anything done, it's an improvement.

This is especially pertinent of an issue with one of my stories, Twisted Religion. TR is a fanfic, meaning I get no profit from it other than my own enjoyment, and the enjoyment it gives to my readers. As a result, TR has been, time and time again, pushed down to the very bottom of my priority list, and as a result hasn't been touched much in about 2 years.

The story absolutely haunts me. I want, desperately, to finish it. Yet, working on it in the past generated a tremendous amount of guilt, because I subconsciously equated it with procrastination on the things that everyone else considered the important things in my life. No more. That story is now pushed very far up my priority list, and the visible payoff is tremendous. I'll finish it. It'll be done, and I can move on in my life. And if it means I keep procrastinating a bit until I finish, so be it. It can't be any worse than I'm doing now, because I'm already at rock-bottom. At least I'll be getting something done, even if it's not what everyone else things is important. I think it's important. THAT is what matters.

With TR itself, I've also encountered another priority-related standstill. There are parts of the story that I'm horribly unhappy with. The idea, when I set out to write it, was to create something truly special, that I could be really proud of. The main character, Mello (Not to be confused with Father de Mello...I know it's kind of ironic), is a special character to me, and the story is in itself an homage to what the character has done in my life. I want it to be good, and I don't want to settle for a half-assed job. Because of this, my instinct has been to go back and edit the story, but I keep getting told that I should finish it first, then edit it later, or even that I shouldn't be so OCD about the story in the first place, and just settle for what I have.

I'm not doing that anymore. I could write out the chain of thoughts related to this single story, and they would look remarkably similar to the Work vs. Play argument I described above. I feel guilt over doing what I feel is important, because it doesn't match the priorities of the people around me, and so I wind up not doing anything. It's not just OCD making me want to edit. It's that I see flaws in the story and the writing itself, and that I know I could do better. I've now started back at the beginning, analyzing every line and putting out a version of the first chapter that's up to my own standards. I'm going to finally start to put in 100%, and I'm starting with this story. And when I finish it, and I've created something special to me that I can be proud of, that'll be the first major milestone in this new stage of my life.

After that, I think the rest will follow easily.

A Small Science Rant

2010-08-01T14:19:00.002-05:00

I've been watching the UK science funding debates through Prof. Brian Cox, after having discovered him on Wonders of the Solar System. After reading a few articles on the subject today, I thought I'd throw in my two cents:

This, first off, is not something that applies only to the United Kingdom, but here in the United States as well, and indeed in the world as a whole.

Research of fundamental sciences, particularly particle physics, is immensely necessary and important to our growth as a species. Concentrated short-term developments will only, as the name implies, get us so far, for so long. You can find the cure for cancer or AIDS, but there will always be another sickness that needs healing. You can find a better fuel, but there will still be damage in our world that needs to be repaired. And while these are important endeavours, surely, they should be working closely WITH scientific research, not fighting with it for funding.

Firstly, I am baffled at those people who are unable to see the importance of discovering the building blocks of our world. Simply put, the more we know about our world, the more we can do FOR our world. It is the study of the microscopic which allowed us to realize that it is carbon dioxide emissions that are destroying our ozone. It is the study of the microscopic that showed us, so long ago, that it was near-to-invisible viruses, bacteria, and out-of-control cells that are what make us sick, rather than the once-believed demonic forces. How is it, then, such a difficult leap from that to the realization that the very cures and fixes we're searching for may lie WITHIN the research of the even smaller components of our environment?

What baffles me even further is the simple fact that there are people so willing to discount the search for knowledge of any kind. Frankly, there is no telling what good will come from the gaining of knowledge. How can we know what insights we might make and inventions we may create, if we refuse to spare the money and the time to find out?

Those who hold the opposing view say things like, "Well, if we die out before we find the fix, then what's the point of knowledge?" What I don't get, personally, is why the money should come out of the funds for research, rather than, say, things that actually AREN'T important. To me, this looks like simple greed. How many people trying to remove research funding are working on buying another private jet or island home? How many CEOs or celebrities are getting another hundred million dollar or pound check today? How many people out there could single-handedly fund a bit of research toward the cure for cancer? And while the rich spend their money on excesses, they also widen their own carbon footprints, bringing us closer and closer to the end that they so fear.

Admittedly, I have to admit that I say this while giving my support to Dr. Cox, who is in the process of filming a highly expensive and travel-intensive sequel to Wonders. Perhaps that's hypocritical of me, but at the same time, were it not for the money spent on the first series, I would not today know about the Large Hadron Collider, would not know about the science funding battles, would not have taken the time to research and learn as I have. It's a two-sided argument. What is the real worth of the money spent? How many out there have learned or been inspired to learn because of the time and money spent making Wonders such a pleasure to watch? So, in the same vein, I counter the arguments from those who criticize Dr. Cox for becoming a celebrity in his own right with my own argument that if someone deserves celebrity status, it's the kind of person who will raise awareness and who will teach and inspire others to do their own parts in helping make the world a better place. We need more celebrity scientists, if you ask me. I'd rather keep up with the latest news from the LHC than the latest tit-slips and multi-million weddings/divorces.

I also add a counter to an argument made that research causes people who "should be" working on "important things" like the cure for cancer to be "distracted" with things like particle physics. As an extra counter to both this and the argument that there should also not be money spent on things like science documentaries, I say that the more money spent on science (on doing it, and on teaching it, and the more people who tirelessly and enthusiastically work on what they believe in, the more new people will discover science for themselves, and the more people there will be working toward fixing our world.

I close with another argument that I see as common sense. So many people complain about the cost of projects like the Large Hadron Collider, and even now seem to wish to strip the money from it and similar endeavours. Firstly, the money for these projects is spread out over a long period of time and from the hands of many people, from many countries, and thus does not immediately tax the economy. Secondly, stopping projects that are already started is a FAR larger waste.

All-in-all, it seems like complete and utter bull that this argument is happening at all, particularly amongst people who are supposed to be smarter than this.

sighs Prejudice is Sickening

2010-03-29T00:45:00.008-05:00

I keep trying to post a comment Here, but I can't get it to go through, probably because it's too long. Here's my comment in its entirety, and some afterthoughts. Read the article first, obviously. It's quite sickening, and the comments are worse.

This is a perfect example of reverse-prejudice. A group who has been repressed and hated grows to be the one bearing the hate, even generations later. Dark thoughts run deep.

What I don't understand about this is why there's such a hatred here against something that brings the races together. I am not saying that blacks don't deserve to resent the men who put their people into slavery. I'm not saying that many white people weren't at fault. But the problem here is blaming groups of people, rather than blaming greed and misguided ideas.

I am more than anything worried about the fact that she tries to defend her position as not being prejudiced. She's apparently blind to her own ingrained bias, and rather than trying to correct it, is trying to give it excuse. She cites her religion and her upbringing as reasons why she can't possibly be having racist thoughts, which are in themselves not credible reasons. I worry much more when people try to defend wrong ideas, than when they simply have those ideas.

The feelings she's expressing not only are full of prejudice, but also full of resentment from past hurt against her ex who left her (Basically, "I'm alone with a kid, while a bunch of black men are dating white women instead of me.") Also, the idea that it is a betrayal for black men to date white women not only shows the obvious prejudice, but also has the frighteningly common and unintentional purpose of reinforcing the very ideas she's fighting against. She sees herself jealous of white women because they have in the past been considered more beautiful or more worthy, and the fact that she is so threatened shows that she still, deep down, believes herself inferior. If she had the esteem to consider herself equal (which she should, and would if she were not so worried about racial barriers, and worried more about making herself a good woman), the white woman would not be a threat. There would be nothing to threaten.

I am also appalled at many of the comments. Many of them are just as, if not more insulting than the original post.

