Category: Philosophy

No Reconciliation

It’s happened. Trump is the president-elect, and Republicans hold both houses of congress and probably will soon have a majority on the Supreme Court, as well. The checks and balances are gone. Our worst nightmare is now our reality.

Not because they are Republicans and I usually vote for Democrats.

But because Republicans have tried for many years to strip away all protections for the most vulnerable among us. In fact, there is little doubt that they would love to strip away everything for everyone who isn’t a wealthy, white, straight, Evangelical Christian male.

Even now, Ryan is finalizing his plans to privatize Medicaid and Social Security, and totally repeal the Affordable Care Act. To gut food stamps, and to remove safety nets and protections for the poorest among us.

But it’s worse than that.

That is what we would have faced if some other Republican had won the nomination of his party, and had become president.

But it’s Trump, who boasts of his xenophobia and racism. Who glories in sexual assault and sees manhandling women whenever he wishes as his due. Who has deep ties to white supremacist groups, who are crowing that they are in power now.

Yes, he also lies pretty much constantly. He campaigned on a platform to “drain the swamp” in DC. He said he was an outsider, who wasn’t beholden to lobbies and special interest groups. He said he would end their influence. And he’s filling his cabinet with them. There is little doubt that he’ll renege on any promises he doesn’t find convenient, as he always has.

But he has proven through his actions, for more than 50 years, that he is, in fact, a racist. That he does, in fact, despise pretty much everyone. That he hasn’t a shred of empathy or human decency. That he has no intention of helping anyone but himself. Ever.

Since he was elected, just 3 days ago, the most racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and violent of his followers have taken his election as a license to do whatever they want to do to whoever they want. There are endless reports of attacks on women wearing a hijab, on Mexicans, on Asians, on blacks. There are thousands of stories of school children chanting horrible things, making walls of their bodies to keep out fellow-students who aren’t white, writing hateful messages on doors to safe spaces, on classroom whiteboards, on signs, on restroom walls.

These aren’t random acts. This is not a coincidence. They are doing these things in Trump’s name; writing it on cars and walls besides their hate filled slogans, screaming it into the faces of women as they rip their hijab, saying “If Trump can do it, so can I,” as they grab the genitals of their 10 year old classmates.

And while all this is going on, we are being told that we must reconcile our differences, and work together with those who would oppress us to unify and heal the country.

No! No we do not! No we should not!

We should never, ever, become complicit in oppression.

Compromise is a fine thing in many times and places. It’s great when a group of friends is trying to pick a restaurant, when a club is formulating bylaws, when workers and management are hammering out a contract.

But some things are simply not open to negotiation, and the basic humanity of all people is one of them.

On this, there can be no compromise. Black lives do matter, as do trans lives, Muslim lives, the lives of the mentally ill and physically unable, the lives of refugees and immigrants, the lives of the poor, the lives of deaf people, retarded people, fat people, gay people, and people of uncertain gender. All these lives, the lives of all marginalized people, no matter why they are marginalized, are every bit as important as the life of the whitest, wealthiest, straightest, most handsome, well-educated, Evangelical Christian man walking down Wall Street in an immaculate $3000 suit with a genuine leather briefcase in his hand.

This is a truth that I will not budge from. There can be no compromise, no unity, when the price of unity is to agree with white people that non-white people are simply, by their nature, inferior. That they are genetically biased towards violence, crime, deceit, and ignorance.

No.

Not just no, but hell no!

Only when the people currently in power agree that those they have relegated to the margins are actually as worthy and important as they, themselves, will I be happy to compromise and work for unity. When the humanity of every single person on the planet is fully acknowledged, and those currently in power agree that the vulnerable must be protected, I’ll be more then delighted to work together with them to protect the weakest and heal the nation.

When they acknowledge that American isn’t (and never has been) a white, Christian nation, but is instead a richly diverse land inhabited by people of many colors, backgrounds, religions, philosophies, and cultures, and that all of them are equally valid and equally deserving of respect, as long as they’re not seeking to oppress anyone, then I’ll gladly extend my hand in friendship, and settle down to work out ways to best help all of us.

