v45

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function
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"The test of a first-rate intelligence 

is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind

 at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

[F. Scott Fitzgerald]

Yes, I realize the quote is a bit self-aggrandizing, but then, this one is me writing about myself, so it comes with the territory.  Additionally, it fits the theme of today's ramble.

So every now and then I like to do a "v" post, where I take a look at myself, and how I think I've changed as a person.

Looking back to v42 and taking stock:

I continue to feel every day that my own body betrays me.  I'm starting to take slightly better care of it in some ways, but really falling down in others.  I need to improve.  I don't have the willpower I prided myself on when I was younger.  Not sure if I've lost it or if I've just stopped lying to myself about having it in the first place.

I've gotten a little better at "leaving the woman at the river" with regards to work-stress, but not by much.

I'm a little better about the sarcastic prick knee-jerk responses, but not by much.  I'm still working on that one too.

I'm getting better at controlling and focusing my addictions in a more positive way: spending my time working toward hobbies and projects that lead to more happy interactions with others (e.g. writing D&D stuff and crafting), and less on purely solitary "wheel-spinning" (i.e. video games).  There are still some tweaks to be made to the scheduling.

I continue to learn about being a good parent.  I'd like to think I've improved considerably there.  Liza-Ann is a phenomenal example and instructor.  She's always given rise to my becoming a better person (and to appreciate myself for the person I already am), but watching her with Dan continues to become more and more heart-warming and inspiring.

And this past year has caused me to open my mind further, to a world of more and more fascinating people with all sorts of atypical life experiences.  I've enjoyed that immensely.  I can't even describe it.  My god, it's full of stars.  I've also had some excellent examples and instructors there.  I count Dan among them.  In the past 6 months, he has been the impetus behind a period of rapid evolution in who I am as a person, for the better.  At my age that's... unexpected, and very welcome.  I felt like I'm wandering into uncharted territory, and my fear is finally being overcome by a curiosity and spirit of adventure.

I find it thrilling in a way, to break down old ways of thinking, to embrace paradoxes, to think "outside the box".  These are things that have always fascinated me.

Some time ago, I wrote about the need to discover ways to explain to a paradox to a (then) 11-year old, though I may not have gone into why.  As a Taoist, I believe much truth lies in paradox.  I also believe almost nothing is ever 100%.  All things lie on a relative spectrum.  For those familiar with the Taijita ("yin-yang symbol"), this is the reason for the small dots, and why it's not simply a circle split in half.

I embrace paradox, and over the last few years I've come to find the truth most often lies within them.  For example, at work, I adamantly insist things be documented.  I also profess to believe that said documentation will almost always go completely unread.  At first glance, the idea of me endorsing the creation of a work product that will go completely unused seems contradictory.  But you see, I believe the value lies in the creation of the documentation, not the documentation itself.  With this, as often in life, there are many positive results that come about from the journey, not the destination.

I am a perfectionist and a completionist, but I leaves things just a touch less than perfect and never quite complete.  I don't believe there really is such a thing as "perfect" and "finished", they're just laudable goals that give you something to strive for.  ("Fish cannot live in pure water" is the proverb that goes through my mind.)

I like to think I try to live a relatively simple life, but I know I can be a complicated person at times.  And honestly, I'm not sure which of those two others regard me as.  It probably depends as much on the context of how they know me as anything else.  I consider myself very intelligent, yet I don't believe I'm a good judge of character.  In fact, I think quite the opposite.  As a judge of how others see me, I fail even more.  It is almost as if in becoming so keenly self-aware, I've stopped paying enough attention to what others are saying.

Speaking of Taoism, I may be both the least and most religious person you know.  How is that possible?

There, at the top of the page, my personal mantra.  This is my religion.  Every day.

I don't go to a church or mosque or other house of worship.  Indeed, I don't worship.  I don't pray (in a fashion you recognize).  I don't meditate (that you've seen).  I have no traditions or ceremonies.  I eschew all the trappings of ritualized or institutionalized religion and regularly rail against many of them.  I openly state I don't believe in (an anthropomorphic) god.  I seriously doubt anyone who knows me would ever use the word "religious" to describe me.

On the other hand,my internal dialogue, each and every day, the thing that guides every important waking choice or action is itself rooted in my belief in Taoism and the lessons of the Tao Te Ching.  My quoting a "chinese proverb" out loud happens every few days, as I'm sure my coworkers would tell you, but internally, it happens almost hourly.  The way in which I approach every situation, solve every problem, attempt to calm myself in times of trouble or rouse myself when a call to action is necessary, is deeply ingrained in a mental self-discipline.  To call it "faith" might be misleading, but to call it "philosophy" should equally fall short.  Clearly it is codified behaviour, and the fact that it is so internalized makes it difficult to observe but nonetheless true.  If you listened carefully, you would begin to realize I'm repeating the same mantras, the same lessons, time and time again, and it would become apparent that I'm closely following a set of guidelines.  I have five tattoos.  Four are Taoism-related.

But you wouldn't call me "religious" would you?  Seldom would I.  And those you would describe that way are quite possibly those who embrace the trappings and the rituals but whose behaviour is decidedly not codified by the precepts they claim to hold dear.  (We've all heard the Gandhi quote about Christians.)

Food for thought.  Moving on.

The past year or so I've been giving a lot of thought to my ability to give and receive compliments and criticism.  I enjoy and appreciate compliments, but my natural skepticism leads me to often sweep them aside or ignore them.  I would like to pay more compliments, but my (incorrect) default assumption that others are as skeptical as me leads me to believe they'd be perceived as disingenuous or dual-purposed so I don't dare to make many.  For every one that passes my lips there are probably another nine that don't escape my mind for this and other reasons.  I'm working on that.  I'm trying to get better at it.  I feels like a lost art.  It's... strangely powerful, provided it's genuine.

Which reminds me:  I've been writing more of late, which is something I've wanted to get back to for a long, long time, but I did not (for boring and/or obvious reasons I will spare you).  To retrieve one of those "pins" from a previous blog:  I have a twisted relationship with my blog.  I write mostly from a need to express myself and share my ideas, but my choice to express these ideas in this fashion often leads to very little discussion about them.  Sometimes I share them because I want to discuss them.  As often, I want to share them and not discuss them further.  There is no easy way to tell which is which as a reader.  (Sorry.)  I'm seldom approached by anyone wanting to discuss what I write.  Perhaps I come across as unapproachable about some of it, or perhaps it seems like I've said all I have to say and there's little point in bringing it up.  I enjoy the writing and do think I'm good at it; I don't feel ready to ever try it professionally because I fear both that I'm not that good and that if I were, it would suck the enjoyment out of it in the transition from hobby to occupation.  I enjoy compliments about it; I hate that I enjoy those compliments.  Humility is important to me and I don't want to seek the approval of others.  I consider requiring the approval of others a character flaw and do everything I can do avoid it.  This is why I seldom actually link my blog on Facebook.  I want praise but hate myself for wanting it.  I want the criticism (so I can improve) but fear the bitter sting of receiving it.  And until I get over those, they remain two very good reasons to never take it a step farther.  Or maybe I'm just rationalizing a fear of failure, which I would equally detest if it is true.

And it probably is.

But it doesn't mean the various excuses aren't also true.  Taijita, remember?  Nothing is 100% anything.

Finally, this is the part where you reach the end of the entry and I always come full circle and hit you with the all-important "mind splinter" I've been carefully spiraling towards.

Well, almost always.  (Fish...)

Boys Do Cry

“If you do ever decide to go on testosterone, 
build yourself into a good man. 

The last thing the world needs 
is another misogynist prick."

["One in Every Crowd", Ivan Coyote]

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of going to a book reading by Ivan Coyote.  It was an excellent time.  It was insightful.  It was emotional.  I came away with an incredible reverence and respect for Ivan as an excellent speaker and masterful storyteller.  Ivan is not just spouting off a few ideas from a text here; this is an emotionally-charged experience for the listener and I can only imagine gut-wrenching for the speaker.  I am astounded that they have the fortitude to do this day in and day out, sharing so much of themselves with others.  I know, from my own experience, how draining writing something deeply personal can be.  Frankly, I've sometimes cried when writing certain entries in this blog.  (A few of late would make for pretty obvious guesses.)  I often re-read things I've written in the past, and sometimes cry again when I do.  To me, the idea of standing before a crowd of people to read something like that aloud, multiple times a week or even a day... I am amazed and impressed.  They have a huge heart.