What I hope for Jill Scott is no kind of angry retribution, but for her to realise that her thoughts are not only prejudiced, but that they're hurting herself more than the people she so fears. There is no reason to be afraid of love, in any of its forms, and racism from both directions will only persist until people stop pointing fingers and start destroying the old ideas that hold us ALL down, no matter our race.

Past this comment, I feel I must bring up something I have seen happen time and time again that is just as worrying. It is evidenced here, and in many parts of society.

There is a tendency for the once-oppressed to use their oppression as an excuse.

It becomes both an excuse to hate, and a means to try and glean some retribution or payment from the group that was once largely the oppressor. Probably most frightening to me are those who crucify their own for standing up for themselves, for being "too white". When did "white" become synonymous with "educated" or "wealthy"? It's ridiculous! Blacks are just as smart, just as capable as whites, and so many are holding themselves down, because they have the very human flaw of not really wanting things to change, if they can use the old ways to make things easier on themselves. This is not merely a black problem, however. Sadly, those who are unbiased and those who are working to right things for themselves are too often overshadowed by those who ride the coattails of their ancestors' plight. It is a sad ordeal when people fuel their own misguided stereotypes.

I find it the most offensive for people to hang onto their old hurt and use it to make their lives easier, rather than truly better. I feel that the ancestors that they are so supposedly trying to defend here would be ashamed. How horrible is it that those enslaved by other men had more pride, showed their intelligence and capability more than those today who enslave themselves?

It is so easy to blame. it is so easy to say, "You hurt me. You owe me." It is not so easy to do as the true activists did and teach people--sometimes including your own people--that they're wrong.

(The idea of deconstructing ideas rather than going against people is an idea I'm also going to go over in my next gender/sexuality blog.)

Have a Father de Mello quote: "Most people tell you they want to get out of kindergarten, but don't believe them. Don't believe them! All they want you to do is to mend their broken toys. 'Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money. Give me back my reputation, my success.' This is what they want; they want their toys replaced. That's all. Even the best psychologist will tell you that, that people don't really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is painful."

Religion vs. Spirituality

2010-03-25T15:48:00.007-05:00

During a call home to my mother, I found myself discussing, as I occasionally do, the ideas of spirituality. There may be some crossover between this and some of my other rants, but I thought I would get some things down.

I have, before, been asked why it is I do not prescribe to any particular religion. I have been criticized for this on multiple occasions, and likewise, I have attempted on occasion to start going to church, even once so far (quite on my own, without any prompting from my family) attending church weekly for a period of a few months, almost to the point of being Baptized.

The reason I stopped attending church regularly can be seen, possibly, as childish. They said things I didn't like. They told me that gays and other religions were going to Hell, and that both groups needed to be reformed. With a sister who had recently come out of the closet, and friends of many different faiths, I for a time grew cynical toward religion. I felt betrayed.

I admittedly still retain some of that cynicism. However, it's changed over the years. I occasionally do still randomly go to church (Though it's been a couple of years since the last time I did; having no car has a lot to do with that.) and I believe that religion has a lot to offer.

There are a lot of things to be learned from religion, but I still choose not to prescribe to any singular faith. I much prefer to keep to faith as a concept, rather than a group.

The tattoo on the inside of my ankle gives a clear hint as to why I feel the way I do. "I believe in Something," it reads. Not in God, or Allah, or Yahweh, or Jehovah, or any other name that religions give whatever force drives our world. I simply believe that there Is. To me, the idea of prescribing to a religion is to take on someone else's ideas. To believe in any one man delivering the truth of his deity (or deities) is to believe that any fellow sinner knows more than we do. How is it that a priest or a preacher or a shaman, etc. can know it all? Can the prophets? To communicate with us, even Christ had to become human. He lived like us, he suffered like us, he died like us. The difference between him and us is he Saw, and he was not afraid.

But even Christ was human, and thus flawed. Son of God or not (and aren't we all, if you read what the Bible says?) what remains is his Story. Like all of the people around us, Jesus was a character in our book of Life. That's not to say he wasn't a real person, but all we know of him is what has been written down, what has been retranslated, the image of him through others' eyes. This is the same of any prophet. All we have is someone's perception to go by. Who's to say that the authors of the Bible didn't miss something that was truly important? Who's to say that even those who were alive during the time of Christ or Muhammed or any other Prophet could see enough to speak the truth? A miracle may be a flashy turning of water to wine, but who's to say the true miracle couldn't have been something that would have made a less interesting story? I'm a firm believer in the idea that even spiritual scripts are concentrated too much on flashiness to catch the readers' eyes. They're good storytelling, with fascinating main characters. There's a reason the Bible is the world's bestselling book, and why there have been so many Blockbusters about it.

By not prescribing to any one religion, I admit that I am missing a lot of knowledge about religious doctrine. I've never read the Bible. I don't "know my stuff", by any means. But I also feel--fear, perhaps?--that were I to cling to any singular faith, that I would subscribe to it, both its positive aspects, and it's flaws that it gains from the simple fact of being a human invention.

I'm not going into my spiritual beliefs in this rant. I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that, like all religions do, I have embarked on a search for a Truth that I will never fully find, and that I have the philosopher's curse of often liking to brag when I think I'm onto something.

But I wanted to express the importance of faith and spirituality over religion. Whatever your beliefs, don't define yourself based on a label of "Christian", "Buddhist", or whatever religion you may be. Any person may agree with many things a religion says, but don't agree simply because you think that it must be right, because it is a religion, or because you are trying to get into some kind of heaven.

Remember, even within religion, are a lot of different minds, who each read their doctrines and dogma differently. Many wars have been started and many churches split because someone didn't agree. Many petty battles have begun because of people who feel that they understand God better than another person or another group. Religion can bring about many, many wonderful things, but it is this fact that makes it flawed. It is sinners thinking that they're saints. Even worse are those who profess beliefs and act in certain ways to be worshipped as God is, or to attain enlightenment or heaven. There is no one more selfish or corrupt as a person who uses God as a means to his or her own ends.

In the same way, I know a lot of people who disregard religion for all the wrong reasons. Many people from around high school age to my age in particular have labeled themselves "Atheist", because being religious is "uncool", or "illogical". Even worse are those who cease to allow themselves to believe altogether because they have been hurt by religion. How much it shows that one's beliefs aren't their own, when they can throw them away so easily.

Religion may not be my path, but that's not to say my path is right. It's merely my choice. But I urge everyone, in religion or out of it, to consider why you believe what you believe, and to realise that if your beliefs don't evolve over time, as you grow, then you're probably not questioning enough.

<3

Gender Stereotypes Rant

2010-03-03T20:36:00.004-06:00

Edit: Apologies for some of my immaturity in this rant, particularly during the first half. I had it brought to my attention that I let my emotions get the better of me, and that I made judgements in the opening that were too subjective and defensive. I'm not editing the content of the post, as I believe it is important that I leave up examples of where I've done things wrong, so that I may learn to avoid it in the future, when I will hopefully be studying this as a professional.

Hello, and welcome to another one of my rants. XD

Two things today prompted me to rant a bit. First off, I was talking to a fellow bigender today, and we briefly brought up the subject of gender stereotypes. Secondly, I was browsing Youtube, and found a Beyonce video entitled, "If I Were a Boy"

Video HERE

As those who know me would probably expect, the title intrigued me. I don't really care for Beyonce one way or the other (don't love her, don't hate her) but the beginning of the video had me surprised. She sang about what she would do if she were a boy. She said that she would know how to treat a woman, and swore that she would be a better man. In the background, as if to cement that this song was different, and wasn't another one of those, "You're a boy. You're a cheating bastard and you don't understand how we girls feel," it broke stereotypes by showing Beyonce, playing the part of a police officer (a stereotypically male job), cheating on her boyfriend with one of her coworkers. I thought to myself, YES!

And then it changed. Everything switched, and the boy was shown to be the one cheating. The lyrics changed from "If I were a boy" to "But you're just a boy."