But until then?

I’ll fight them tooth, nail, wallet and keyboard. I’ll stand against their tyranny and oppression, for that’s what it is. I’ll not give an inch, a millimeter, or a single micron.

I will not, and I cannot.

Because they are just flat wrong.

All people are created equal, and there should be liberty and justice for all.

Sanctuary

When the world seems to be coming apart, when all the news makes us cry, when it just seems too horrible for words, we all need a place of Sanctuary.

I’m not talking about a physical place we can go to escape, although that’s nice if you happen to have one.

But we can all do some work to give ourselves a place to regroup, internally. It’s not perfect, and it won’t magically make everything alright, but it’s worth doing.

Here are some steps you might want to consider, if you’d like to build a place where you can go to weather the storm.

1. Do Not Despair

I can’t emphasize this enough. It’s of paramount importance. Despair is tempting, but it saps your strength, breaks your will, and destroys your spirit. Fight it.

Like other negative emotions, it’s a signal that there’s something deeply, deeply wrong.

The thing is, despair never rights that wrong. Despair gives up. It’s tempting, because it means you can stop fighting for a bit, and we all get so tired that we just want to stop fighting.

Instead of despairing, just stop fighting for a while. Give yourself a breather. That’s perfectly alright, in fact, pretty much necessary. Take an intentional break. All soldiers need a bit of R&R from time to time, so don’t feel you’re not entitled to some. Take whatever time you need.

But while you’re doing that, hold in your mind that others are still fighting, and you’ll fight again a different day, or perhaps a different battle.

The arc of history is long, and sometimes it really is 3 steps forwards, and 2 back; but that’s still progress, and it does bend toward justice.

There will be light after the storm. The dawn will eventually follow the night. This, too, shall pass.

Do not despair.

2. Notice the Good Stuff

When things get really bad, it’s easy to overlook the small, wonderful things that are happening all around us. There’s a tendency to think that, for instance, who cares if it’s a beautiful day when people are dying?

But we need to notice the sunshine and flowers, as well as the horrible things. That will help keep us balanced.

Yes, a lot of bad things are happening. There’s cancer, and racial and political bias that’s turning deadly, and global problems that seem overwhelming.

But there are also children taking their first steps, and kids making gifts for homeless people, and people helping other people in ways large and small, every day.

Make a point of noticing all of those things, too. it gives you a more balanced view of the rich cacophony that is the world, and it really helps.

3. Turn off the Media, and Get Crafting

Once again, this sounds corny, but it’s true. Taking a media break, and making something with your hands instead can help you regain an even keel.

There have been a number of studies that have shown a correlation between crafting and happiness.

I’ve found this to be very true in my own life. When I carve out time to sew, knit, or do one of the other physical, hands on crafts, I’m calmer, more relaxed, and happier.

It’s not just being creative; all I do is creative stuff (and occasionally housework.) But there’s a difference between writing, or working with 3D apps on the computer, and actually handling beautiful fiber and fabrics.

When I’m touching real materials, I can lose myself in the color and texture, and the meditative, repetitive, sensory-rich experience. It’s healing.

If you don’t craft, you might want to try it.

4. Spend Time with Friends

Too many of us are too isolated, too much of the time. Try to arrange some time socializing with people you enjoy. Don’t talk about the things that are bothering you, if you can help it. That can be valuable, too, but it can also just make things worse, by focusing on all the bad stuff.

Instead, spend time doing things that make you laugh. Tell bad jokes, dance, play games, eat good food, celebrate the fact that you are alive, because you are, even if you’re not always sure of that.

Share the good things that are happening to you, or the good things you’d like to have happen. Focus on the present moment, and how great it is to be together.

Life can be sweet. Enjoy it.