Ivan is an altogether fascinating person.  This was their eleventh book, and they were holding a writing seminar a few days later.  I haven't read any of these books, though I do hope to some day, because from the excerpts I'm sure I would find them quite fascinating.  They have a clever way of playing with blending particularly fine details with broader strokes in a way that focuses your attention to put you in a similar emotional space.  These days, sadly, reading is one of those things where my aspirations far exceed the time I allot to them, and I have a backlog of "books to read" dating back a few years stacked on and in my nightstand.  I look forward to retiring some day and getting caught up on all this stuff.

I thought long and hard about going to their seminar but eventually decided not to.  My relationship with my own writing is kind of a strange one.  It's complicated, but I'm not sure I'm ready to get into why right here right now, so let's put a pin in that.  (This collection of pins lately is starting to grow.  I'll get to them some day, I swear.)  I will just add this:  it's not my intention that my writing will only ever be exclusively about the current elephant in the room.  There are a number of well-written parent-of-transgender blogs out there, and I don't want to ever confine myself to writing about one particular topic or one particular aspect of my life, and especially when there are already better writers to be found on those topics.  Yes, gender-related issues have been a big part of what's on my mind this past number of months, obviously, but certainly not the only thing.  (Since the last thing the world needs right now is one more vitriolic rant about why a certain American candidate for president is lower than pond scum, I'll spare you that one though.)

However, having said that, since issues around "masculinity" and what "man" means have been forefront in my mind these days, apologies, but... here's one more trip to that same well.

There were things that Ivan said that struck chords with me.  There were a number of things.  And now, a few weeks later, several of them are still swimming around in my head.  I knew they would be when I left that room that night.  I shook their hand and told them they were a good storyteller, because I knew they had done to me what the very thing I endeavor to do to others when I write: they left 'splinters in my mind'.

There's nothing more insidious than a clever idea, is there?  Weeks later: splinters still in my mind.  If I ever see Ivan again, I'll want to shake my head, say "bastard", shake their hand, and hope they know how much a compliment that is.  (I probably won't, but I'd like to.)

The most prominent splinter right now is the idea of 'smashing the patriarchy'.  I'd already been thinking and writing about 'what is masculinity anyway?'  Perhaps Ivan caught me at just the right time, really.  I'd already been dwelling in a place, mentally, where I was saying "machismo has to go".  I have come to think a lot these days about "what kind of a man" I want to help Dan become.  Ultimately, he will be who he will be - I get that - but right now I'm in a position to help, to influence.  I am in a position to show, by example, what I consider 'positive masculine traits' to be.

This a responsibility I feel every parent bears.  I take responsibilities very seriously.  It's simply insufficient to tell your child how to behave.  You have to show them.  The idea of kids "turning into their parents" when they grow up is a cliché precisely because it's so bloody common.  Can I content myself with the idea that I'm "a good guy" or do I not have a larger burden to "be the guy worthy of that child's admiration and emulation"?

So I'm making a commitment to cry more openly in public.  

Yep, you read that right.

It was one of Ivan's asks for males.  Let's destroy the macho myth of stoicism and insensitivity.  Screw that.  Let's tear that statue down.  I'm there.  Now I'm not talking melodramatic bullshit, obviously.  I'm talking genuine displays of emotion.  I'm not one for faking.  I have a hard time even mustering up a smile for a photograph.  No, no, I just mean not even bothering with the "there's something in my eye!" excuse.  Get hit in the feels?  Own it!

I've cried quietly at Pixar movies in the past but hid it.  Hell, I'm sure I've welled up at commercials more than once.  No more hiding.  Maudie made me well up, but I didn't quite get there.  (Great film though!)  I don't recall what else of late has hit me right in the heart.  Oh wait, right.  Duh!  Ivan made me well up too.
 
I want a world where men are allowed expected to have feelings.  I'm planting my flag.  I'm taking my freedom.  I want a world of passionate, sensitive, caring men.

I've allowed myself a lot more raw emotionalism of late than I have in a long time.  Shedding the invisible cloaks the charlatan tailors stitch for us isn't easy.  But it is worthwhile.  It's been rough at times.  There was a period of days after Truth Table where I felt like I was walking in a daze and just wanted to curl up in bed and stay there a while until I felt whole again.  That particular sentence in the middle of it was so hard to write.

I believe that accepting the authenticity of your own life experience without denying yourself things like grief is key to personal growth.  How are you expecting to develop fully if you deny half the inputs?  So much of what holds us back, so much that separates us from the happiness to which we all aspire, are the very chains we forge for ourselves when we invest too much concern in the opinions of others.  The myth of macho is just one of many such things.  And yeah, I'm just as foolish and fragile as anyone.  I care, when I know I shouldn't.  I like the approval, no matter how much I know I shouldn't let myself require it.  I'm not claiming to be better or braver than anyone else.  

I'm just saying that I believe it's worth the struggle.  Struggle to be honest with yourself.  Struggle to be honest with others.  Struggle to be honest that you're struggling.

And goddamn, I do enjoy a good rom-com now and then, ya know?

Satyagraha

"First they ignore you, 

then they laugh at you, 

then they fight you, 

then you win."

[Quote frequently misattributed to Mohandas Gandhi]

The quote above is burned in my mind, though I only recently learned of the fact that it's likely misattributed.  Gandhi never said it, or at least not quite the way that is so often quoted.  It is a rough paraphrasing of things he wrote when discussing the idea of "Satyagraha", a Sanskrit compound word combining satya ("truth") and agraha ("polite insistence", or "holding firmly to").  Ideas about non-violence as a path to social and political reform always find firm footing with me:  a key element in Taoism is 'overcoming through acquiescence'.  If that sounds silly, go ahead and laugh.  It's important someone does.

The quote was adopted by both the Sanders and Drumpf campaigns in US presidential race, but horribly out of context from what I can see.  Gandhi isn't talking about your average schmuck, and he's not talking about someone facing an average challenge.  He's talking about the oppressed and the marginalized.  He's speaking to the struggle for equality and for freedom.  He's talking about a struggle that is daily, not periodic.  And he's saying violent revolution is not required, because in the end, sooner or later, the truth always wins.  So "hold firmly to the truth", and trust that it will win.

That fact that I have a skeptical mind and a tendency to rant about things from time to time, lends itself to an overall impression that I'm a very cynical person.  But I feel I'm not, really.  I'm actually a pretty positive person much of the time, at least inside my head.  It's not rose-coloured glasses, to be sure, but I try to maintain a very balanced outlook on life.  I'm usually pretty happy with my life these days.  I hold hope for the future.

It's hard to maintain a balanced outlook sometimes, what with all that's going on with the American elections, with BlackLivesMatter, with the struggles of trans folk of which I'm now much more keenly aware.

That quote, however, is the thing that springs to mind for me, and it actually lifts me up.  The way I see it is this:  if you look back at civil rights movements, what is being described by that quote is a process.  It's a repeatable process.  It's a repeating process.  It's an inevitable process.

First, racial equality wasn't even a discussion.  Then it was just lots of "nigger" jokes.  Then it's a movement, and people are arguing on both sides.  Finally, we see things like the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Yes, absolutely there's still issues that still need solving.  That part is clear.  But my point is that the pattern is there, and progress has certainly been made.

The idea of women's suffrage first wasn't even an idea.  Then it was considered a laughable one.  Then comes the fighting.  Then comes the vote.

In my youth, no one was talking about what "gay" even was at first, and then came the "fag" jokes and Three's Company practically building a whole sitcom around making fun of homosexuals.  Next came a decade of arguing over marriage equality, and now, province by province, country by country, things are changing.  We're watching as the truth win.

So when the likes of Jordan Peterson... ...let's be clear, I don't even truly consider this political activism, I just think he's an asshole.  If I'm introduced as Patrick and I shake your hand and say "please, call me Pat" and you insist on calling me "Mr Constantine" I'm going to think "what a rude douchebag", not "oooh, perhaps he's a clever person making a intellectual statement of some sort".

I digress.

When people like Jordan Peterson fight about so simple a thing as paying someone the effortless courtesy of the pronoun they use, I remember the words attributed to Gandhi, and in doing so, try not to become disheartened or angry.

Because Jordan not ignoring trans people.  He's laughing and he's fighting.  And so long as he's laughing and fighting, it means things are well on their way.  Get ignored.  Get laughed at.  Get fought.  Win.

So you keep fighting, Jordan, because it just means we are getting closer to winning.  You're furthering conversation, and making it impossible for people to be ignored.

We need only politely insist on holding to the truth.

