Labels...Really??

I see all kinds of people labeling each other.  Gay, straight, bi, androgynous, lesbian, and other.  Is it really that big of a deal that we put each other into little compartments, nice and neat, no muss no fuss?  I think not.  There is a trend growing in the USA.  The trend is announcing to the world that one is gender and sexuality fluid.  I knew from an early age that I liked boys.  I did not know that there was a different name for people like me until I got to high school.  It was not that I was sheltered, far from it.  It just was not really something people talked about.  I remember the first time I labeled myself...I was bi...not because I thought there was anything wrong with being who I was, but because others found it more acceptable since I still "liked" girls.  The truth is, I never really was into girls.  Not really...I mean I had some interesting sexual trysts that involved females, but there was always a strong desire for other guys.  I did (straight) marry twice, though with both I was completely honest about my desires.  With the first one, she thought it was cool...she used to bring guys home to share with me.  The second never really understood what I needed, though I can say that I loved them both.  

For me sex and love are two different concepts.  Sex is about a physical need being satisfied, whereas love is about the heart.  I know that many do not see the difference and have a hard time understanding.  Let me try to explain...sex is the primal need to spread your seed (obviously for men)...the sexual desire transcends everything...name, financial status, marital status, gender, sexuality, etc...when there is a physical attraction (regardless) sex is possible.  It is a physiological process that has kept humanity alive and growing for millennia.  Love on the other hand, is about nurturing and sharing...I have known love in my life...I fell in love with a guy who did not love me as I loved him...I knew from the beginning...yet I still loved...It is irrational and makes no sense whatsoever, but we do it, nonetheless.  It has no relation to sex...

Wait...I know that as a species, humans like to think that love leads to sex...they are wrong.  It is wonderful and nice when you love a person that you are having sex with, but love is not necessary.  I know it seems strange and slutty  that one could have sex without knowing anything about the other, but it happens every day in every species.  Humans are not the only ones to have sex for fun.  It has been documented that certain cetaceans and nearly all monkey kind have sex for pleasure.  I would even go so far as to say that many have multiple partners, of both genders.  

I guess the whole point of this blog is to say that we as intelligent beings, armed with the knowledge that we do, that there really is no point in assigning labels to sexuality or gender as they are both as undefinable as love.  I say, let love be love and sex be sex...if one can be lucky enough to love the one they have sex with then it is a win...but not having love with sex or sex with love should not be considered a loss either.  All shades of love and sexuality should be accepted without question.  We are being what and who we were created to be...all of us.

Freedom of Religion...the American Way

I have been trying to resist the whole Kim Davis thing, but I really think it has gone far enough.  There is a time to stand firm and then there is the time to back down.  The Supreme Court, District Court, the Governor, and constituents have all said issue the licenses.  If your conscience will not allow it, then step down.  

The problem is not Kim Davis or her skewed sense of morality, but rather the sensationalism that the conservative right has come to adore.   Conservatives want everyone to live by a certain moral code that is wrapped around God and his influence on the world.  There have been many attempts of late to try to wrap law into religion, and all need to fail.  I hear people yelling about Shia Law yet here they are trying to violate my rights to humanity by claiming religious liberty.  Shia Law is not the same as religious indoctrination, but the principal is very much the same.  

If we were to follow the bible as law, the passages that prohibit homosexuality also declare women as chattel, that husbands have a duty to beat their wives (more than one), and that a daughter is worth 3 goats and a cow.  We have long since abandoned the passages permitting bigamy, women as chattel, beatings and dowry, yet they still want to press the gay one.  Times change and with it the moral compass.  Many things today violate christian belief, divorce being chief among them.  Yet divorce is legal and practiced by many "religious" people.  

The sun has not gone nova, the seas have not swallowed up the land, and your marriage is just as valuable (or not) as it was before.  The whole point of this blog is to express how ridiculous it is that we as a people in the 21st century are still fighting for equality.  Religion has no place in government.  The first Amendment to the Constitution is about keeping religion to religion and law to law.  In this case, Kim Davis is violating the first Amendment.  Her religion is hers to practice, but when she walks in the door and becomes an elected body, religion cannot influence that job.  

Bottom line...Do Your Damned Job, or Resign.  

Thought of the day...