Well, fuck. Way to fuck me up the ass, Beyonce, trick me into thinking you'd done something different, and then throw it all down the drain in an instant by turning it into another "Boys suck" song.

For once, I'd like to see a song that switched things around. Imagine, if you will:

She shows her man going off to work. From the moment he steps into the car with his partner, there's chemistry between them. Beyonce sings in the background about how she'd do it better if she were him. To everyone, it seems normal. It seems to be a song wishing that boys understood the plights of their female counterparts.

Then the switch hits. Suddenly, it's the boy who's the victim. Instead of blaming the cheating on his innate evil masculinity, you see that girls can be just as guilty. Instead of pleading for her man to be more faithful, she's pleading for herself to follow in the footsteps of the faithful boyfriend who waited at home for her. That, instead of her being the one to teach her man how it's done, she learns to "be a better man" because of him.

Now, before I go on, fact: Men ARE more likely to cheat than women. It's an evolutionary device to keep men "spreading their seed" to as many women as possible to continue the species, while women are less likely to cheat, because they have motherly instincts that make them more likely to form attachments, and seek out a guy who will care for their children.

This does not, however, mean that all guys are cheating asses, and all girls are faithful housewives. More and more, the line is being blurred between masculine and feminine. As we grow out of our primal evolutionary stages and develop as a species that forms relationships that go deeper than instinct, things change. You have women who go out and party for the sake of sex. You have men who stay at home to raise children.

So this brings up the real question: How many stereotypes are truths, and how many are merely cultural misgivings? How many of them are true for most and not all, and how many of them are beginning to lose their importance or their accuracy as time goes on?

When I first started studying gender, I set out to prove that men and women weren't different, except for a couple of body parts. I set to prove that all behavioural differences were borne from society. I held the view that gender stereotypes were nurture, rather than nature.

At that time, I identified (slightly inaccurately) as an androgyne. As I defined the word "androgyne" in this post, it means one who doesn't feel relation to one gender or the other, and rather one who lies somewhere in between. As an androgyne, gender stereotypes hold no power. You cease to be male or female.

However, one of the things that tipped me off about being a bigender (discussed in the previous article) rather than androgyne was that there were times I definitely "felt male" or "felt female". Though I tried to retain a sense of neutrality, and tried not to heed societal views of male and female, there was no way I could do it. After all, how can I "feel" male if the only difference is a penis, and a different balance of hormones?

What, essentially, makes a man, or makes a woman?

I come across this problem a lot, and it will probably be one of the largest obstacles I'll face in studying gender and sexuality. For instance, it came up when I first tried to make a GISD (Gender Identity Spectrum Diagram) for a friend of mine, and realised I didn't know how to judge how far she leaned each way, because I didn't know how to define what was masculine or feminine.

By biggest fear with this, like I had with the classifications, is to force a system that will, like is the case with our perceptions of gender now, that only works for a small percentage, but it accepted as the norm. Thus, I would rather make a simplified system based on a few common traits and that could evolve with society, than to make an overly-specific system to try and define a broad range of people.

I would thus prefer to define based on tendencies that can be backed up by science and evolution than to define based on cultural tendencies. Are there other things beside hormones and genitalia that are constant for all single-sex, cisgendered males and females? For example, are there natural body language actions that males do that females don't, perhaps BECAUSE of genitalia or hormones? Do people who cross gender borders also do these, subconsciously? Moreover, do these things actually cross over in transgendered, androgynous, bigendered, or intersex people?

The final question is this: What if there aren't any behavioural norms? What if the differences are merely physical? Then what is it that makes me bigendered, an androgynous person androgynous, a transgendered person transgendered, etc? Is there a physical difference between me and the women around me?

Any discussion here would be very much appreciated. (Also, if we discuss, would anyone mind if I collected the discussions and put them in their own blog entry?)

Productivity

2010-01-21T02:13:00.003-06:00

Being productive feels amazing!

I'm hoping that maybe, if I put up a reminder to myself that I actually ENJOY this stuff and this feeling, that I'll be more inclined to do it.

First of all, I actually watched a White House briefing, and the news. It got my brain going, instead of being a pile of mush all day.

Next, I actually organized some of my papers, which I've only been putting off for...a year, or two, or three. I not only felt good about myself for doing it, but I kind of enjoyed it. And I felt good looking and seeing things starting to come together. It's one of the best feelings in the world to have everything starting to make sense, instead of just being a piled jumble of nonsense and excess.

I've also worked out today, and thrown a sticky note on my desktop about a workout regimen that I'm hoping to keep to. I've downsized it a lot from old versions, but I've realised that if I get started, I often go above and beyond. But if I think to myself, "I only have to do a little to meet my goal," I'm more likely to do it in the first place, instead of looking and thinking, "I really don't want to do 100 situps right now."

So yeah, I probably sound hyper right now, because I am. I'm really enjoying this. I'm loving this feeling. I'm loving it so much. I feel so good about myself.

So yeah, I'm slightly dizzy, still. That never goes away, but I'm smiling, and I'm excited.

I just don't want to go to bed, and lose this drive.

Resolutions

2010-01-01T02:38:00.002-06:00

I'm revising my resolutions for 2010, and going to keep them revised as the year go on.

--Talk to my family about my Bigender. (Edit: Talked to my Mom, but not my sister yet.)
--Get organized and stay that way
--Get in shape
--Up my productivity again
----Become more involved in important issues, and become less apathetic. (This involves mainly actually knowing the news, and keeping involved in political issues and current events.)

Bigender Epiphany

2009-12-20T06:04:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since I posted. I haven't had much reason to post until now, or really the time to. Now, however, I'm on Christmas break, and so I have some time and energy again. With that time and energy comes a lot of looking inside myself, which has led me to an epiphany.

Warning: Because of gender identity's innate relation to how we experience the physical sensations of sex, there may be some sex talk in this post. On top of that, this is likely, as most of my rants tend to be, to be long as hell. For those who wish to read on, the discussion is behind the cut:

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I had a good bout of angst earlier. I've been doing a lot of thinking because of role-play, wondering why I relate to and are attracted to things I am. I've also been throwing myself into a lot of doubts because of these thoughts. My bigender isn't something I completely understand, and I doubt it will be for a very long time, if ever.

The problem I faced today is one that's been a long-standing issue: Why, unlike many gender dysphoric biological females, do I relate to feminine men, rather than trying to pass by becoming overly masculine? It's surely not effective. In fact, it's often very counter-productive, as the men I like and want to emulate tend to be the ones being mistaken for women, and thus I go around looking like my ideal man, and everyone around me's just seeing a rather flat-chested girl. It's frustrating, and it also brings up a lot of questions, the main being: Why do I want to be a man in the first place, if I'm just going to be mistaken for a girl all the time? Why don't I just settle for being a girl and skip the "middle man". (Haha, bad pun is bad.)

One especially pertinent issue facing me is that many, many people in fandom nowadays have had doubts about their gender identity because of the strange wave of girls writing from the perspective of or being fans of guys. Is it possible that I could just think that I'm bigender, because it's the "cool" thing to be? As this is the exact opposite of what I want to be (I get very angry when people take on labels that don't really fit them), this question proved to be very, very upsetting. It's a rational concern, though, and it's good to have doubts, because I don't want to be doing things for the wrong reasons.

However, when I look at myself, and I try and see a female, there's an automatic kneejerk reaction that's very difficult to place on the shoulders of a fad. The idea of just being a girl, cutting out that male aspect, is something that sets my stomach turning. While I never want to lose that female side of me, either (thus why I'm bigender, not transgender), the idea of losing my male side, while it logically should feel like freeing myself of an excess, troublesome burden, feels like supressing something vital.