By the way, you may have noticed that I didn't refer to Gandhi above as "Mahatma".  It seems he didn't much care for the honorific "Mahatma".

I think it fair to call him by the name he chose to use.

"Often the title has deeply pained me, 

and there is not a moment I can recall

when it may be said to have tickled me."

[Mohandas Gandhi]

Women

"Know the role of the male;

stick to the role of the female."

["Tao Te Ching", Lao Tze]

So I wrote about masculinity a little while ago...

But I always find women far more fascinating.  Perhaps that's just because I'm so stereotypically hetero-male.  Perhaps that's because of my mother.

Of my parents, my mother was the dominant one.  She was still old-fashioned when it came to gender roles, but that I would always see her as the more potent of the two wasn't something she could prevent.  So if there was supposed to be a women-as-weak lesson in there, I guess I missed it.  Ergo, I've always had a healthy respect for women.

Dad was a "manly man", mind you: the kind who would bite into a raw onion and drink pea juice from the can.  The sound of a car hood being lifted somewhere in the neighborhood was like a beckon call for him, and despite the fact that he knew nothing about cars he'd have his head underneath that open hood in moments.

I accepted long ago I was never going to "put hair on my chest", as he put it, and be "manly".  I am, and always have been, more comfortable in front of a keyboard than a steering wheel, and my hand fits better around a video game controller than a pistol grip.

So I wrote a tongue-in-cheek ramble about the fact that modern culture seems to be struggling with its now inability to clearly provide a decent benchmark definition of what masculinity is, but in truth, to me the real answer to the question of "what makes a man" is this:  being a man is much like being cool.  Either you are or you aren't, and if you have to ask, you're not.

This notion of be is true of much of life.  Ultimately, success requires that you learn to just... be.  Happiness, it seems, largely stems from allowing others to just... be.

Fact is, I think the absence of a modern benchmark is a good thing.  It is the beginning of the dissolution of machismo, itself a cornerstone of bullying, misogyny, and rape culture.

I look at Dan with a respect, admiration, and perhaps even a touch of envy:  he is, and so long as the world lets him be, he will continue to be an altogether fascinating person who does what he likes and finds ways to embrace every part of himself.  There's no blue-for-boys/pink-for-girls here.  There is simply what he likes and what he doesn't like - as well it should be.  If only we all possessed both this courage to be and the tolerance to let everyone else be as well.

Sadly, the world is not quite ready for people like him.  But it's trying to be.  It's trying to find that tolerance.  It's my heartfelt hope that it's not that far away.  Is there a better pursuit than every person having the freedom to live with authenticity?

There's a lot going on in the world right now, and a lot of the conflict always stems from this inability of people to let others just be.  And from what I've seen recently, this inability rests more largely with men.

I recently told a friend I was disappointed with men in general.  Obviously, I'm not speaking of particular ones, but of the whole outdated subculture of masculinity to which so many cling.  The context of the conversation at the time was related to a seeming inability to accept gender non-conforming children.  I'd expected resistance to stem primarily from religion, only to be disappointed that it appears to stem more from machismo than anything else.  (Doubly-disappointed, since I really do love beating up on organized religions.  Oh, nevermind.  I never have to search far.)

Honestly, it feels like a microcosm of a larger picture.  I gave it some thought, and my gut feeling is:

Gentleman, we're being out-evolved. 

Women wanted their equality, and culturally, I feel like they have spent the last half century in North American adopting the positive qualities of masculinity, while maintaining all the positive aspects of femininity.  They've learned the benefits of male aggression as it pertains to pursuing dreams and finding empowerment, but maintained emotional intelligence and compassion to keep from becoming the callous ignoramuses we so often are.  They're much more restrained in knowing how far is just enough and how far is too far.  They're pursuing life and liberty in equitable ways we don't even seem to understand any more, and I believe if you listen to the sounds of the voices behind social justice, more and more often those are women's voices, not men's.

I'm not in a hurry to usher in the age of Akasha a la Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned (and never should have admitted the vasectomy since it destroys my value as breeding stock, damnit!).  So us men need to do some work to catch up.  Serious work.  Work that starts with tearing down our very selves by being brave enough to question the things we've been lead to believe.  We need to ask ourselves how we see men and women, how genders behave and interact, and about how we want to see the world work and what we have to be willing to change or give up in order to see that happen.

I don't think that's being hyperbolic, though I know many of you will take it that way.  Am I being hyperbolic?  Or are you being old and crusty and resistant to change?  I think if you look at the acceleration of the cultural revolution within the last century and then the last decade, I believe there's a certain momentum right now that screams "get on board or get left behind".

When people speak of Nietzsche's Ubermensch, it's actually misleading to translate is as "superman".  The original root means "mankind", not simply "man".  It's not a superman he was predicting, it was a superperson.  So if we men want to be a part of some new world order, perhaps it's time we ran to catch up.

Judge, Dread

[Originally drafted but never published:  early June 2016]

"Before you cross the street,
Take my hand,
Life is what happens to you,
While you're busy making other plans"

["Beautiful Boy", John Lennon]

As any parent of a young child knows, as that child grows you find yourself in a steady state of trepidation about what waits for them out in the world.  Shelter them as you will, some day the world will come knocking, and the wolves at the door can only be held at bay for so long.  You do what you can to let it in slowly, a little at a time, and to prepare them as best you can for it.

Cry fair or cry foul, call me sexist or realist, but in this reader's humble experience, many of the sorts of fears you hold for what awaits your child are rooted in gender.  

Raising a young girl, you worry about her being a victim more than a perpetrator, particularly when it comes to things like physical aggression or unwanted sexual encounters.  Sure, she'll probably break a few hearts along the way, but the thought of your daughter or step-daughter sexually assaulting someone isn't something that creeps into your mind from the blackest depths of the cripes-please-no abyss.  Rather, you live in the fear of things happening to her.  For a guy still getting over the Smencil it can be quite staggering if you let yourself dwell.

Raising a young boy, on the other hand, is a little different.  You undoubtedly realize the probability of school-yard fights is higher, and while keeping him safe from pedophiles is still just as real a stomach-churning worry, you don't really consider much the chance a young boy or girl his own age will gift him an unwanted sexual episode.  Instead, from the blackest depths comes he wouldn't, right?  Of course not.  He couldn't possibly be the harasser or physical aggressor!  But then, I'm sure that other kid's parents think that too...  Or do they?  Wait.  Are all the some-day sexual predators just children of delinquent parents, or are some from good parents who simply slipped when it came to properly guiding and counseling their otherwise normal-but-hormone-driven young man?

Being a feminist, I'm fully in agreement with the notion of "how about instead of teaching young girls to avoid rape we should teach young boys not to be rapists", but there's a large gap between ideology and action.  Sure, there's conversations you have about consent and about appropriate or inappropriate touching, and hopefully you're a brave enough parent to have them before they're required and not after it's too late.  But this is an area fraught with perilous misunderstandings even for adults with considerably more experience and - we'd like to think - better judgement.  It's not exactly an easy lesson to teach.  When are you being permissive?  When are you letting it go too far?

And stepping back from that, even our attitudes towards violence-as-a-solution have changed and evolved over our lifetime, and I'm glad for that.  When I was a young man fist-fights were occasional, and the idea that "sometimes someone just needs a punch in the face" was a way of life in the neighborhood where I grew up.  Nowadays, I try to shoo live bugs out of the house if I can.  But teaching non-violence and non-aggression in a violence-laden culture isn't easy.  Hell, I still watch MMA and play plenty of violent video games, and the kid knows it.

But for all the idealistic non-parents out there, in case you haven't figured this part out yet already, allow me to disillusion you:   

Us parents... we're just winging it.

There's no training.  There's instruction manual that gives you all the right directions for all the kids in all the situations.  And you don't tell a child once, and they hear and follow those instructions precisely while ignoring everything they see on MTV/YouTube/etc.  Rather, parents exercise judgement and do the best they can, forever trying to nudge their child in the right direction again and again, while constantly worrying their own judgement is flawed and they can't possibly be doing enough to make things turn out right.

So you live with the dread of what might be done to them, and act as judge and jury for preventing or punishing the missteps of what they might do.

When first faced with the idea of having a transgender child, my inclination was to think I was merely exchanging one set of problems for another.  I thought things would be different but not harder, or at least not much.

I was wrong.

When you're dealing with a trans child, it's simply not true.  As higher-than-average victims of abuse and crime, you get to have all the what might be done to fears.  More, even.  And with a child who is or was a young man, possibly being socialized to the pervasive "boys will be boys" mentality as they learn their way through the tweens, you also need to consider what he might do.