I was sitting here thinking about stuff, because that is what I do.  What if humanity (as we call ourselves) is nothing but a grand experiment and we are nothing but biological androids.  I know very far fetched idea, but consider this...our brains are nothing more than electrical storage units that somehow store a digital record of every day of our lives...our heart inexplicably beats--electrical muscle spasms that push blood-- consistently (for most of us anyway)...our muscles are controlled by electrical and chemical signals sent down a network of nerves...we are fueled by consuming organic materials which are transferred into electrical energy...see where this is going??  Furthermore, consider the virus and bacteria...neither have brains...but consider that they could be arbitrary pieces of biological code...programmed to do nothing but steal a cell and replicate.  

It seems like science fiction, but in reality, what are we??  Nothing more than and organic machine that consumes organic materials to chemically convert into electrical energy that allows for locomotion and storage of data.  Incidentally, this data is what makes each individual machine different and unique.  Consider human reproduction.  Each machine starts as 2 distinct and unique cells that magically come together and begin the arduous task of becoming a brand new biological machine.  As a human, we get 23 chromosomes (programs?) from each parent that somehow know exactly what to do and when to do it...the stronger programs win out over the weaker ones (eye color, skin color, hair color, etc...).   Somehow, they grow all the different organs, cells, and tissues that become the biologic body.

How are we any different than the computers and other machines we use every day?  They use electricity, like us...they store data (tons of it daily), like us...they can replicate (code) and are largely responsible for building other machines.  

Are we creating unique machines, or are we merely duplicating with non-organic material, ourselves??  

Undeserving...still

There once was this guy...he worked his butt off all his life to help his family.  One day, his father died and left him to deal with all of the emotional turmoil he left behind.  After a time, things calmed and life regained some sense of normalcy.  He still wasted his life helping others and making sure that all was good.  For a little while, he stepped away and decided to do something for himself.  The others stepped in and helped out during his hiatus.  Soon after he finished what he set out to do, he was summoned back to help out more.  Nevermind that the time was being used to better himself, he selflessly stepped back into the support role and put his own life on hold...again.  After a little while, he began to have issues dealing with life and his feelings of uselessness.  He entered a program that promised to help him learn to deal with stuff.  While in the program, he had a couple physical issues that rendered his little hiatus useless.  He began the arduous process of proving that the issues would prevent him from doing what his training led him to do.  Meanwhile, his mother began her spiral toward her eventual demise.  One day it happened.  She left.  He was left alone.  The one that put his life on hold so that everyone else was able to have a life was left alone.  Without the daily requirements of taking care of an ill person, his life became devoid of purpose.  He was left to fend for himself and rely on others for his upkeep.  The sad truth of it is that he hates depending on anyone for anything, but his own illnesses (both mental and physical) prevent him from being able to do anything about it.  Living this way, he has managed, getting ever more despondent and feeling ever more useless. 

It is said that actions speak louder than words, and that words can cut like a knife.  It is easy to say that one will be there to take care of another, and a completely different thing to have the fortitude to place one's life on hold and do it.  The story above is not only my story, but the story of many people in my age range.  Parents that were born in the boomer age, are now getting old, sick, and tired.  I was never asked to take the role of caregiver, I just felt it was my duty.  I wish sometimes that I had not been as honorable and tried to live a life.  Now I am getting older.  My body is not as pliant as it once was.  My emotions are out of control and I feel like I don't deserve anything.  I don't deserve to be happy...or to love someone...or to have friends...or to even exist anymore.  I feel like the old person left at the nursing home.  The one that spent his or her whole life taking care and sacrificing for their family that they did not get to live.  Now they sit and wait to die, their purpose completed.  I am not suicidal (my mother would come out of the grave and beat me bloody), but some days I wonder why I feel the way I do and if things would have been different had I been able to be who I was.  I guess I will never know, nor would it make any difference to anyone anyway.

The value of myself

Depression sucks.  It can make one feel like they are less of a person...an incomplete person...a person with so much baggage that they cannot envision themselves being worthy of anything or anyone.  Today, I am that person.  I know that I have a lot to offer a person in the way of relationship, but i cannot help but feel that pursuit of a relationship will be fruitless.  I have many issues, not all of them physical.  Depression is robbing me of my joy of life and desire to share my soul with another.  Despite the fact that I know these things, I still feel unworthy.

I hear people all the time telling me to suck it up...snap out of it...just think positive...but the truth of the matter is that when I am down, I am way down...when I am up, I am average.  Have you ever seen a biorhythm chart?  You notice that the lines cross the median and peak above the line and valley  below it?  My depression chart would look like a wave below the median with the best peak being even with the line and the lows very low.  Yeah I know that part of learning to cope with depression is accepting the mechanics of it and to not beat myself up about it, but some days it is hard to even find a reason to want to wake up.