To really understand my bigender, it's important to learn how I came about figuring it out. When I was little, I was actually a bit of a girly-girl. I enjoyed dolls. My favourite colours were pink and gold. I liked playing dress-up (Hell, I STILL like playing dress-up!). I tended to prefer playing by myself, using imagination games. On the other hand, however, I was never afraid of bugs. I loved to play in the mud. I didn't love sports--never have, never will--but I did, and do enjoy exploring outdoors. Most of all, I almost always related to male characters, even when I was little. I always played the boy in house. Even when I was little, I partook in a kind of roleplaying, imagining myself as characters--always male ones--from favourite shows and games.

However, the main confusion came when I actually started to be mistaken for a boy. I chopped all of my hair off a bit later in life (mainly very short in around 5th grade), started dressing more tomboyish, and to top it all off, hit puberty a bit late, and so got the ever-important boobs quite a bit later than some of my peers. For a good chunk of my life, I really, really just wanted to be a normal girl. This is the chunk that my family remembers, and the part of my life that my mother cited the time I first brought up the idea that my gender identity may be a bit toward the masculine side. After all, if I were a transsexual, I wouldn't have wanted to be a girl. I wouldn't have cried when people mistook me for a boy. But the problem comes with the fact that I'm not transsexual. I'm not all boy. There is a female side to me, and that makes it so much more complex to understand. (Hilariously, now that I have the boobs I wanted at that age, and I get mistaken for a boy much less often, I wish things would go back to how they were back then!)

Earlier today, I brought up how I first realised, consciously, that I may have some form of gender dysphoria. During high school, I really got into theatre. We had a lot more girls than boys, and for some reason that I assume is because I was probably subconsciously displaying my male side long before I really knew it was there (which could also account for the being mistaken for a boy when I was younger), I was more often than not cast in male roles, more than any other girl in the program. It was around that time when I shifted from being upset by this to learning to be proud of it. Holy shit, crossdressing was fun!

High school also marked my first real big crushes, and my first crush on someone of the wrong sexuality, specifically a gay boy. It was a particularly difficult situation, because he pointed out to me that, had he been straight, he "would have dated me in a heartbeat". I was devastated. However, the shock came when I realised that the thing that really bothered me wasn't that he wasn't straight. What REALLY bugged me was that I wasn't a boy! Wait, back up, I thought to myself. This isn't the normal reaction.

And so began my journey of discovery.

Theatre helped me to realise who I am, and in a similar note, RP--just another form of acting, really--is helping me to figure out the nuances. However, it also raises the aforementioned problems.

Those of you who know anything about my role-plays know that the character I play is a fellow bigender, but is a physical male. In my main RP, there's time-travel, which means that I have a lot of different versions of the same character that I play simultaneously, some of whom are in various stages of a physical shift to female. Oddly enough at first look, the ones shifting feminine are the ones I attach to.

But this doesn't seem right, does it? Isn't the point of RPing a male to experience what it's like to BE a male? Why do I get attached to the feminine ones? Why do I relate to them so strongly? Wouldn't that be a reaction more in standing with someone identifying as female? Wouldn't that be essentially "playing what I know", instead of playing what I WANT to be?

This has been the basis of my doubts lately, and of a lot of angst, particularly when it comes to arousal. When I'm playing the feminine characters, I'm more likely to lean feminine, to include how I react sexually. I tend to be more comfortable with my feminine parts, and more comfortable with the idea of regular vaginal stimulation. Strange, huh?

Finally, I've come to the realisation of why this is.

Leaning feminine tends to be a rather awkward experience for me. For a very long time, I puzzled over why this would be. Reasoning it out logically, you would think that feminine days would be an absolute relief. After all, oh my God, my mind actually matches my body! The conflict goes away! I fit! I'm normal!

So why is it so strange?

The problem comes in how important the masculine side of me is. In essence, when I lean female, my masculine side slips into the background and all but disappears. It's actually quite scary. Because my body is a female one, there is absolutely no physical indicator of my Animus. To the rest of the world, if I lean feminine, they're none the wiser. I'm a girl, being a girl, which is normal. But to me, leaning feminine almost feels like that part of me, which is very important to how I view myself, disappears. "He" becomes even harder to grasp. It's almost like temporarily losing sight of a chunk of my own identity. It's taking something that's already very feeble--that I have to work to keep alive and showing on the surface--and pushing it back, like taking a plant out of the sunlight. It hurts.

Granted, leaning masculine isn't easy, either. In fact, it's quite a pain in the ass. On those days, I can't stand my boobs, I angst over the fact that I will never have a cock, and I walk around looking at pretty much everyone around me going, "Do I look like a guy to this person? Please tell me I look like a guy to this person.....NO, PEOPLE, STOP CALLING ME SHE!" It's an episodic version of the rather painful experience transsexuals go through every day.

I know very well that I someday wish to have chest reconstruction. Having a masculine part of my body will take away the problem of not being able to grasp my Animus. It will become physical, real. I'll be able to touch it, to show it off, to say, "look, a part of me is truly, physically, undoubtedly male." It will exist to the world OUTSIDE my head, and God, do I want that. But chest reconstruction is EXPENSIVE, more expensive than I can afford, and moreso than I probably will be able to afford for a very, very long time.

So, how do I balance things out? How do I keep the feminine side without destroying the frail masculine, and how do I express the masculine without it coming in conflict with my inherently feminine body?

In come the feminine men of RP. Here's the perfect fantasy: I'm a man. That part of me is alive, it's real, it's natural. That part of me which is so strong in my identity exists, not just as a wish that I won't have for years to come, but as what I was born with. In this fantasy, I reverse everything in my head. The masculine is brought to the forefront, and the feminine is something that has to be worked for. I am a man, who wants a female body, and lo and behold, look at this! I look down, and suddenly I see myself--can imagine myself so clearly, so lucidly, as the man I feel like inside, with the feminine body that man in me wants. Perfection. I'm a man, but I feel blessed to be in a woman's body. It works, for the exact same reason that it's so confusing. It's both brilliantly logical, and blatantly circular and flawed all at once.

The way I realised this is probably classified as too-much-information: I noticed it, analyzing my fantasies related to the feminine characters. I never act as a biological woman in sexual fantasies. I am ALWAYS a man, who's getting to experience what it's like to BE a woman. The fantasies are sexy because I never stop being a man, and yet the body I'm working with in real life still matches the one in the fantasy. Suddenly, I can think of myself AS a man, but there's none of the confusion of imagining parts that aren't there, and being disappointed.

It's a strange coping mechanism, but miraculously, it works quite well. It's obviously not a permanent solution, but for now, it keeps the inner conflict from tearing me apart, and that's what's important. It's also amazingly freeing to finally understand this part of why I feel the way I do, and to know that I'm not just another trans-hypochondriac or something. XD

In essence, my gender identity looks something like this: I am a man, with a strong feminine side. Mentally, the male side is more dominant, to balance out the fact that it's so much weaker in the physical. My female side, experienced directly, takes over the male completely, almost snuffing it out. To experience my female side without destroying the elusive male, I experience it THROUGH my masculine side, by identifying as a feminine man. :D

And suddenly, when I put it that way, it all makes sense.

(If you got this far, thanks for reading, and I hope I didn't make your brain explode. <3)

Weekend To-Do List

2009-12-05T19:15:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I'm already behind due to a few various important distractions, but my to-do-list for this weekend includes:

--Send new voice clips for approval
--Storyboard for my short skit
--Finish the damned textures for Environmental Design that I should have friggin' finished by Friday
--Clean. Clean everything.

Yaaaaay. I want the first two done and the last started tonight. GO!

Gender Identity Classification (In Progress)

2009-11-14T02:26:00.004-06:00

This is a currently-in-progress system for helping people to find their own gender identities. Note that I have never studied this professionally, and am doing this for my own personal enjoyment, and because I feel that the "systems" in place now are decades behind. I do one day hope to study them properly. If I do, I'll probably write my thesis on this subject, after much more research. Note that, because of the experience-based methods I've used to form these theories, that they're still quite rough. I always, ALWAYS welcome critique and discussion. Much love, everyone, and I very much hope that this is both informative, and interesting to read, though it is a bit long.