I want to now raise a 'proper man' - and I use the term 'man' pretty loosely these days, we know - but certainly not some idiot man-child or cock-swaggering frat boy with false notions of entitlement and a part of modern rape culture, and I have to do this without the typical benefit of an 11-year warmup.  Add to all this the whole unique set of issues that comes with raising a trans teen, issues with which other parents are unfamiliar, many of which they might not even guess.  Scratching your head?  Here's an assortment of words just to get you started:  washroom, swimsuit, sleepover, summer camp.  When you think you've wrapped your head around that, head here.  When you return, know you've still only just begun.  It's a long road.

Just before Liza-Ann left for a short vacation, we noticed he'd become very physically affectionate with a friend of his (a lot of hugging).  Discussions about consent and appropriateness were in order and were had.  Then, last week, while Liza-Ann was away, he had a physical altercation at school.  I immediately assumed - wrongly - that he was the victim.  But then he explained he was the aggressor: he'd lost his temper and grabbed another kid by the neck and thrown him down.  He knew it was wrong the moment he did it.  He knew how wrong it was.  He knew why.  He knew to apologize.  He knew he would be punished, both by the school and by his parents.  He knew it was a failure in social skills.  He knew there were plenty of other non-violent solutions.  He knew it would come with lectures.  (I held myself to two.  Okay, yes, I still have a third swimming in my head.)  And we both knew there was little I could say that would be enlightening, but that it wouldn't go without saying.  He would endure the lectures.  He would endure the punishment.  He would do his best to never lose his temper in such fashion again.  How much is enough punishment?  How much re-affirms the gravity of the situation without being unnecessarily punitive?  Everyone has a different answer, I'm sure.

He's a good kid.  It's a single incident.  Do you have any idea how many fistfights I was in through my youth?  I am old school.  I was a part of generation that considered a few fist fights a rite of passage growing up.  But those video games he sees me playing?  Even when you're talking cartoonish or unrealistic (zombies, etc.) ones, he still prefers "peaceful mode" whenever one is available.  He's not interested in the conflict.  Perhaps there's more hope for him than for me.

But this was the event that opened my eyes.  This was the thing that made me accept not just different, but more, so very much more.  My risk assessment list has tripled.

But don't take this as me being overwhelmed, just challenged.

All I'm saying is that I want others to understand some of the challenges one faces when you have a gender-creative child.

I will rise to this challenge, just as I rise to every other challenge life throws at me.  I don't ask "why me?"  I ask "why not me?"  I'm a very capable person, surrounded by good friends and family.  If someone is going to rise to meet these challenges, why not me?  I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.

I'm a positive person.  Sure, life has thrown us a curve.  Yes, he had a misstep, a mistake, one of many challenges to come, no doubt.

But it was the same week THIS happened.

People think me cynical because I consider the average human being to be pretty goddamn stupid, it's true.  But I'm also hopeful.  Because things are getting better.  Consider how far human rights has come in the last 50 years, the last 10 years, the last 5 years.  Stop for a moment and consider:

Are we the generation ushering in a new era of mankind that may finally see the rise of meritocracies, a universal belief in genuine compassion, and a reverence for mindfulness?  If not us, our children?  Our grandchildren?

Look how far we've come.  Surely, it's not that much farther.

"See my shadow changing,
Stretching up and over me.
Soften this old armor.
Hoping I can clear the way
By stepping through my shadow,
Coming out the other side.
Step into the shadow.
Forty six and two are just ahead of me. "

["46 & 2", Tool (covered by kids)]

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/johnlennon137162.html

Truth Table

"Love is that condition in which the happiness

 of another person is essential to your own."

[Robert Heinlein]

It's been months now for me, so it's reached the point of matter-of-factually in my every day now, to where the notion that I have a transgender child feels like "old news".  Even the word "transgender" has started to feel old.  I have a son.  Simple.

I tried to tell a coworker earlier, only to find out I'd already told her.  I tried to tell another, only to find out she'd figured it out herself after I'd forgotten to tell her some time ago - and given her a ride home with my child in the back seat with her a few weeks ago - and she'd long ago noticed the change in name when I was speaking.  She was just too shy to ask, but figured she knew what she needed and what else was there to say, really?  Her reaction to my bringing it up today was to remind me that the offer to lend me DVDs of those movies he liked was still open.

So obviously I've reached the point where I'm now losing track of who I have or haven't told.  So I'm just putting this out here, now, today, and post it on Facebook (something I don't normally do with my blog), because then I can say "I've told everyone, haven't I?"  I know I have two close friends who are specifically not on Facebook; I told them months ago.

Between February and today, as I've rolled out this little tidbit of information to an ever-expanding circle of people in my life: siblings, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, and so on, I've met with mixed reactions, but not the mixed reactions I expected.  As I said to a friend today, 'I expected the reactions to range from neutral to bad.  I didn't think there was such a thing as a good reaction until I was met with one.  I was wrong:  the reactions have ranged from neutral to good.'  From people I've share this with so far,  I've received a lot of positive, supportive reactions from people I've told (and I'm thankful for it).

As for my own reaction, I processed it very quickly.  I was very ignorant at first.  I have no problem admitting this.  I had to learn a lot and I had to learn it quickly.  I'm still learning.  There is so, so much.  As I started breaking the news to the people around me, I often said something to the effect of 'You have a hundred questions, I'm sure.  I only have the answers to about half those myself, and I have an even bigger pile.' 

People sometimes remark to me that I was "quick to get on board".  I am sometimes commended for how easily being supportive of this change came to me.  Yes, I was quick to "get on board".  Yes, I was quick to be supportive.  I rolled with it.  Absolutely I did.

And don't get me wrong:  I've met a lot of great moms and dads, and all of us have struggled with it, in different ways and at different paces.  I'm not condemning anyone for "not coming to it quicker". 

But I've not spoken much to the specifics of how I got "on board" as quickly as I did, and I was asked the other day if I could offer any advice to a woman whose husband was having a hard time coming to terms with the idea of his son possibly being a daughter instead.

I provided a shorter version then of what I'm about to put here.

I've spoken with several other parents of transgender (or non-binary, or fluid - the world is full of all sorts of fascinating possibilities when you let it be), and I've heard their stories of acceptance for their children.  But sadly, in some cases, I have heard stories of spouses who have been less than accepting.  I don't just mean those who struggle with it; that's understandable.  I mean those who simply reject the idea, who stand steadfast against it, and who refuse to allow their child to be their authentic self.

I've been commended for being a "good parent" about it sometimes, and I still have a hard time accepting that compliment.  At first, before hearing some of those stories, I outright rejected it.  I don't feel my reaction was special or worthy of consideration; I feel my reaction was correct.  I am dismayed every single time I hear a story of someone getting it wrong, when the answer to me seemed so obvious so quickly.

I am a risk-averse person.  Even setting aside the idea of parent - when everyone becomes (or should become) somewhat risk-averse - I've always been someone who calculates almost every move and considers carefully the short and long-term implications.  Yes, I'm horrible when it comes to spontaneity.  Some might argue it makes me boring.  I don't care.  This is me.  I'm a thinker.  It's what I do.  I can't stop.

I have worked with various forms of testing for years, because it comes naturally to me as someone skeptical, someone risk-averse, to analyze every situation for all the possible outcomes.  I do it every day.  I do it to the point it annoys people around me (and I know this, polite as you all are, and I appreciate your patience with me, especially Liza-Ann's, who is now getting it from both directions as the child has started picking up some of my bad habits).  This is how my brain is wired.

More specifically, when faced with choices of possible approaches, my brain tends to break decisions down into Truth Tables.  Decisions aren't always binary, granted, but many of the simpler things are and many of the bigger things are.

It's not that emotion doesn't play a role.  It's not that I'm not a compassionate person or a caring person.  I'd like to believe I am very much those things.

And when it comes to raising a child, I'd also already established before he even came out to us my feelings that "I am the bow, not the arrow."  It's not my life to live; it's his.  I can not and will not live vicariously through him.

But setting all that aside for a moment, my solutions-oriented, over-analytical, puzzle-solving, cold, calculating mind began constructing the truth table in my head:  Options "accept it and be supportive" vs. "resist - stay the course" would go on one axis, and "it's just a phase" vs. "real and lasting" on the other.  And I knew immediately the things that I would need to put at the intersection where "resist - stay the course" meets "real and lasting":  lifelong resentment, anxiety, depression... much higher than normal probability of suicide.