5. Do Small, Unexpected Things for Other People.

One of the things that I found long ago will send me “spiraling down the funnel” is thinking too much about myself, and my own perceived inadequacies. My helplessness in the face of global unrest. My inability to do anything to “make it all better” when someone I love is hurting. My powerlessness to stop pain.

Especially when a group I’m a member of is the target, when I feel that everyone wants me to just cease to exist, it’s very easy to slide down into despair.

I learned that when I’m feeling that way, the quickest way out is to stop looking inward, turn around, and look outward instead.

Don’t focus on my own ineffectiveness, or indeed on my own anything. Just ignore all of that. It’s not about me. Even when my group is the target, the person saying that we don’t deserve to live isn’t saying that about me personally. They don’t even know I exist. They are simply venting their spleen, and announcing to the world their own fears and perceived inferiority.

People who are happy and comfortable with themselves don’t pick on others. People who aren’t afraid of “others” don’t need to make sure “others” are kept far away.

So, turn your focus outwards. You can’t fix the problems of the world; no one of us can, although together we just might be able to. But don’t worry about you, and don’t worry about the world. It’s too big. We can’t grasp it.

Instead, just do something you can do, to brighten a few moments for one other person.

You’ve been crafting. Give someone a pair of mitts when they’re not expecting it. Slip a flower onto a co-worker’s desk. Smile at people you meet on the street. Tell the teller in the bank you appreciate her hard work. Offer to help, when you see someone who might need a little help.

It really takes very little to brighten someone else’s day, and it makes you both feel better. The more of this you do, the better you’ll feel, and the more ripples of kindness you’ll send out into the world.

The more people who do this, the more the kindness and love will combat the hate and fear. This is how we’ll win, eventually.

6. Meditate

You probably already know this, but meditation can help with all kinds of conditions, from stress reduction to alleviation of pain (both physical and mental,) to helping chronic medical conditions.

If you’ve never tried it, you might not realize how very simple it actually is. Forget about being perfect, and it’s something that anyone at all, anywhere, can do. Even those of us who aren’t physically able can manage this one.

There are tons of different kinds (even knitting can be meditation, really) so find the ones you enjoy the most.

Your mind will wander, because it’s a mind, and that’s what minds do. So when you realize it’s doing it, just smile at it, and start again. No judgement, no harshness, no upbraiding yourself for not “doing it right.” There is no “doing it right,” so you’re doing fine.

The link above is to a page on the Mayo Clinic site that lists a number of types and methods of meditation, or you can just google around, and find some to try.

It helps.

Do these things, and you’ll find that you have inside yourself a sanctuary that will shelter you from the worst of what’s happening in this time of change and upheaval. Because of course, that’s what’s going on in the world right now. We’re simply living in a time of rapid change, and rapid change is often very uncomfortable.

Every bit of work we do to promote equality also erodes privilege; it pretty much has to.

To those of us who enjoyed that privilege and didn’t recognize it as privilege, this can feel like oppression. Things that we’ve always taken for granted, as just the way the world works, aren’t working that way any more. This is unexpected, and the unexpected is frightening. To those of us in this position, the world is spiraling out of control. Those of us who feel this way want to put on the brakes, to stop the change, and so we lash out. It’s a perfectly natural, understandable reaction.

It won’t stop the change, because the change is needed.

People will eventually adjust, and come to embrace equality.

But it’s going to be a struggle, I’m afraid.

It’s very important that we all find sanctuary and balance, no matter which side of the struggle we’re on.

It will enable us to approach things calmly, without fear. Which will, of course, make the whole thing much less painful for everyone.

Picture Attribution; This is a detail of an image I made in 2002. The whole image is in the Prints part of this site.

Transgender Bathroom Panic

Unless you’ve been hiding under your bed clothes for the last couple of months – and I don’t blame you a bit if you have, we’re a fair way beyond “crazy” at this point – you know that we’re in the middle of a Bathroom War in the US just now.