Physical Sex:

This is one's biological sex, or birth sex. This is what your genes and your genitalia, at birth, signify your gender to be. This can be Male, Female, or one of many types of intersex (having genitalia or genes that do not match one gender or the other).

Identity:

So far, I have identified four "primary" identites, though there are almost infinite other possible self-applied labels. The four identities I am going to specifically discuss are "Cisgender", "Transgender", "Androgyne", and "Bigender".

How these are classified: Identity is a personal subject, as it's primarily based on how we see ourselves. Thus, I realise that not all people will fit comfortably into four categories, and that some may choose to not be categorized at all. However, I hope that these categories provide a good starting point for those people wondering what terminology may describe them. Gender is something described by how many aspects of you compare with your physical sex. Much of how we perceive our genders is based on our cultures' views of what a man and a woman embody. Another aspect of our gender identity comes from body image: When we look in the mirror, do we want to see a man or a woman there? Because no one person fits completely into what basically amounts to cultural stereotypes, every person embodies a unique balance of male and female traits. If we think of the masculine and feminine as "entities" (almost as personalities) within us--I like to use Jung's terminology of the "Anima" for feminine and "Animus" for masculine--we can define four "primary" identities based on how dominant each of these entities is within us. I define these as the entities' being "Alpha" for dominant, or "Beta" for submissive. The relationships of the Anima and Animus to the physical sex is more difficult to place for an intersexed person, so I mainly talk of physical males and females here. However, the general feeling of dominance or submissiveness in regards to Anima and Animus still applies. (The problem here arises specifically when looking at Cisgender and Transgender. In this regard, intersexed would be its own category, with identity as masculine, feminine, or a mix of the two.)

--Cisgender: Cisgender is when the physical sex and the gender identity match. In a physical male, there would be an Alpha Animus, and a Beta Anima, or a dominant male and submissive female. In a physical female, it is just the opposite, with an Alpha Anima and Beta Animus.
--Transgender: A transgender person is the polar opposite of a cisgender one. In a transgendered person, the identity is the opposite of the physical sex. A physical male would have an Alpha Anima and Beta Animus. Opposite for the physical female.
----------Note: In both the Cisgender and Transgender person, the Alpha entity determines the overall identified gender in the person, while the Beta entity may only control certain traits, such as certain behaviours, appearances, etc. For example, a transvestite (one who dresses in clothing of the opposite sex) who still identifies as his or her physical sex would still be a cisgender person, but the Beta entity controls an aspect of appearance.
--Androgyne: An Androgyne is one who has a gender identity that does not strictly lean one gender or the other, but remains neutral, or androgynous. An Androgyne of either sex would have a Beta of both the Anima and Animus. There is a general lack of inner conflict or preference for either gender, and the person may prefer to retain an androgynous appearance. He and/or she may be moderately to highly amused by being mistaken for the opposite gender ("Genderfuck"), or may simply not care for labels. Androgynes may consider themselves a third gender. In this definition, the main deciding factor for an androgyne is a lack of preference for either gender. The experience of an androgyne may be one of acceptance of both genders, one of frustration at gender identity labels as a whole, or possibly a feeling of "emptiness" or "missing something" as he and/or she doesn't fit the stereotypes of either gender.
--Bigender: A bigender person, in opposition to the Androgyne, has an Alpha of both the Anima and Animus. Where the Androgyne lacks a preference, the Bigender feels a conflict. Essentially, two very dominant "personalities" (Some bigendered people are described as embodying a sense of "healthy multiplicity", or literally embodying both a male and female persona in one body) are fighting for the same space. Where the Androgyne sits fairly comfortably on the neutral line, the Bigender shifts. Because of the general feeling of a conflict between the two dominant sides, there's often an experience of the bigender person frequently leaning toward the opposite identity of his and/or her physical sex and experiencing episodes similar to that of a transgendered person. This is caused by the fact that the body is only one sex, and so the matching gender is "winning the battle". The bigender person likely experiences "episodes" or periods of time that he and/or she is similar to cisgender, transgender, and androgyne at different stages in life, often dependant on moods or circumstances. Because of the frequent tendency for bigender people to "lean transgendered" more than "leaning cisgendered", Bigender is currently considered a subset of transgender.
----------Note: A few other terms that you may hear are "Genderqueer", "Gender-fluid", "Pangender", "Third Gender", or "Genderless", among many others. Each of these things has it's own meaning to the person embodying it, and the definitions for each may change person-by-person.

Sub-Categories Within Identity:

The above diagram is a chart I put together to illustrate, as best I can, the spectrum of how my personal gender identity is expressed. This chart is very much a prototype, and though it could technically be applied to anyone, I'm still working out the kinks of how each individual would be placed into the chart. Any people who are curious for how the diagram would look for other people, or who would like me to make diagrams for them, just ask. Since I haven't developed any specific questionnaires or systems as of yet for defining each person, we would have to discuss for a while about your personal feelings about each category for me to make sample diagrams. Each person I talk to helps me to refine the chart further, and helps me to identify the questions that need to be asked.

How to read the chart: The Gender Identity Spectrum Diagram (hereon GISD) takes a person's physical sex and personal gender identity, and further breaks it down into personal identity, behaviour, and appearance. Under each of the three categories, there is a colored bar denoting both the amount of shift the person experiences, and the frequency of each level in the shift. The larger the bar, the more of a shift the person experiences. In my case, I am bigendered, and thus my bars are rather large, as I can shift very dramatically from masculine to feminine. The colours (I used rainbows simply due to personal preference) denote how frequently I lie in each place on the spectrum, red being most frequent, flowing out to purple, which is very infrequently. Below, I've taken each category and explained it further.

--Identity: The Identity category denotes what gender I "feel" most of the time. This can affect the other categories, and judges how I feel and want to be perceived by the people around me. Note that my red section is toward neutral, leaning masculine. This shows that I am normally leaning male and that I usually think of myself as male, though it isn't so strong as to be disruptive in my daily life. The range of the colours shows that I have a tendency to lean farther masculine more often than I lean far feminine.
--Behaviour: This is mostly determined by societal views on how a man or a woman "should" behave, and would be judged under different circumstances for people of different cultural backgrounds, though there seem to be certain behaviours that are judged by hormones, genetics, and evolutionary instinct. The diagram shows that I actually behave in more of a masculine fashion even than I "feel", and that even feeling my most feminine, my behaviour may be more masculine. In my culture, that stereotypically denotes a directness, a lack of modesty (haha), often less refinement, etc. I once best described this trend as "God, I'm SUCH a guy with boobs." XD
--Appearance: This actually may surprise a few people. While many bigendered or transgendered people prefer to look very much like the opposite sex, my personal preference for feminine-looking men shows itself in how my appearance manifests. Though my behaviour is primarily masculine, my appearance is most generally neutral, but leaning toward male, while still retaining hints of femininity.

So, there you have it. This is an introduction. Here's a sample GISD for what an Androgyne may be feeling. See if you can read it. Feel free to discuss anything in this entry. :D

D:

2009-11-10T23:03:00.000-06:00

I...just had a fucking miniature breakdown. This kind of thing really doesn't happen to me often, and I really can't even say what caused it. I know I've been stressed out. I skipped class Monday because I just couldn't get myself to go, and I'm behind in two of my classes, which is not. something. I. do. On top of stresses from school, etc, I'm both stir-crazy from not having a vehicle, and just....really lonely. I've been craving human contact, badly. On top of that, everyone I know seems to be in an off mood. Everyone's stressed, upset, depressed, and it's getting really overwhelming. I've always been really sensitive to other peoples' emotions, and so being overloaded with everyone's bad juju is hitting hard. I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just stressed all around. I really don't feel up to getting into detail or philosophising or anything. I just wanted to...I dunno. Just rant a bit, I guess.

