Category: Philosophy

Apparently when I was born, I was entered into this huge game, the Game.  I never chose to play it.  Apparently I can’t opt out.

Once upon a time, some women bought some prints of my graphics.  I sold them at a Women’s Project Retreat, I think for $10 a piece or so.  Mostly I had a “booth” to let my artwork display to the community I wished to be a part of a little more about who I am.

Occasionally when I have shown them in the world of solids, someone has asked how much I would sell a print of one of my graphic/poem combinations for.  I’ve asked back, “What do you think it is worth?”  Truthfully I haven’t got a clue.  I’ve always ended up not making a sale.  I have given some as gifts to people who have meant something in my life, on occasions where it seemed appropriate.  But truthfully I have no knowledge of their value.

Nor do I want that knowledge.  Isn’t that a hell of a thing.  I have absolutely no interest in money.  I don’t want to play the Game.  But I’m not allowed to opt out.  Helluva thing.  And people talk about losing freedom?

We read.  We absorb.  We often find thoughts expressed in much better ways than we could ever express them ourselves.  Sometimes we seek to share those thoughts, hoping against hope that someone else will see what we see, hear what we hear, feel what we feel.

I’ve been spending a long time reading/reading about William Stafford, a neighbor of days gone by, trying to absorb perhaps what could have been in another happentrack.

The Locomotive’s engineer cast hir mind outwards and sought awareness.  The WeaveMothers, those collective consciousnesses which had distilled from the collective knowledge of all creatures in the Greataway were tending their flocks and new happentracks were condensing into existence.  SpaceTime expanded.  There were new choices for the path of the train to take.

The Storyteller plucked a poem from the past.  The Listener perked up.  The Passenger slept.

Chinese story of now we support you, now we don’t.

Stress of living in a country where reality is bought and sold.

Distant realities, the realities of others, mutual realities.

Myths of woman private and NFL player.

Myth of democracy.

Television reality–everything’s chipper all the time.

The river crossing.

I would be a fool not have doubts about posting some of the things I write.  I would be more of a fool if I let that stop me from posting them.

I’m a lesbian.  I’m not a gay man.  I’m not a man of any sort, though I am aware that there are many people who disagree with me on that.

Because I am a lesbian, I have the social liberty to speak out.  It’s really hard to find a straight transwoman who will speak up.  Did you ever wonder why?

[Updated with Free Advice section at end of essay.]

What are we going to do about those stubborn Republicans who just won’t see the facts?  They just won’t listen to reason.  Luckily there is another way to affect matters which requires less convincing and more listening and self-awareness.  The listening means learning where people are coming from.  The self-awareness means discovering that our own thought is part of the problem.  Thought is flawed in a fundamental way, and it cannot solve the problems it created.  That’s right, anyone with a firm belief that their thoughts are reliable and correct is contributing to the disharmony of our era.

The good news is, we can do better.  Herein I discuss the views of David Bohm on the nature of thought, outline the principles of a Bohm Dialog, and add some of my personal experience of the kinds of habitual thought/feeling impulses which give rise to alienation, prejudice, and even war.

The WeaveMothers agreed with a request to vibrate a string.  They were whole as well as individual.

Maybe the unit would understand.

Imagine a future.  In my future, you would choose a good one, one good for coexistence on this planet as long as we all have to live here.  

See if you can act so as to turn reality towards that future.  Plan.  Create or discover the necessary resources.  Shape a scheme.  

Set up the dominoes, as many as you can build, and try to find the words that will generate the change you seek.  You will undoubtedly fail.  Analyze feedback.  Loop.  Hope for convergence.  Better yet, design for it.

The WeaveMothers were one and several.  The collective imagined a HereNow.  But the autonomous units were going to do what autonomous units do.  The distance between imagination and image on the one hand and reality on the other was immense through the eye of any disinterested observer.

As if there existed such a concept as disinterested observer…

It started out in the comments to one of my essays.  I have rewritten the comments just a bit for the purposes of readability.

so,

1. is there abandonment of the gender identity you, Robyn, had before your surgery?

2. and a full embrace of the gender you had surgery to become?

3. or is there a sense of identity with both genders,

4. or this there an identity awareness of a new, blended gender?

and the reason i mentioned this belonging in your Friday essay was due to the quote pulled from Friday’s essay that prompted these questions.  you notice, i hope, that i’m finally taking you up on your offer to answer questions, Teach!  