It’s been framed as a conflict between the “common sense” rule of keeping men out of women’s private spaces, and the “dangerous” practice of allowing them free access.

I have a few things to say about that.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I’m cis-gendered, which means the doctor happened to be right when he assigned the gender on my birth certificate. I also have a lot of trans friends. And no, I’m not going to tell you who, because all but one are deeply closeted. That one is Gwendolyn Ann Smith. I will tell you that I count 3 trans women, including Gwen, among my closest friends and I know dozens of others.

So.

This whole thing, from where I stand, is actually about two separate issues.

One is safety in public restrooms. Let’s get that out of the way.

It’s a real problem, and it should have been addressed years and years ago. Women, girls, and little boys are at risk of assault when they use public facilities. It doesn’t happen a lot, but it does happen, and it happens because bathrooms are tucked away for privacy. There’s little chance an attacker will be caught. That’s the real reason that women go to the restroom in clumps; there is safety in numbers. The only thing this has to do with trans people is that they are at far higher risk than non-trans people. There are zero cases of trans people being the aggressor.

You want some links? Have 3, chosen totally at random. A 16 year old girl died in Delaware after being beaten in a bathroom. A 15 year old girl was raped in a bathroom. A 23 year old woman was raped in a Manhattan bar.

  • Note that none of these cases involved anyone who was trans.
  • Note that in none of the cases did the man don a wig and dress to commit his crime.
  • Note that laws that do, or do not, allow trans people to use a bathroom where they are comfortable – or at least, less uncomfortable – have no bearing at all here.

It’s not about trans people.

It’s easy to fix.

We need to put public bathrooms in high traffic areas. The toilets need to be in actual little rooms with lockable doors (not stalls that people can peep over, crawl under, or peer through the cracks of.) There should be a “panic button” on the wall for people who need help, because that happens; especially with senior citizens or people with disabilities. The sinks should be out in the open, where they can be seen by everyone.

If we did that, then it would be safe for everyone to take care of bodily functions.

Since the toilets would be completely private, there wouldn’t be any need to have any kind of gender anything. No one would be able to loiter unseen, because they would be clearly visible to everyone.

But all of this isn’t about any of that, is it? If it was, there wouldn’t be so many untested rape kits in North Carolina.

This is about the right of transgender and gender-non conforming people to exist at all.

The people screaming about the sanctity of their bathrooms are really fighting for a binary world. For a world in which things are black and white, male or female, yes or no. They are fighting for absolutes.

People like binaries. It makes choices clear and easy. It’s the lazy way to deal with differences. You are either one or the other. Us or them. Liberal or Conservative. Girl or Boy.

The problem is that nature doesn’t do binary at all. Not in anything. Between day and night, there’s always twilight. We only know when Winter becomes Spring because of the artificial conceit of a calendar; there’s no clear demarcation in the weather. Heck, we can’t even really draw a line between animal and vegetable!

In real life, all the lines blur. There are always liminal spaces that aren’t exactly one or the other, but have some characteristics of both.

This is true of everything, including human biological sex.

Trans people, far from being “unnatural” are proof positive that humans are part of the natural world.

I’m not going to go into all the stuff that happens, between chromosomes, hormones in utero, and embryonic development that causes a baby to be born with enough differentiation for the attending doctor to assign a gender. Suffice it to say it’s not nearly as clear cut as you learned in biology class. Sex chromosomes don’t always come in pairs. Things like Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome cause people who are genetically male (46XY) to have female sexual characteristics at birth. Women with XY genes have even give birth.

So it’s not surprising that people can have outward sexual characteristics from one gender, while knowing that they really belong to the opposite one. Or people who are uncomfortable being assigned to either box.

We don’t really know what causes internal gender identity, although we might be learning.

We do know, however, that Gender Dysphoria is a real thing. It doesn’t go away. It feels horrible. It can kill, if it’s not treated.

So what it comes down to is this; do we accept people’s own reports of their lived experiences, or not?