That's as far as I got.

In my mind, I didn't need to finish the table.  This is why I considered it a correct decision, and not a particularly difficult one.  This is why I have a hard time at the idea of someone commending me for making it.  Quite simply, the thought in my head read:

I'd rather have a live boy than a dead girl.

Yup.

Harsh, isn't it?

That's what echoed in my head.

That's probably a hard sentence to read.  It was a hard one to type.  It was truly horrifying to hear it in my own head many moons ago, and to hear it echoing there today as I bring myself to write about it.  But if it makes you think, if it gives you pause, if it drives home the gravity of the situation we're talking about here, then I'm very glad I wrote it.

Even when you do take the time to dig down and fill out the table, even if you carefully weigh all your options, there is nothing that can possibly justify that risk.  Don't want to have to buy a whole new wardrobe?  It's only money; you'll manage.  Don't know how so-and-so will feel about it?  Not as important as how your child feels about it.  You'll be embarrassed if it's only a phase and you have to explain it again later?  Fuck your pride.

Nothing justifies that risk.  That risk can lead to an irreversible result.  You can change back the clothes and the hair.  You can make a second round of announcements and redo the paperwork for the name change.  You can't undo the depression and anxiety.  And you certainly can't dig the child back up and breathe life back into them.

I have a really, really cool kid.  My kid is freakin' awesome!  Smart, clever, funny, polite, kind, compassionate... cool...  none of which have anything to do with genitalia.  And all I want for that child, that incredibly impressive specimen of humanity, is to flourish, and to be happy.

How could I ever, in a million years, do anything to jeopardize that?

Not complicated.  Obvious.

Love.

So if you're someone who didn't know until now:  for reasons of privacy and safety, we feel it's been important to us to share at a certain pace and in certain ways.  I hope you can understand and appreciate that.

If you're someone who has questions, I have some answers, but I still figure I only have half of them at best.  Shoot me an Email.  Maybe we can do tea/coffee sometime.  I'm happy to talk about it.  I enjoy talking about my kid.  He's really cool.  Did I mention that?

If you're someone whose reaction on learning this to think 'Oh, I don't know if I believe in/approve of this whole transgender thing!' then do yourself this favor:  stop reading my blog, and if you have me on Facebook, you should probably remove me there as well.  Because if you try to have that conversation with me - it will not end well for you, I promise.  I have too much riding on this to lose.  This post isn't remotely an apology of any sort.  This post isn't me timidly telling the world something squeamish.  This post isn't a plea.

This post is my unabashed declaration:

See Dan here?  Yeah, he's my kid.  He's with me.  

I'm with him.

Always.

With thanks to all those who have and who continue to support us through our wonderful and peculiar journey,

Patrick 

Breaking the Shell

Originally written:  August 11, 2016.

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell 
that encloses your understanding. 
It is the bitter potion by which the physician 
within you heals your sick self. 
Therefore, trust the physician and 
drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.”

[Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"]

I would never deny someone their grief.  This is not that.  

Despite my intellectualism, I have always believed that emotional responses are, in many ways, our most honest ones.  And I believe every human being should work to live with authenticity, to truly experience the world for themselves.  'Trust in your own experience of the world', said Buddha.

I would never deny someone their grief.  This is not that.  

Rather, this is the feeble attempt of one man to assuage the pain of those around me.  To tell them I know their pain.  To tell them how I cope with it and put it behind me, in the vain hope it may, in some small way, help them to do the same.

Let this be that.

It is a special and unique type of grief, one that less than two percent of the world population will likely ever feel.  It's also very invisible.  It sometimes takes place right under the noses of friends, family, and coworkers, and often goes unnoticed or unaddressed.  They might not suspect, and even if they did they could probably never empathize.  It is peculiar, conflicted, and will be difficult to even describe in a way that anyone who's never experienced it might understand.

It is nonetheless very real.

Insects of the suborder "rhopalocera" as adults typically have large, brightly-coloured wings and noticeably "fluttering" flight paths.  There are species around the globe, and in the art and literature of many cultures they are regarded as beautiful, and as symbols of transformation, transcendence, or rebirth.  In some mythologies and folklore, they are regarded as symbols of the human soul.  From Filipino superstitions to Roman sculptures, they're known the world over. 

And most people are familiar with at least the basics of their multi-phase life-cycle: eggs, caterpillar (larva), pupa (cocoons), and adults.  And of course, we've all seen them in their caterpillar stage, voraciously munching away on the leaves of our gardens.

I am fond of butterflies, and I wrote once of a particular little parable involving one from Taoist lore, of which I'm also very fond.  This is no surprise for anyone who knows me.

Any story involving my making and leaving behind origami wherever I go would also not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me well.  All three floors of the office at work are littered with little paper flowers, frogs, minions, a few dragons, and - from over the last several months - butterflies.

Many months ago, I began attending a monthly support group for parents of "gender creative" kids.  It's an eclectic group of people from all walks of life, who share one peculiar thing in common: raising transgender (or non-binary, a-gender, gender-fluid... it gets complicated...) kids.

These people share a common grief, one of which they are often reluctant to speak even among this collection of people who might understand, and of which they likely never speak outside those precious walls.  How can they confide in those who they fear most certainly could never understand the bizarre experience of feeling as though you've lost a child... ...when you still have that child?

Can you mourn someone who isn't gone?  Can you mourn a future you expected that you know now will never come?  Can you mourn for a future that didn't truly belong to you, but to someone else?  Can you mourn it even though that someone else will still have a future, just one that's very different than you'd ever expected or planned for?

The answer to all those questions is a mind-boggling "yes".

And I'm not saying it holds the same gravity as having a child die - I'm sure it doesn't - but it must be a shadow - an echo of sorts, perhaps -  that is in some strange way what it must be like.

It is felt very mildly by some (among whom I count myself), and somewhat more acutely by others (among whom I count Liza-Ann).  And while I think I've generally had it pretty easy (the smiles of relief of a child able to be his most authentic self did wonders to wash away the shock and confusion of life's biggest curve ball), I still, many moons later, notice the occasional old photo, or hear a feminine giggle escape, and am reminded of what was to be, but won't.  What can't.

And I feel a touch of sadness.

And I remind myself, in my head, of what I told myself countless times over the course of months as I littered the office, my house, friend's houses, doctor's offices, grocery stores, airports, and support group meeting rooms with little, folded pieces of colourful paper:

Don't mourn the caterpillar.  Embrace the butterfly.

Men

"I am the man, that's what I am
I'm a straight shooter, with a master plan
I am the man, that's why I'm here
I am the man, I am the man"

["I am the Man", The Philosopher Kings]

I was lying on the bed with my shirt open when Liza-Ann came in and lay alongside me with her head on my shoulder.  She sighed and said, "You smell good.  Must be your deodorant.  Manly."  Then spying a straight hair by my left nipple, she laughed and said mockingly, "Oooh, a stray hair!  Should I grab the tweezers?"

I laughed and told her it'd make the blog.

The world is getting more complicated.

That's a lie, actually.  But it's a convenient lie that we like to tell ourselves.  The way we view certain things... that is certainly more complicated than ever.  That much is true.

It really shouldn't be.  It doesn't need to be.  This ever-increasing complexity is mostly borne of mankind's desire to classify everything and put it into nice tidy little boxes, even binary check-boxes where able, so that the world is easier to understand, despite the fact that life is ... well, messy.  Mother nature doesn't particular give a shit when biologists do a whole pile of cataloguing only to arrive at the duck-billed platypus and throw up their hands in frustration.  ("Eggs?  Mammary glands but no teats?!  What the fuck?!").  Mother nature just goes on puttering about and doing her thing, while the puny humans angrily debate what's "natural" and invent new terms like "hetero-normality".  Mother Nature?  D.G.A.F.  We're the ones with the "problems".

With this modern complexity comes a lot of confusion.  You don't have a one-hour conversation and walk away feeling you have a grip on this new world order.  Most often, you come away with more questions than answers.  So for me, my "problem" of late is about masculinity.  It has been in the back of my mind off and on for the past few months.  What is 'masculinity'?

In a "post-Caitlyn-Jenner-world", what makes one 'a man'? 

Masculinity is not the simple thing it once was.  I've been spending a lot of time these days thinking about men in the modern era, about what it means to be 'manly'.  Long gone is the era of John Wayne, of the constant references shows like Three's Company made that anything construed as feminine was signaling homosexuality, and of the expectation that every man over 18 knows what a carburetor is and how to fix one.  (I, on the other hand, had to look up how to spell "carburetor" just now.)