I Need a Recharge

2009-10-25T13:55:00.000-05:00

I'm catching myself falling straight back into the same bad habits. Sunday already, and I need to clean and do homework for tomorrow. Damn it.

Again, I'm finding myself with very little willpower to get up and do...well, much of anything, really. I need to eat, but don't want to get up and make food. I need to work on homework, and I need to clean up for inspection tomorrow, but I already feel exhausted and slightly dizzy, and kind of really just want to go back to sleep. I hate feeling like this.

I used to have so much drive. Where did it go? Even things I care about, I'm having trouble doing. I promised to write a journal on MB about sexuality/gender identification far too long ago. It's a subject I can rant on ENDLESSLY, but yet I can't just type out one measly journal. I've got a backlogue of messages on all sites again. It's so, so easy to get overwhelmed. I stop for a single day being energized and vigilant and making progress, and I get a week behind. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

Maybe all of this housing shit is gonna help me. Maybe if they shove me out of my apartment and I leave student housing, I can take a quarter off and get my shit together without having to think, "Well, I can't work on ME, because I have to work on homework."

Luckily, though, my family's moving here. I think part of my biggest issue is the lack of support in my city. I have a few friends here who I love dearly, but who I barely actually see, except at school. Other than that, my real support system is over the internet, and it's very tough to juggle real life things with IM. You can't exactly have someone over from the internet to chat with while you clean, which i'd really love sometimes.

But oh well. I'll stop whining now. I'm sure I sound a bit like a lazy, whinging bint, but that's okay. Just needed to get it out there. Already feeling better for it.

Some Thoughts

2009-10-16T02:07:00.004-05:00

For one, I was up very early this morning. Kind of bizarre. Of course, it can be attributed to the fact that I crashed very early yesterday.

Secondly, I have realised something. I hate writing. It's kind of funny to realise, because I always assumed, after writing so much, including a 300-page novel-length fic, that I enjoyed writing a rather great deal. However, it's not the writing I like. I enjoy being able to portray ideas in writing, but the actual writing itself? Hate it, with a rather firey, burning passion. I think that's one of the reasons it tends to get shoved to the backburner so quickly when I'm busy. After reading Illusions again, the preface of which has Richard Bach blatantly saying "I hate writing" (Which always kind of appalled me), and then waking up this morning and working on writing, myself, I realised how much of a love-hate relationship I have with it.

Granted, hating the process of writing (I rather hate the process of drawing, too, in all honesty), doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile. I think it's just a bit of a relief to finally admit to myself how much of a royal pain in the ass it is to sit in front of a screen/notebook and try to think of the right words to adequately express an idea which, half the time, is more eloquent in my head.

Ranting, on the other hand, I love. I can say whatever the hell I want here, and I don't really have to worry about making it sound good. XD

'Kay. Next thought.

This is something I thought of the other night, right after I turned my computer off. Otherwise, I would have probably word-vomited about it then.

I've realised the very unsavoury, unpleasant fact that I'm lonely. I am really yearning for a relationship right now, and I hate it. I've never considered myself the kind of person who needs relationships to be happy. In fact, I can be quite miserly when it comes to the subject of love. On the other hand, my experience gives a very different picture than my mental image of my own dealings with love.

1.) I'm far, FAR too quick to fall for people. In a bit of desperation to have someone to give myself to, I am also too quick to want to say "I love you". I know it's a problem, and I'm working on it. I think part of this is a self-esteem issue. I feel best about myself when I'm making other people happy. I know better than to jump into relationships before I've dealt with my own issues. In fact, I give that people that advice all the time. (You horrible hypocrite, Morgie.) However, I'm also realising how lonely being....well, alone can be, and it sucks.

I'm also horny as a mofo, but that's another story.

2.) No way to deny it: I'm a hopeless romantic. Under all the outward cynicism lies a person longing to give myself away to love, to fall into it; be consumed by it. It's most obvious in my art, my writing, and RP. These are the fictional outlets for something I don't have in real life. I think that's the case for a lot of people writing/drawing/RPing/reading romance. I sometimes wonder if all the fantasy is making the loneliness easier, or if it's helping to cause it.

3.) It is pathetic, to the point of my wanting to bang my head on a desk, that I look at people around me and, too often than not, find myself analysing them for relationship potential. That's a really embarrassing thing to be writing about, but once again, I do this blogging for a reason. Putting down all this inner embarrassing stuff is a really good way to make sure I'm not keeping secrets. Not keeping secrets keeps me happy. Also, humiliating myself publicly gets my ass in gear. So, Morgie, stop doing that, you sad, pathetic bint. XD

Okay, enough angsting for today. Something good:
1.) I actually put my6 foot down and limited my RPing earlier this week! Afterward, I worked my butt off on Environmental design! Go me.

2.) I started working on the next part of my homework for that class RIGHT AFTER the class ended. I didn't wait until the day before.

3.) I'm currently working on a fic for Matti that I've owed her for a good long time. The rest of today, and through tomorrow, I'm going to heavily limit my RP time, and work on all of my homework, and do some more cleaning up. (Note to self: buy a spray bottle for the steri-fab, so you can be paranoid and spray down the boxspring that probably doesn't actually have anything in it.)

More Father de Mello

2009-10-09T23:05:00.003-05:00

I am pretty upset that this man is dead. I'd love to have a chat with him, and it's also very sad that someone so wise was taken from the world so unexpectedly.

Some bites of wisdom:

"To doubt is infinitely more important than adoration. To question is so much more important than to believe."

"Everywhere people are searching for objects to adore, but I don't find people awake enough in their attitudes and convictions. How happy we would be if terrorists would adore their ideology less and question more. However, we don't like to apply that to ourselves; we think we're all right and the terrorists are wrong. But a terrorist to you is a martyr to the other side."

"The process that we use for making a St. Francis Xavier could be exactly the same process used for producing terrorists."

"What is scripture, then? It's a hint, a clue, not a description. The fanaticism of one sincere believer who thinks he knows causes more evil than the united efforts of two hundred rogues. It's terrifying to see what sincere believers will do because they think they know. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a world where everybody said, 'We don't know'?"

"....You miss God because you think you know. That's the terrible thing about religion."

The transcriptions above are taken from HERE.

I looked it up because I was thinking, myself, that the Church may have had something to do with his death. I wouldn't be surprised, although if it's true, it's appalling.

Braaaaains....

2009-10-08T20:42:00.003-05:00

Just in time for Halloween, I'm feeling quite like a zombeh. >_>

Once again, I'm feeling quite tired, far too early in the day. I'm wondering how much getting my eyes checked and getting new glasses will help with this. Maybe if my eyes aren't always straining, I'll not have so much fatigue.

So, my class schedule this quarter is actually quite fabulous. I only have three classes, so I got the slightly less doom-like quarter I wanted. Granted, one of said classes is very high workload, but I'm thankfully off both the day before and day after it. It's gonna be a tough class, as it's environmental design, and I kind of really stink at environments, but it's being taught by probably my favourite teacher at this school, and I'm going to be doing the home of one of my REALLY quirky original characters. XD (That character being Lahadra Lynn, for those of you who actually know who that is.)

Restoring my will power is probably going to be the hardest thing of all. At times when I'm feeling constantly tired, it's even harder to force myself to work on things, even things that desperately need to get done, and the more behind I get, the more stressed out I am, and the more tired I become. These vicious cycles are the worst.

Sorry I've not been very philosophical lately, and have just been rambling about my stresses. Hopefully that'll be better in the future.

Getting Meh Life Together

2009-10-05T15:56:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of things I need to do to improve who I am right now. Most of it's involved with picking my ass up and getting my shit together.