If we do, then we have to agree that someone who knows to the bottom of her soul that she’s female is female, whether or not she has a penis. Someone who identifies as male, is male, even if he happens to have a vagina.

If not, of course, then you insist that you are omnipotent; you know what other people are feeling and thinking better than they do themselves. How that assumption of god-like powers can not be considered blasphemy is beyond me, but I digress.

Because here’s the thing.

Trans people are people.

Like everyone else, they should be treated with respect, kindness, and honor. Everyone should be, no matter what.

At the beginning of this post, I said I know a bunch of trans people. The most important thing about them?

Being trans isn’t the most important thing about them.

They are artists, writers, computer programmers, health workers, teachers. They have rich or complex relationships with their parents, siblings, children, and friends. They have different things they like or dislike. They are all avid science fiction readers, like nearly everyone else I know. They are all the things that everyone else is, and it’s those things that make us friends.

The only reason to care about someone’s gender is so you know how to treat them.

If you are treating people differently based on their gender, that’s a problem I think you should address.

In other words, let’s go for true gender equality, and stop worrying about the gender of other people.

Picture Attribution; the transgender flag: harvey milk plaza, castro, san francisco (2012) by torbakhopper Used under a Creative Commons 2Generic License. Slightly cropped and resized.

Creativity

What, exactly, is creativity?

For many, it’s a synonym for pure imagination. It isn’t enough to make things; they have to be things no one has thought of or made before. If it’s not brand new, then it’s not creative.

I think that sells people short.

As the old saying goes, there’s nothing new under the sun.

Everything we have is built from other ideas. We recombine. We build on the ideas of those who have gone before us, or on the ideas we had ourselves last week. We see what others have done, and we take those things farther, into unexplored territory.

Unexplored, not never-existed-until-now new. The seeds of the new idea were contained in the old one, back into the dawn of time.

Thinking of creation as the act of making something entirely new has the effect of making most people feel like they aren’t creative. It relegates “creativity” to the realm of the “gifted few” and not something most people can approach.

I think that nothing is farther from the truth.

Almost all of us are creators. We create things, every minute of every day. We create friendships. We create meals. We create safe spaces to live in. We create homes, and clothing, and gardens. We create jokes, and quilts, and music.

We create messes, and problems, and enemies, too. We create wars, and famines, and systems of government that oppress people.

We can’t help it. Wherever we go, we create things all around us. Very few of us manage to simply eat, sleep, and exist in places that others have created, never making anything of our own, not even relationships.

We create our own environment, and then we create stories about what we have created, and why.

It’s just the way we are.

Image attributions; my original art, sky photographed long ago, lightbulb made and rendered using MODO just this morning.

We are all Human

All humans are always fully human. It’s not something you can lose, or forfeit.

No one is less important, less human, less real, than anyone else.

We are all worthy of respect, honor, and courtesy.

In spite of skin color. In spite of politics. In spite of gender. In spite of size, age, income level, religion, hair style, clothing choices, presentation, language ability, mental health, intelligence, or anything else you can think of.

This seems completely obvious to me. Yet so many of us seem unable to grasp this simple fact.

So many divide the world into “us” and “them.” “We” are good, worthy, valuable, Real Human Beings™. “They” are evil, demonic, undesirable, untrustworthy, disease-ridden, filthy drains on the economy. The only good “them” is a dead “them.”

Why do people think that?

Can’t we see that all physical characteristics are temporary? Nothing physical lasts more than a lifetime, at most. All of it is just packaging. It has nothing to do with the soul, the shining spirit, inhabiting that body.

Fat people have souls and spirits as bright as the thinnest among us. Trans people have souls and spirits as glorious as any cis person. People of color have souls and spirits as transcendent as white people. Women and men are equally intelligent and capable.

Our similarities far outweigh our differences. We all have feelings.

Can’t we see that everyone, everywhere, has a story we don’t know? We have no idea what drives them to behavior that we, with our very different lives and circumstances, think we would never choose. In their places, we blithely assume, we would make better choices.