Going back a generation or two, it was a simple matter of organs.  That was in a time when everyone lived with the misconception that mother nature was perfectly binary about what she handed out and that brains always matched body-parts.  Has testicles equals man?

"Testicle" comes from the Latin "testiculus", meaning "witness of virility".  "Virility" - from "virilitas", Latin for "man"- is defined as the collection of positive masculine traits.

Well there we have it right from Wikipedia.  Simple, right?

A few years back, I had a vasectomy.  I don't recall exactly when.  I'd meant to put something vague on Facebook about listening to the "Fixed" EP by Nine Inch Nails as a sort of tongue-in-cheek joke to others and a timeline reminder to myself.  It was, at one point in the process, a sort of surreal experience:  the male doctor performing the surgery is the sort who drives a convertible, wears sandals to work, and sports a tan that makes him look like he's just returned from California.  There was a female doctor attending him.  As I lay there, I thought, 'what a strange juxtaposition this must be for her - this doctor-with-possible-god-complex symbol of masculinity to the left, and me lying splayed out on the table before him, about the most vulnerable a man can be, on the right.'

What about if there are injuries?  I know a guy who lost a testicle in an accident.  Does having a vasectomy change anything?  Am I less of a man because I'm "fixed"?

Maybe it's not testicles.  Maybe it's just the testosterone?  What about those of us who are middle-aged and feeling the effects of lower testosterone?  Less of a man?  What about trans males who weren't born with testicles and get their testosterone through injections?  What about hypogonadism and testosterone replacement therapy in Mixed Martial Arts fighters?  I certainly wouldn't want to be the one who stands in front of one and tells him he's not as much of a man any more. 

Fist fights!  I've been in those.  But then, I know plenty of guys around me I consider "men" who I know have never been in a fight.  And I probably lost about as many as I won.

Scars!  Oooh!  I have scars.  Do they still count if most of them are scratches that just came from owning cats?  The burn mark came from... cooking... we're still good, right?  I've been fortunate enough to never hurt myself with power tools, but I do own some!  Does that means there's still hope for me?


Hair on the chest?  Shit, I've never had much of that.  The few stray ones that do pop up I pluck because I hate body hair and I notice them getting out of the shower, thus Liza-Ann's joke.

Beards!  I've never in my life grown a full beard.  I hope it's not that.

How about a set of large, rough, calloused hands?  Hmmm.  If you've ever watched me doing origami, you'll know I'm sporting a pretty dainty little set of fingers.  And more than half of what I make is flowers.


Is it about being aggressive or outspoken?  My parents taught me to be polite, and I'm often shy around strangers.  Should I be louder and ruder to assert myself as male?  That hardly seems right. That combined with notions about sexual conquest are how society produces the likes of Brock Turner.  Nah, fuck that.


I was never that much into sports.  I'm not a big fan of beer and only have the occasional whiskey.  I think I've only ever changed a car tire once and unless you count headlight bulbs don't think I've ever "fixed" a car.  I've no interest in fast cars, and I've never owned a motorcycle.  I've no desire to own ski-doo, and no compulsion to buy a pickup or quad.  I don't own a firearm and don't want to.  I've never shot and killed anything.  I can't say I've hunted unless you count that one time I threw a knife at a squirrel.

I've mowed lawns...

You know what?  I've clearly reached that point where I'm just struggling to even find things to put on the list, and none of them are much sticking to me anyway.

Maybe I'm not a "man" after all, or at least not a masculine one.  I'm not a "manly man".  Can't be.  Don't qualify.

Obviously.

I'm rather uncertain what masculine means any more.

But then, I am only half certain I care what masculine means any more.

And I'm damn near certain I shouldn't care what masculine means any more.

Not Your Bro, Bro

Originally written:  Early June 2016.

"If I've gone overboard
Then I'm begging you
To forgive me for my haste
When I'm holding you so girl
Close to me"
["Crash into Me", Dave Matthews Band]

There's a great quote at the end of the song Anne Braden, by Flobots, where Anne says "You don't have to be a part of the world of the lynchers.  You can join the other America. There is another America!"  It's stuck with me ever since I heard the song.  The civil rights movement of the 50s would seem to have very little if anything to do with what's on my mind today, but those lines remind me of the idea of rival subcultures, of a society struggling to change and find its path forward.  It's about an evolution in thinking.  It's an important element in progress.


I read with disgust last week about the crime perpetrated by Brock Turner, the complete inadequacy of an American legal system in giving him a slap on the wrist for what was such a heinous and undeniable crime - undeniable it happened, undeniable in its gravity - and his father's attempt to minimize his crime while simultaneously providing little more than solid evidence of the pervasive rape culture that exists.

I hate those words:  rape culture.  I hate them. I hate them. I hate them.

But I hate them now for a different reason than I first did.

When I first heard them long ago, I hated them because I wanted to roll my eyes with a "fucksakes" and insist that the feminist movement was overreaching or overstating and that it was all bullshit and no such culture or subculture exists and give me a fucking break and you're trying to portray all men as predators and creating a self-defeating us vs. them mentality and and and and and...

Yesterday, I was reminded of those words when I came across an article that suggested most men could relate to Brock Turner.  I don't know that that's true.  I don't feel it's true of me, but if I'm being truly honest I can at best only say "I hope it's not true, of me, or of most men..." but... 

But as to the existence of a culture or subculture that either promotes (or in the very least fails to adequately condemn) the sense of entitlement that allows sexual predators to feel somehow justified in what is clearly non-consensual behaviour...


Nowadays I hate the words "rape culture" because I have finally had the time for enough somber reflection that I am ready to admit that such a culture does exist.  I don't want it to.  As a man I hate to admit that it does.  It turns my stomach that it does.  But it does.  It is very real, and on reflection, I've always known it was there, because I've always fought against it in what little ways I could.  And we all have mothers or sisters or daughters or lovers or female friends, and we all need to take a big gulp and swallow our pride and admit that there is a big, horrific elephant right there in the room with us.

I've "cock-blocked" guys at parties when I have seen them getting too close or "touch-y-feel-y" with a woman who was plainly looking uncomfortable and whose body language suggested she was uninterested.  (Usually to be followed by mixed feelings of guilt later about whether such interference is in itself sexist for having denied her agency in being able to extract herself from such a situation without some chivalrous male coming to the rescue...  Let's put a pin in that for another day.)

Going back a ways there was a time in my 30s when I came home from downtown distraught with worry over a girl I'd just met that night, because a guy I suspected of being a predator was swirling around her like a vulture while she was drunkenly slurring her words, waiting for my friend and I to leave so he could make his move.  I wrote the next day about the horrible mixture of anxious emotions it evoked in me.  She was a stranger: did I have a responsibility?  (Again, perhaps that pin.)  I was relieved to find out the next day that, thankfully, she was brought home safely by a much nicer gentleman than the one I saw looming.

Going back farther, in my early 20s there was a time when I found myself bringing a semi-conscious, drunk girl back to her room in the military barracks.  Her eyes were half-open.  She was trying to flirt with me and paw at me (and throw up on me - I narrowly avoided).  I was very intoxicated myself (such that attempting to clean up her vomit would spawn a fresh load of my own).  For much of this story, we were alone.  While alone, I found myself propping her up with one arm as I had to fumble through her pockets with the other hand in order to try to find her room key.  I was mortified at the thought of someone coming upon us at that moment as I awkwardly groped about her shirt pockets.  I'd be branded a sexual predator, when all I was trying to do was get this girl home safe.  As it turned out, every pocket was empty; she didn't have her key.  A long story later, in the end it took myself and two friends to carry her limp, unconscious body to her room, get her into the First Aid recovery position, put a garbage can and towel by her bed, and leave her there - fully clothed and unmolested - while locking the door behind ourselves when we left.  We returned to check on her in the morning.

That's the good news part of the story.  She got home safe.  She was a hangover and a little friendly ribbing away from living it down.  (Ok, a lot of friendly ribbing.  We were jerks.)

The bad news part is that the next morning, after joking with her and embarrassing her a little over the whole ordeal, I warned her quite candidly that she was 'lucky to have landed with the right guys', suggesting that there were other males at the same party - a work party of 100 or so coworkers, not even some random bar downtown - with whom she'd not have fared as well.  I'm not blaming her now and I wasn't blaming her then.  If she'd been so unfortunate it would still have been their fault and theirs alone, especially since clearly they could have simply chosen the very same path we did - to see her as a human being in need of assistance and to see her back to her room safely.