I've started realising how badly my fatigue and anxiety are all to do with my perception. I perceive that I lack time, I perceive that I have to do some things alone, I perceive that a mistake will lead to failure, and I perceive that I'll be less happy if I force myself to take responsibility.

I'm really starting to realise how flawed my perception can be. Maybe putting this all out there where the world can see: Showing my faults for all of you, laying them bare, will hopefully embarrass me enough that it helps to get me moving.

1.) I feel like I lack time, not because I'm working too hard too often, but because I'm spending all of my time worrying about what needs to be done, instead of just doing it. In other words, my own procrastination and laziness are making me FEEL like I have more work than I actually do. The problem is going to be learning to cull down some of my laziest tendencies and force myself, in the beginning, to start working, even though I'm tired, which is something I really failed at just a minute ago when I got home, thinking of what needed to be done as far as cleaning was concerned, and instead of just doing it, took a nap. Now I'm behind where I intended to be on cleaning by a couple of hours, and don't really feel more rested than I did because I went to sleep anxious. This NEEDS TO STOP. It's just a matter of learning to strengthen my own will power, which is not an easy task.

2.) The perception that I have to do these things alone is also really wrong. I had an epiphany last night that a lot of the things that really annoy me when I clean: I have clothing that needs to be taken to Goodwill that's in the way. I have recycling that's in the way, I have old electronics that are in the way and that I should probably pawn instead of trashing. These are things which would be easier if I...well, if I was less concerned about the environment, but I'm not planning on changing that bit. The main issue is that I lack a vehicle, and I'm afraid to ask my roommate for rides, because I feel like a burden. What my silly brain didn't click on until....oh, last night, was that Reva has the exact same issues as me. Her family just sent a bunch of stuff home with her that she doesn't want. She contributes to the recycling. Maybe I should suggest doing these things TOGETHER. This hits another one of my deep, deep-seated issues, wherein I hate a. asking for help, and b. interacting with people when I don't have to. XD Get over it, Morgie.

3.) For someone who really, honestly believes and knows that mistakes are learning tools and the bad times are what I appreciate more in the end, I sure am fucking afraid of slipping up. I'm not even gonna rant on that. Again, get over it, Morgie.

4.) When it comes down to it, all of my regrets and frustrations in life are because of things I cause. Even though I blatantly know it to be false, I've subconsciously convinced myself that I'll somehow be less happy if I have to take responsibility. I think a lot of people have this problem. Hell, I think most people do. However, my anxieties are all over times when I'm not responsible. I'm fatigued because I'm worried about classes and responsibilities all the time. I'm irked because things aren't getting done that need to be done (such as my going to get an eye exam and new glasses/contacts, which will immediately help me feel less tired) aren't getting done. How is it that I (and I know this applies to SO MANY) be so afraid of the little unpleasantries of day-to-day life, and in that fear cause our own unhappiness? When it comes down to it, under my worst luck, I don't blame life for making me unhappy. When it comes down to it, when I'm unhappy, it's because of myself, and it's because I know it's all my fault in the end, and I don't like to admit that.

Well, I've admitted it. Maybe part of it's due to a natural "anxiety disorder", but there are steps I can take to cull that. I'm just probably going to--and I hate to admit it--need help and support from others to build up the strength to do what it takes.

And now, signing off and getting to work.

Much shorter post

2009-10-05T02:33:00.000-05:00

Funny how things can work out. Right when my mind's been consumed with paranoia, in comes a mix of Father de Mello, Rochelle, and some situations in RP with Melissa to remind me what's really important, and what it is I'm REALLY scared of.

Funny how many things Mello's led me to. I've gone through so many epiphanies via RP, art, and fanfiction, I've met so many new friends....I found one of my major inspirations (Patrick Wolf) via a Mello fanmix on LJ and found a new teacher in my find of Father de Mello. Inspiration from the character himself--realising his mistakes and realising what things attracted me to him--has helped me to find my confidence and give a name to a lot of things that were mysteries before. Really cementing that I want to get that tattoo I designed around the Old English M. XD

To me, things like this are proof that there's a finesse to life that can't be explained by chance alone. There's an energy there, something that connects us, that brings like things together, that helps us make connections, even subconsciously, that can help us. Reminds me again that I need to look up more on the idea of the "collective unconscious". Reminder noted. XD

Much love, all. <3

This part's really for my benefit. My to-do list and personal "Morgie is bitching at himself because nagging is sometimes the only way to get that lack of an ass moving." In the next couple of weeks (and into the rest of life, too) I need to:
--Do not choose to sleep in that extra hour in lieu of getting my monthly Dart pass. Just get the damned pass. It'll make life much easier later.
--CLEAN, BEETCH. CLEAN. (This includes de-cluttering and resisting the packrat urge. Get trash thrown out, get laundry...laundered, get cans recycled, get apartment vacuumed and sterilised. GET. PAPERS. ORGANIZED. Holy shiz.) Oh, and KEEP IT THAT WAY.
--Do all the things I hate doing, IE doing dishes after I use them, remembering to work out, even when I'm tired, putting things up after I use them....all the basic things I don't do that keep me being an embarrassing, lazy slob.
--Research. Future. Jobs. Also, speaking of money, go into Financial Aid and get direct deposit set up of living expenses [debt] money.
--Get into a good habit of NOT procrastinating. Yes, it sucks, but it's gotta get done some time, whether I like it or not. Get it done earlier, reduce stress later.

How many times have I told myself this stuff? It'll sink in one day. ONE DAY.

Deflowering my Blog Pt. 2

2009-10-04T05:26:00.000-05:00

Well, as promised, I'm not following any meaningful format, and possibly breaking a blogging faux pas: Two posts in one night. Also, this post, as I suspect many of the ones later will be as well, is LONG. Be warned.

Also, this journal has some very controversial beliefs. You are warned. If you don't agree, feel free to debate all you want, but please don't just flame me. It's pointless and makes you sound like an idiot.

I find it a bit pointless to start this without actually posting about the things I was thinking tonight, so here goes:

A few nights ago, I was being a geek (as usual) and searching for Mello on Amazon, to see if I could find any merchandise. For how popular a character he actually is, there's not much out there in the way of things related to him. Well, instead of finding actual Mello merch, what I ended up getting were a lot of books by the Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello. Intrigued and amused by the fact that there's a priest with Mello in the name (a couple of my many roleplay Mellos ARE priests), I looked the man up, just to see what kind of man he was. I wasn't expecting much, to be honest, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Father de Mello is the kind of Priest I like. Sadly, he died the same year I was born, so what I can learn about him is all based on the things he left behind. Reading about him, I learned that, as he got older, the views that he began to shape were ones that started to disagree with the Church. Being someone who's possibly a little too gleeful at the idea of a priest thinking for himself and thus pissing the Church off, I found a torrent of the only audio of one of his conferences in existance. Still very, very, very amused by the idea of a Father [de] Mello who, like MY Father Mellos in RP, is a free-thinking, tradition-challenging individual, I was actually excited to hear what the man had to say.

I've listened to what would normally be the first tape of the conference, and I think I may have found a kindred spirit. Not far into listening, I found myself grinning, my mind going wild with thoughts and ideas. Many of what he said right off the bat are thoughts that I already live by, or at least agree with. (This is even if I haven't grown to the point where I've garnered the will power to practice all of what I preach just yet. I'm working on it, slowly but surely. It's a grueling process, though.)

One idea that really stood out to me was the idea that most people don't want to be happy, and healthy. Most people who are sick (myself included) are terrified to do what it takes to get better, because in most cases, it's harder to go through the healing process than it is to remain sick and treat symptoms. He compared it to a person sleeping who doesn't want to wake up; who doesn't want to get out of his warm, cosy bed and face the world. I thought it was a very good analogy. Waking up in uncomfortable, he said. Getting better is uncomfortable. And it's true.