– kj

So I respond, with full knowledge that sharing even this much diminishes the probability that venturing inside will happen…

i really didn’t have time to write much. but i didn’t want anybody else to take this evening either. it is the last writing in the raw i’ll do from the states for a while, so even with a sparse essay, i think i’ll keep it for myself.

actually, it’s after 10pm as i start writing this. so it will be brief.

i’m packed. ready to go. exhausted. i’ll definitely blog from the airport tomorrow. i usually pay to get into the business lounge… for $45, you get fruit, cheese, coffee/tea, cookies, alcohol, tv, internet and a little desk from which you blog, and a comfy, quiet place to zone out for a few hours. premium wine/alcohol will cost you… hey Mu, might be one of the tips for your travel space.

okay. so that’s it.

well, and i’ll explain the title. just a bit.

getting on that plane tomorrow is amazing. there have been difficult times and yet, somehow, ej and i managed to hold onto to each other. over the phone. one-line e-mails. packages filled with small fetish items. a sense of humor. and well, we just get along. whenever i’m with him, by heart rate slows (unless you know…), i become very at ease. i smile a lot. i’m actually funny when i’m relaxed and not thinking about George Bush et al.

i sleep really well when i sleep with him. and when we get up, he has this funny little fresh face, squinty eyes and he’s smiling. maybe he looks a little like a baby bird or something. but it touches my heart. and it inspires me to get up and make coffee and cook breakfast.

we hold hands. we like the way each other smells. we think it’s funny when strangers fall down or break something in a store (but we don’t really want anybody to be really hurt). we love to go to museums. or find secret gardens. we like to wander in cities and towns. oh. and we both love madly medieval cathedrals and churches.

he likes to cook. i like to eat. he likes to complain. i like to sit, cross-legged, and listen and laugh at him and how he, in a very animated fashion, counts off each absurdity with his fingers.

i tell him everything has a shelf life. if we’re lucky, we’ll just die together, around 99 years old, in a plane crash or car accident. because i always see us together, old and beautiful. and i just know i’ll love him even more then… the two of us always walking, looking at the world together, my hand in the pocket of his old jacket.

this is one of those moments. when love wins.

Boom chucka chucka.  Boom chucka chucka. Boom chucka chucka.

The WeaveMothers rustled.

Rustled?  It’s as good a word as any to describe their collective motion.  A ripple of the fabric was often necessary since the units seemed predisposed to perform the same task over and over and over again.

Uncertainty happens.  At least it is supposed to happen.  One can’t be certain that it will.

Take one part eternal truth…

[We’ll leave aside the philosophical questions about whether or not their can be eternal truths about Truth and what the nature of those truths might be.]

Truth lies in the moment between the appearance of a thought and having words to express that thought.

Add one part political relevance (or not)…

part I

i’m moving to The Netherlands on May 30 and won’t be around as much… due to a six hour time difference and settling into my new life.

next Thursday will likely be my last writing in the raw for a while. however, I intend to keep posting the Friday Pony Parties at 6ish… well, i will resume posting the ponies. i’ve been a bit distracted and out of any reasonable routine these last weeks.

so. nine months or thereabouts. absorbed in, with, about Docudharma. i have to tell you, i was shocked when buhdy asked me to join Docudharma as a contributing editor. i’m still not sure what prompted the invitation… but it has been the very best place for me over these many months. and it feels like i’ve known so many of you for years now… i love how the energy of friendship has surpassed time and space and 3d to find its way to me.

it has been thrilling to be immersed in your talents, encouraged by your brave hearts, sheltered by your kindness, and kept alive laughing by some of the wittiest, funniest people i’ve had the pleasure to know and love. And I am mostly kept sane absorbing the simple and honorable commitment of so many to do right by this living planet of ours.

i just thought you guys should know. how important you are. to me.

Pay attention now.  The value of this essay is completely dependent on the quality of your attention.  I mean that literally.  If you are reading this, the worth of your experience is not in the least dependent on the essay before you; rather it is completely inherent in the quality of attention you bring.

Am I being irresponsible?  I hope not.  Do I mean what I have claimed?  I do, yet I also feel I could waste your time–squander your attention–if I don’t bring my focus to the task.

So, I’m here to lift attention up to the height of the gods.  No, I’m here to say attention is where the one god resides–exclusively.