Maybe I was being cynical.  Perhaps among those coworkers no such predator actually existed.  But the fact of the matter is that back then I knew in my heart such a person could exist among them - likely did exist- and believed it strongly enough that I felt it necessary to suggest she was being naive if she didn't believe the same and cautiously act accordingly.


I believed that then (and still believe it now) because I knew that from the "sport-fucking" of frat boys to the desperation of 13-year old boys casting magic spells on apples in the vain hopes of a little "titty action", when sexual conquest is regarded as a sport, there will always be cheaters.  The most regulated sports in the world suffer from those participants whose desire to win outpaces their willingness to play fairly.  When sex is treated like a unregulated one and the desire to win is rooted not just in the competitive spirit, but further exacerbated by hormones, how can you possibly believe there won't be those willing to bend or break the rules?

Machismo has to go.

Telling women how "not to get raped" is fighting a war on the supply side.  And like the "Wars on" terror and drugs, you never succeed fighting a war on the supply side.  Where there is demand, there will be supply.  At the risk of sounding flippant, predation is easy. 

In a future world where universal human compassion becomes the norm, no room remains for turning a blind eye to the self-indulgence of those unwilling to play by the rules and too stupid to recognize "potential fruitful relationship" as the true end goal of their sexual encounters.  That's an "other America".


So if there really is an unwritten "bro code" and cock-blocking guys from "gettin' some" (from a woman I think is way too drunk to consent) is going to get my "bro credentials" revoked, I will happily tear up the imaginary card.


Maybe for every Brock Turner there's a Carl-Fredrik Arndt and a Peter Jonsson, or maybe there's even 98 more similarly-minded men who would have just as readily chased him down, held him down, and called the police.  The problem is that whatever that ratio is, whether the predators are only one percent or one tenth of one percent of men, we're still not winning, because the victims are still losing: losing lives or losing futures.

Ladies, some of us are trying to help.  Sadly, I don't know how many of us.  Even more sadly, it's clearly not enough.  I hope it's getting better.  I - we - sincerely do.

Gents, we need to soundly condemn these ass-clowns like Brock, not just to women but to each other and to our fathers and our brothers and most importantly to our sons.  We need to be a part of the solution.  We need to condemn it in every way and at every opportunity, until future generations look back on us as barbarians the way we look back on the lynchers of the 50s as barbarians.

The barbarians they were.

The barbarians we are.

Just the Way You Are

"I said I love you and that's forever
And this I promise from my heart
I couldn't love you any better
I love you just the way you are."
["Just the Way You Are", Billy Joel] 

What is Love?

Liza-Ann asked me today if I could remember at what point in the past I first looked at Olivia and felt I loved her.  Liza-Ann and I got together when Olivia was just turning one, so clearly there was a time when I wouldn't have characterized my relationship with our child that way.  I can't recall at what point I would have.  I know in the past I've written a little about parenting, such as back when I wrote "Year Six", about finally starting to feel like I was no longer an 'unlicensed technician'.  I know I loved her then.  Even if I wasn't saying so explicitly, I can read between the lines of what I wrote and I know how I felt at the time.  It was probably some time around age 3 or 4.  I have a poor memory and it's so second-nature to me nowadays, I find it hard to think back to a time when I didn't feel that way.

I've been thinking a lot lately about family and parenting.  I've asked myself other, similar questions, and had other interesting self-discoveries.

For instance, a little while ago I wrote about 'being the arrow and not the bow'.  I remember when I first came to terms with that idea.  I was thinking about it recently when I wrote about fear, and what it's like to feel fearful about your child's future.  I recall one of the first times I felt the true despair that only a parent can, at the realization that there is only so much you can do to shelter your child from the tragedies of life and of the world.  I recall The Great Smencil Incident.  I could have sworn I'd written of it before, but a search of my blog did not turn it up.  A quick synopsis is in order.

The Smencil Incident

One day many years ago, when I dropped Olivia at school, in maybe Grade 1 or 2, she brought with her a smencil, a scented pencil.  It's a silly thing, really, but she was at "the superlative age" where each new toy, each new item, was THE BEST THING EVER, and the slightest misfortune THE WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED.  She was very excited to bring her smencil to school and show her friends.

At the end of the day, when I picked her up from school, she was in tears.  There was no more smencil.  At lunch, while running around outside, she lost it.  She realized immediately where she must have dropped it and quickly retraced her steps, only to find a much older child standing there holding the smencil.  She insisted it was hers and tried to reclaim it, but the other child insisted it was their own, and with no markings or such to demonstrate ownership, she wasn't able to convince them to concede the item.  As I drove home, listening to her sadly recount the incident from the back seat between sniffles, I struggled to keep from crying myself, overcome by the realization that there would be many such moments as this in her lifetime.  It felt like the weight of the world crushing down on me.  It was the shot across the bow.  The world can be cruel, and while I can do whatever I can to prepare my child to face it... I am the bow, not the arrow.  In a day or two, she was over the smencil and on to the next BEST THING EVER.  Someday I'm sure I'll move past it too.

Another Interesting Question

A different, but equally interesting question as Liza-Ann's, I think, is one I asked myself in my head this morning.

At what point did I start thinking of Olivia as our child?  You see, when I read between the lines of Year Six and my thoughts on being an 'unlicensed technician' as a step-parent, I may have come to terms with the fact that I was a parent, but that doesn't mean I thought of Olivia as mine.  I think for a long time after, I still thought of myself as "helping raise someone else's child".  Yet recently, I heard myself using terms like "our child", an expression I probably wouldn't have used years ago, as if, even accepting my responsibility as a parent, I still didn't feel as though I had a right to claim any responsibility for the outcome.  

But when I look, now, I see bits and pieces, expressions and habits learned from me, both good and bad, and know I had a hand in shaping this marvelous person I so very much love.

Are there other interesting questions?  Are there other "levels" or measures of love, acceptance, and parent-ship?  Are there lines I've not yet reached and crossed?

I do love the way these things just happen and one day I realize, and look back, and can't tell when.

Providence

In my teens, twenties, and possibly thirties, I tended to think of my family as "friends I didn't choose", and at times, maybe even as "friends I'd not have otherwise met and chosen".  I may have liked to think of myself a "a good friend" and "a good boyfriend", but "a good brother" never much crossed my mind or factored into my sense of self.

Over the past number of years, I've grown a much more acute appreciation for family, and things have changed.  I'm not sure if is is simply that my opinions have changed, if the people in question have, or if I am somehow fundamentally different as a person.  Perhaps it's all of these things.  Perhaps by becoming a parent and having a little family of my own has enlightened me to what I was simply "not getting".  I do know these relationships and how I feel about them have become different now, even if not for them, most certainly for me.

I feel closer to my siblings than in the past.  Have our advancing years put on us on more even footing in life experience?  Have our shared experiences of parenting given us more in common, to where I can more readily relate to them?  Or is it merely time playing tricks on me, as the rivers flow together and apart, meandering through the forests of time?  Who is to say?  It doesn't really matter.  Instead, I embrace this notion, this feeling, that perhaps after all these years, I'm finally starting to gain a deeper appreciation for family than I've had in the past.  I understand the value.

Oddly, I think that understanding comes, in many ways, from the waxing and waning of friendships.  As friends and I move closer together or farther apart, I contemplate quite often something an acquaintance said to me when I was 18:  'Paddy, you may have plenty of friends now, but trust me:  When you get older, at any given time, you'll only ever really have one 'best friend' at a time.'  For a quarter-century, that line pops into my head every time I consider the shifting nature of relationships with friends.  I routinely denounce the idea, re-affirming for myself that I have, and always have had, more than one 'best friend' at a time, more than one person I could easily trust with all my secrets.

But it's made me see the value of family in a different light; no longer are they "the friends I didn't chose" so much as "the friends I will always have".  Through thick or thin, I can always count them among my friends.  I can always count on them for love, understanding, and support.

Perhaps, 28 years after I stopped being Catholic, I finally understand the point of The Prodigal Son.

Sure, we're all pretty different.  Sure, we don't always get along.

But in the same way I love Liza-Ann and our child... I love the rest of my family just the way they are.

Primal Vision

"If you're free you'll never see the walls.
If your head is clear you'll never free fall.
If you're right you'll never fear the wrong.
If your head is high you'll never fear at all."