There were a few ideas in here that really sung out to me. They were very close to a lot of my views on the ideas that, 1.) Nobody can be helped who doesn't want to be helped, and 2.) That you should never, ever trust or respect somebody just because of a position. You should, instead, always question. Question yourself, question your friends and loved ones, question superiors, question God. (That last bit is all me. I'll go back to it a bit later.)

Getting a bit off-subject, I'm going to stop talking specifically about Father de Mello, and just start ranting based on thought trains brought on by things he said. Some of these may be things he did say that I agree with, and some may be from me. As I'm just ranting, I'm not going to bother to define which are which. Beside, the line blurred a lot, anyway.

The things that determine happiness are, 1.) Honesty, and 2.) Endurance.

Honesty means admitting to yourself, mostly, that you're wrong, that you're flawed, that you're still learning. It also means taking no shame in yourself. No one person--not yourself, not the people you trust, not the government or the church--holds the answers. Honesty is admitting that we're all human. While there are people whose ideas you can take above others; who have more credentials, who have learned more on a specific subject, there is nobody in this world whose ideas should be taken to heart without question (which includes that very idea in itself, but hey). There is no such thing as an "expert", because there's not a person in this world who isn't still learning. Honesty is teaching what you know, being honest and teaching what you believe in your heart, and it's being open to learning from those around us. We are all both teachers and students. We teach with our experiences. We learn from those experiences, and we learn from others' too. Father de Mello stated that there is no such thing as a "selfless" act, and I think that's a very realistic view. We do nothing that is not for, in some way, our own benefit. In the case of me, I've had a few people who have asked me why I counsel people so often, for no monetary price, and I do it because I not only take joy out of helping people (which is, in a strange way, a selfish endeavor), but because I learn from doing so. it also boosts my confidence and makes me feel good about myself, because it, in a way means I am to a point in my life where I'm smart enough and experienced enough to guide others. So yes, there's a bit of ego involved, and though it makes me sound a bit of a cad to admit it, I don't think there's anyone who helps others without it being the same to them. However, I think there's a healthy kind of selfishness in the world: That which does good, that which improves us or helps someone else is a good kind of selfishness. Honesty is admitting that nothing is pure good or pure evil, but that, while good acts may not always have the best intentions behind them, or bad acts not always bad intentions, that all of it adds to what I believe to be the point of life: Experience and growth.

This brings me to the second point: Endurance. Father de Mello stated (and I'm very loosely paraphrasing here) that the biggest gurus and messiahs in the world had a belief in common: That no matter how shitty life may get, that it's all alright. Life, to be frank, is a whole string of disasters, one after the other. People often look at me funny when I point out that I am at the same time both a horrible cynic, and an incurable optimist. My view on this goes back to my core belief that everything is just learning. We have the shitty times for a reason, because it helps us grow. Something I really liked that he stated was that, oftentimes, people have to reach the low points in their lives before they can wake up and learn to really be happy, and I couldn't agree more. Just looking at my life, my worst experiences are the ones I remember the most: Not because they were the most painful, but because they are the onest that really made me who I am today. By taking me out of my comfort zone, and by forcing me to endure the unpleasant things, I learned the most. The times that seemed at the time like wonderful things--a small example but one that's affected me a lot now being that I grew up very free as a child and didn't have chores--are often the things that have the negative impact later. They're the things that make me lazy, that make me complacent.

REALLY off-subject, a thought train of mine earlier led to me going back and thinking, as I often do, on my view of God. I call it God, not because I'm necessarily a normal Christian, but because it's the name my culture uses to denote a "higher power" of some kind. I've had a similar conversation to this with my friend Melissa, which if I'm not too lazy, I may post later, wherein I pointed out that I don't believe that God is an omnicient, omnipotent presence as the church defines it. The main factor to that idea how it fluttered around my mind this morning was the idea that we were created "in God's image". As someone who very rarely takes things literally, I don't think that means that God looks like a human being. Instead, I think that means we are a parallel to God.

If we go by Biblical standards, the creation of Man (and Woman) was the creation of a happy creature, innocent and naive, like a child. This new being was given the opportunity to encounter good and evil. This being was, if you will, given the opportunity to "wake up". God, like any new parent, wished to protect his child(ren), and thus warned against eating from the tree of knowledge. Like a good parent, God sought to shield his children from the horrors of the world. However, even with God's power, the children weren't guaranteed to listen to their parent's advice, and ate from the tree.

This raises the question of why the tree was there in the first place. If we take this story of God, Adam and Eve that most of us know and we use it to talk about what science states is the beginning of Man, we look back and see a fledgling species of animals, with a "God-given" power not afforded to other animals to diverge from their instincts, and to learn. The human race started very childlike, beginning as other animals do, and in finding knowledge, much of it dangerous, a lot of it leading to corruption, hate, and war. Like a single human being starts as an innocent and is, as it grows, exposed to the "knowledge of good and evil", so too did our race "grow up" in much the same way. If we are, in fact, in the image of God, doesn't it stand to reason that God, itself, is a presence which grows and changes and evolves the same way we do?

Making another parallel between faith and science, science states that everything is a creation derived from other things. If matter, if energy, if souls are "creations", and if God is everything, we are merely parts of God. Perhaps then, God, in creating us in its or His image, from a part of himself, simply created smaller learning creatures. As we grow, so too does God. As God grows, so do we, in just the same way that do characters in works of fiction to us. We grow, and the characters we create (which include, also our perceptions of other people. After all, aren't the people around us just "characters" in the story of our lives?) grow with us. They become more "human", more lifelike, more deep, more supple. They begin to gain "lives" of their own the more we grow, and likewise they teach us back.

I can't say how many layers of this phenomenon exist. Where does it all come from? Are we, as learning creatures, Gods to some "fiction" world that we can't see? Is our "god" the product of yet another learning creature?

Just some things to think about, and this journal's long enough. None of these ideas are finished, none of them things I'm sure about. They're only [half-asleep, unedited] theories, musings brought on by observing the world around me. I may be completely wrong, who knows? But if you got this far, thanks for reading, and I'm sure there will be more like this later. <3

Deflowering my Blog

2009-10-04T04:52:00.000-05:00

So, it's very possible that this could be an epic phail. I've never been one to be a dedicated blogger before, and I am notoriously horrible at keeping up with messages and the like. However, I almost always have a lot of (usually rather chaotic) thoughts running through my head, and I'm starting to think I should have somewhere I can share them. Don't expect these posts to be anything spectacular. I think that one of the problems with me trying to do blogs and journal posts before, on sites like Livejournal, and on my Mangabullet page, is that I feel somehow like I absolutely HAVE to make every post worthwhile and well-edited. The thought of doing this, oftentimes, will deter me from writing anything at all, as I often feel too exhausted to write what basically amounts to a finished draft of a short essay.

There will be none of that here.

The inspiration for starting this blog was one of my frequent times going into one of my philosophical "moods" at far too late/early in the morning. I get like this a lot, usually during times when there's nobody around to chat with and get my thoughts and feelings out. I find myself having a lot of little epiphanies: Things that are too rough for finished journals, and too drawn out for little Twitter posts. I'm hoping this place will provide those thoughts with a new home.

What I'm hoping this to be is a place where people can get a look inside my head. I'm a very open person, but I tend to seem a bit aloof online, simply because I'm normally too tired to answer comments and keep things up-to-date. I'm hoping that by establishing, from post 1, that this is a place that's free for me to simply rant, that it won't go down in flames like some of my other attempts. With that said, I'm giving the disclaimer now that there is absolutely 0% guarantee that I will reply to anyone who comments here. If I feel like responding, I will. Selfish, maybe, but I have a life to take care of, and one which drains me of most of my energy.

Cheers to a relaxed, therapeutic environment for me to share my thoughts. That's all this is. <3