But would we? We’ll never know. So how dare we despise them?

Why can’t we see there is no “them?” There is no one here but us.

Stories – Part 2

I keep thinking of people as living stories. Stories we each weave from we see, hear and are told. We choose which stories to believe, which to reject, which to pull threads from, weaving parts of those stories into our own.

Take, for instance, the thread “Ahmed is a Muslim.”

Our reaction depends on the story we have already woven. Do we fear him? Do we embrace him as a brother? Do we not care at all? The answer is already there, in the fabric of our lives.

Unless we encounter something completely new, that is always true.

We have never met Ahmed, but we believe we know all kinds of things about him, based on a single thread of his story. That’s the root of all bias, all stereotypes, all preconceptions. Any new information is compared to the pattern already woven, and incorporated or discarded.

To change, we need to unpick parts of our stories.

For some of us, the weave is pretty loose. We are content leaving loose ends floating around, and it’s relatively easy to pull out some of the weft, as new threads pass through our lives.

Some of us weave our internal stories so tightly that it’s nearly impossible to pull a single thread. If one thread turns out to be faulty, we weave more tightly around it, so it’s not visible. We “double down” because we fear if we pull a thread, the entire fabric will unravel.

Rather than that, we’ll put up with diametrically opposed, even mutually exclusive patterns in the weave, ignoring the discord. That feels less risky than reweaving.

Because reweaving, while always possible, takes enormous amounts of courage.

Courage that can only come from willingness to examine the inconsistency, which will give us strength to undo the error, and reweave.

 

Photo attribution: “Sacred Valley NGOs 051 – Awamaki weaving tour” by McKay Savage is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.  The image was reduced 50%

Thoughts on my Day Off

Its Monday. The day I spend “blind for tax purposes”. I’m extremely myopic, and have worn contact lenses for more than 40 years. I’d like to wear them for the rest of my life, so one day a week I let my eyes rest, and go without them.

My glasses are heavy and uncomfortable, and don’t come anywhere near correcting my vision, so mostly I just walk around my house with my eyeballs all nekkid. Which means anything I can’t do on my phone, (which I can hold the necessary two inches from my eyes,) I simply can’t do.

So I take the day off.

Which is the only thing that keeps me from working seven days a week, since I’m self employed.

Last week I finished the Texture Tutorials in Second Life, and put them  out for people to use on my sim, Livingtree. I also got set up for Trunk or Treat, which is open now. And put the annual Halloween Cauldron with freebies in it out for the SL Kids.

Next week, I start to work intensively on the things I’m making for the Arcade, which will open December first.

But today is the day between, when I rest, and read, and study, and do a lot of thinking.

Mostly, I’ve been thinking about how to become … I’m not sure what to call it. Someone filled with kindness, compassion, joy, passion, curiosity, humor, common sense, intelligence, wisdom, perspective, and patience, all laced through with love and honesty.

I’ve been working at this for most of my life, really. I think a lot of us have, but that might be “the usual error.” (The one where you think other people are more like you than they really are.

Right now, I’m doing a lot of thinking and reading about body acceptance, and about bias in general. About how people treat other people, and about intersectionality. (More than one thing that causes people to be marginalized in this society. Like being both black and trans, or being both poor and gay, or being three or four or even more things all at once, like a fat lesbian trans-woman of color, and how they all add up to make life more and more difficult, even when none of them are anything anyone has any control over.)

When I’ve thought about it enough, I’ll probably write something here about it.

Anyway, that’s the kind of thing I’m doing on this gorgeous October day.  What are you doing?

 

Open Letter to Those Who Aren’t “Good Enough.”

I’m taking part in the Zero to Hero challenge, here at WordPress.

Today, the challenge is to write to that one person we hope would read our blog. The one we are trying to reach.

This is my post, to all those who are burning with creativity, but are sure their work isn’t “good enough.” Continue reading Open Letter to Those Who Aren’t “Good Enough.”