["Exploder", Audioslave]


 

Anyone who has read more than a few entries of my blog probably realizes I do more than my fair share of reflection, on who I am, who I was, and who I hope to become.  I think a fair bit about past experiences and how I think they may or may not have molded me into who I am today.  A fellow blogger once told me I was "the most self-aware person she'd ever known".  Am I more self-aware than most?  Maybe.  I'll give it some thought and get back to you.

Taoism teaches that to be fearless is to "conquer oneself"; it's not about conquering others.  For a time, years ago, I believed this meant living without fear.  Indeed, I thought a life with fear was no life at all, and only by living fearlessly could one be truly living.  But the duality of the Taijitu ("the yin-yang symbol") is meant to remind us of the relative nature of all things.  There is no "light" without "dark" and no "strong" without "weak".  There can be no "brave" without "afraid".  I understand that now.  If you have nothing no one in your life you're afraid of losing, you have nothing worthwhile.

When I was a young boy growing up, being "manly" was always a big thing.  Being macho.  Being brave.  You tried very hard not to cry no matter how much something hurt.  You were expected to talk tough, pushing the envelope as far as possible while sensibly trying to avoid catching a beating, or at least not a serious one.  Sometimes you'd gladly take a beating, rather than lose face by backing down.  I posed the question to some friends at work the other day, "How many different people have ever punched you in the face in your lifetime?"  At a guess, I'd say I weigh in somewhere between 10 and 20.  I see it as a mark of "growing up in da hood", but I probably shouldn't feel the pride in it that I seem to.  That number would likely be halved if I'd had the sense to swallow my pride and walk away more often.  But that wouldn't have been "manly".  Pride goeth.

One of the other parts of being "manly" back then - and perhaps even now - was that men like to theorize wildly about what they'd do if that ever happened, whatever that is.  "I'd kill them!"  "I'd rip their nuts off!"  "I'd..."  Whatever.

When it comes to primal fear, if there's one thing life has taught me, it's this:

You don't actually know what you'll do, not beforehand.  Theorize all you like, but in that moment - whatever that moment is - how you react will have a lot more to do with the core of who you are as a person than whatever brave persona you were trying to push when you talked big so long ago.  And you may surprise yourself, in ways that will bring you pride, or shame, or neither, or both.  And that scenario you envisioned is likely way more complicated in real-life than the simplistic version you spoke of, and with luck your far-less-primal reaction will hopefully be a much better one.

For instance: the last time I was punched in the face was when I was mugged in my early 20s.  I was walking alone at night in a bad neighborhood, just heading to the corner store from my apartment, when a guy walking in the other direction approached and punched me square in the face.  I took the hit and ... felt remarkably calm.  I could feel my blood start to race, sure, but I maintained my composure, surveyed my surroundings, and began to think tactically and weigh my options.  I didn't instinctively fight back.  I didn't panic.  He was slightly smaller than me.  For a clean sucker punch, it had no leather on it at all.  (It wouldn't even leave a mark.)  I pondered the possibility of fighting, and decided I could probably take him, but something in the back of my mind made me question if it was the right course of action.  I chose to outwit him instead.  He walked away with the $15 from my right pocket.  I walked away with the unnoticed wallet in my left, including the $200, credit card, bank card, ID, etc.  You might think paying someone $15 for punching me in the face should be chalked up to a loss, but when his two friends emerged from the bushes across the street moments later, I chalked it up to the right move.

I believe that in these primal moments, we receive unique opportunities to catch a glimpse, a little peek deep down into our own souls, to see all the way to the basement and know a little more about who we really are.  I learned that night that I'm probably smarter than I am brave, but if "manly" equals "stupid", I can live with being a little less brave than I'd like to claim.

Around the same time in my life, I was a part of a convoy of mini-vans that was travelling along a highway across Nova Scotia when it started to rain, and the one ahead of ours hydroplaned into the dividing ditch at 110kph.  No one suffered any serious injuries, but in the chaos that followed, while I was certainly not paralyzed with fear, I wasn't quite myself either.  I didn't do anything wrong, but afterwards I felt like I could have stepped up and done more right.  The other officers performed admirably, especially the one in charge, who was himself driving the vehicle that flipped.  I don't know if I've ever told him that; I probably should.  I wouldn't say I feel any shame about how I performed, just... disappointed.

Back four or five years ago, I had a moment of panic when faced with something as simple as a nosebleed that I (mistakenly) thought wouldn't stop. (Hard to explain here.)  But that moment, coming face-to-face with that fear, as ridiculous as it might seem in hindsight, gave me another glimpse down into my soul, and spawned a bout of self-reflection that made me realize I'd taken on the role of parent much more than I'd ever expected.  It was a very comforting realization.

And much more recently, I learned something that made me once again fearful, once again it was for my child.  And in that moment, as my mind raced with a million thoughts of all the possible terrible outcomes, borne of fear and cynicism, as that torrent of anxiety swelled up inside me and thrust the question "What will I do?" into my mind, it was near-instantly quelled by a better, simpler question:

"What wouldn't I do?" 

In that moment I felt a fighting instinct rise up within me that I didn't feel that night in the darkened street, or out on the slick highway.  "What wouldn't I do?" I asked myself.  "What am I not prepared to lose?  House?  Job?  Friends?  Family??  What am I not prepared to sacrifice?"

Nothing.

Burn it all down.  Take everything I have.  Because I have found within me something more valuable than everything else I've amassed in my 44 years.  I've found a tiny seed of parental instinct I never thought I had.  I found a flower my mother planted there before she died 23 years ago.  I felt it blossum with the ferocity of an erupting volcano.  Life dared to ask me if I understood what "unconditional" meant.  I told it to pound sand.

And whatever the future brings, I won't give up any of those things easily, either.  And perhaps I'm being naïve, but I'd like to think I won't need to.  I'm certainly not about to sacrifice anything I value without a struggle. 

Whether by will or by wits, they only get the $15.  I'm keeping the damn wallet.

Intimate

"And even when you've paid enough,

been put upon or been held up
 with every single memory

of the good or bad faces of luck
don't lose any sleep tonight
I'm sure everything will end up alright

You may win or lose,

but to be yourself is all that you can do"

["Be Yourself", Audioslave]

 

I learned a new word the other day.  In a comment on a David Bowie video on YouTube, someone suggested he was very successful for an intimist.  It gave me a little pause for thought.  When I first started blogging (before it was actually called "blogging", back when it was "online journaling" as if that somehow made it more elegant or less narcissistic), a large part of my motivation was about self-discovery and self-forgiveness.  It's not that I wasn't writing it for an audience, but I certainly never intended nor envisioned a sizeable one.  (And I've not been disappointed! :P)  I was writing for me.  I wrote because I needed to, more so than wanted to.  It was therapeutic.  It was cathartic.  It was maturation.

Likewise, even with this, my most recent blog (The Tao of Patrick), when I (rarely) write, I'd never shared it on Facebook before my most recent post (though Liza-Ann often shares my posts on her timeline).  I've seldom given much consideration for what audience I do, don't, could, or couldn't have because I've always thought that would impact the writing itself if it was in the back of my mind when I wrote, and would therefore 'pollute the purity' of the writing - if there really is such a thing.  I struggle with the temporal nature of truth, seeing something I wrote long ago and which I now feel differently about.  I struggle with the elegance or lack thereof in my writing, seeing something I wrote long ago and thinking now how poorly constructed it was.  I never wanted to allow any additional 'impurities' I could avoid. 

But then, "Fish can't live in pure water." ("Tao Te Ching", Lao Tzu.)

Am I an intimist then?  Perhaps?

Nowadays when I write, while it may still be to sort confused ideas in an anxious head, more often than not it's just because I've reflected on something and come to a conclusion I feel worth sharing.  I have some little nugget of "food for thought".  It's my way of flexing my teaching muscle after so many years away from the classroom.  When it comes to "teachable moments", there aren't many moments I don't considerable "teachable".  I like to think it's one of my simultaneously charming-yet-annoying qualities.

But this intimist thing needs to change, I think, for reasons I won't get into here (yet).  I need to take a little more air into my lungs, and speak a little louder and clearer.  An emergence from an already thin shell, if you will.

I make no promises - never have when it comes to my writing - except in my policy regarding "whose secrets they are to tell" (i.e. I only tell my own).  But I do hope that I am soon to usher in a new era with regards to my own self-expression.  I'll be keeping this blog, not restarting again, as I've done twice before.

The winds of change are blowing.

March 2nd approaches.  I'll be writing.  I already know at least some of what I have to say.