I try to write about how I feel.  Sometimes it feels like I am complaining about how unfair my life is. That is not the case at all.  If anything, I feel like I do not deserve to be happy.  I am jealous of others that are able to open up their selves and show their warts, bruises, and imperfections.  I cannot.  It feels like all I am is warts, bruises and imperfections...no redeeming qualities at all...I know it is not true, but that is how I feel a lot of the time.

I am not looking for validation of my feelings either.  My feelings are my own.  Nobody has said or done anything to make me feel less wanted...I just feel like that.  There are so many things I yearn to do, but cannot find the desire or energy to begin.  I do not even feel like writing this, but I know that if I don't, it may cause me to fall deeper into my own despair.

I know that I am not alone in this.  I know that there are others out there that feel as I do.  I just want to let people know that I do understand.  I know what it is like to not feel worthy of drawing breath.  I live it every day.  If you ask me how I am, I will always answer "fine" even though I am not.

Dissecting <>ism in human culture

In a perfect world, a person would look at another person and just see a person--not a color, race, nationality, sexuality, or stereotype.  It is a sad truth that we are still using those terms to identify a person.  When we were young we were taught to identify objects via a unique trait.  The big red ball, tall green grass, the dusty chalkboard.  What was somehow skipped was being taught to not use that same method to identify people.  That Chinese over there, the black guy with the bandana, or the gay boy at the park.  Over time we have a become accustomed to this flawed methodology and even today it still causes problems.  

***For the remainder of this article, I will replace the negative generalizations with <>.  This is not to minimize the topic, but rather to prevent any one group from being singled out or any specific event occurring either now or in the past.***  

We hear in the news about this <> person being killed by this <> cop, or this <> man was attacked on the street by <> kids.  I think that the news people like to stir trouble.   When they are reporting on these stories, the tragedy is missed and overshadowed by the <> of the victims.  I realize that there are major cultural differences in the different regions of the US.  The <>isms are not exclusive to one <> or another.  All <> are guilty of discrimination.   Despite recent advances in balancing rights, there still exists an undertone of anxiety with regard to <>.  

Kids today are being taught differently than when I was young.  Today, a <> kid is just a kid.  We might finally be approaching a generation that identifies people not based on <>, but based on accomplishments or merit.  That is not to say that <>ism is gone, but at least it is shrinking and perhaps by the next generation...Y...or is it Z...anyway, they will likely not classify people by <>, but by how they are treated and teach by example.  

I mentioned earlier about news stories keeping things stirred up...I did not mention the positives--athletes, actors, musicians, and other television personalities coming out to embrace our differences.  People are realizing that none of <> matters.  What matters is what is in the heart and how we treat each other.  Some day...<> won't matter...and all we will be is people.

Blog about writing OR Get up and WRITE!

While sitting here listening to the crickets and cicada, it occurs to me that I have been neglecting my passion.  Not ignoring it, all out not even wanting to write.  I wonder if it is because of the weather, my pain levels, or just plain laziness.  Perhaps, because it is summer and wickedly hot and amazingly sticky, that the desire to do anything at all is too much to hope for.  At any rate, I decided tonight that I would try to write a post every night, even if it is nothing more than a minuscule rant such as this.  I once heard (maybe from a movie) that if you wake up in the morning and can think of nothing else, then that is what you are supposed to do.  I go to sleep, dream, wake up, and lumber through my day thinking of nothing but writing.  So why is it so hard to get going?

Thinking of my favorite author, Robert A Heinlein, I recall he had a thing about rules for writing.  One of those rules is you must write.  Though it seems rather simple, it is much harder to put into practice.  One must make time to write every day.  Write a blog, a short story, an idea, a poem...anything...just take an hour and write anything.  Even if it makes no sense to anyone but you...write.

Another of the rules said something about not rewriting except for editorial requirements.  This I like as when I write something, I write it as I want it, not as another would have me write.  I think even should I get a writing gig, I would have a hard time rewriting to someone else's requirements.  I would do it...not for the money, but for the opportunity to get my name and my work out for the world to see.

I cannot remember any of the others, but those two are really enough.  I will write for me and if it sells or is good or bad, I will own it and try harder to write something of substance next time.  I have another blog called paragraph a day project...perhaps I should dust it off and begin writing in it every day and save this blog for my personal thoughts and sharing ideas (ideals?)  At any rate, I look forward to any constructive criticism...that does not give you license to rip me apart...that might help me write better and tell a more compelling story.

Comments can be made here or can be emailed to me at xopherrei@icloud.com

Until tomorrow, Adieu!