Tender

Tender

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Not all men are the problem but...

 

Not all men. But...men.

Okay, hear me out though.

The problem isn't men exactly, it's that there are too many men. 50.2% of the human population is male (except where sex-selection abortion is used to skew - for example, India is at 51.6% male). We don't need so many. 30% would probably do, but we would miss them. Still.

99% of rapes are perpetrated by men (91% of victims are female). 89,000 women were killed by intimate partners in 2022, the same year that 88% of all murders in the U.S. were committed by men. This is true across crime types - men commit more crimes in every country, across all kinds of crime. Male humans are largely involved in, and pushing for, war, and the making of war machines. Males on the whole enjoy and tolerate a lot more violence than females.

Males of the human species are more prone to violence due to their hormonal makeup and the larger size of their bodies, making them threatening to smaller people and creatures, to the point where many would prefer to meet a wild bear than a random man alone in the woods. Within our cultures, men are also likely to support oppressive structures that favor them, and ignore social factors while favoring economic factors in voting. Male humans make poorer communicators than female as leaders in both corporations and non-profits, as well as government. They have a harder time controlling their emotions of anger and shame, and accessing their empathy and gentleness. Given all of this, it's hard to understand why anyone thinks they should be in charge of everything.

Males are generally less involved in child care or community building, less likely to volunteer, and even other men don't trust the self control of the average man enough to want their daughters or sisters wearing low-cut tops to a sports bar and leaving alone in the dark.

Everything I've said is founded in data that you can find easily by doing a search. These are generalizations but they are also true, based on reputably-researched facts, and few people would dispute the ideas based on their own experience of the wide world of men.

But NOT ALL MEN, for sure, even NOT MOST MEN, we know that. I love my men!

Really, it's the QUANTITY that is leading to problems. If 80% of men are not a danger and believe truly in equality and strive to live as Good Men, and men are 50.2% of the population, then about 10% of the population are a problem to peaceful society. But if men were only, say, 42% of the population, there would be numerically fewer assholes (8.4% of the population) AND the balance of power would be naturally shifted to reduce patriarchal power. Men are bigger, stronger, and the power structures of society still favour them, despite the meagre attempts to balance (labelled reverse discrimination). Reducing the male population percentage over, say, a generation or two, would naturally lead to a subtle shift in the way masculine and feminine values play out in society.

Gene-tinkering seems like the future anyway, right? Might as well think about it. Society would probably function just fine with a smaller percentage of males, and maybe we'd have a better chance, as a species, to teach them more self control when young, to overcome their hormonal over-stimulation and proneness to violence, if they weren't the default "majority" of every situation.

We know we don't need 1:1 for the species to continue. One man can father kids from multiple women at once if everyone wants (and sometimes when they don't), and they do that, regardless. Not all women need a partner - even if they did, it's not a 1:1 relationship in the population in that sense anyway.

Men are important in society, but they have their challenges physically and socially that would make having fewer of them seem beneficial to the overall peace of life. It's surprising we haven't evolved in that direction, but since we have the technology now, it wouldn't take everyone to make it happen. Just a percentage of new parents skewing female in the embryo selection every year could do it.

A female-skewed population might just achieve world peace in time for my grandkids to fry from global warming. Maybe we could even solve some of the issues and put that future off indefinitely, instead of diverting all our world's resources to war machines and the hoarding of a few sociopathic billionaires. Mostly men.

Just a thought.

A passing thought. Don't crucify me. Wait, that was men, too.



Friday, May 24, 2024

Thursday, May 16, 2024

Lonely Artist Whine

 Sometimes I panic with loneliness. 

I know, I'm surrounded with people. I run a cannabis store, so I see people all the time. I have a partner. I have two teenagers. They are my favourite people and if not for them, I might not see the point at all in anything. So who am I to be lonely?

But I am. I am a creative presence on Earth. I am full and brimming over with the need to create, with ideas and even some skill. I am fully primed but all alone. No one gets my work. No one cares about my work. No one encourages, supports, or collaborates. No one engages or gives ideas or helps or even takes the time to really look or read or notice. It's like an embarrassing mole everyone ignores, or a cute strangeness they pat me on the head for. But my work is deep and strong and important and undone. Over and over I try to shift this and over and over I find myself right back where I was. Alone. Panicking with the overwhelming aloneness. I long for creative partners, for someone, anyone, to stay with me awhile, work with me awhile, help me get better, help my work become fuller and produced and available, let me help them. Invest together. Take time and work together. Not just a moment, not just a quick feedback, not just an acknowledgement, though those things would also be better than nothing. But really actually work together on something we both care to see happen. 

Stay with me awhile. 

But no one stays. No one participates. No one actually cares.

So why do I? I don't know, but I do know it breaks my heart every day. 

Saturday, May 11, 2024

My Drag Race Tribute Part 1

During the makeover challenges I often imagine who my drag persona would be if I were put in drag. I really believe I would be a completely different persona depending on who my drag mother was, what styling she chose. Here is an incomplete list of drag personas by drag mother as I have imagined them (and some Midjourney renderings for visual pleasure). 

Jinkx Monsoon, if you were my drag mother I would be Charm Barrage 

Charm Barrage
Imaginary Charm Barrage (Mother Jinkx)

Sapphira Cristal, if you were my drag mother I would be Azure Cristal

Azure
Azure Cristal

Tina Burner, if you were my drag mother I would be Gloria Blazing

Gloria Blazing
Imaginary Gloria Blazing (Mother Tina)

Raja Gemini, if you were my drag mother I would be Sage Gemini

Sage Gemini
Imaginary Sage Gemini (Mother Raja)

Jada Essence Hall, if you were my drag mother I would be Luminessence Hall

Shangela, if you were my drag mother I would be Holly Loo

Willow Pill, if you were my drag mother I would be Aspenite

Aspenite
Imaginary Aspenite (Mother Willow)

Plane Jane, if you were my drag mother I would be Shadey Sherryl

Shadey Sherryl
Imaginary Shadey Sherryl (Mother Plane)

Trinity the Tuck, if you were my drag mother I would be Holy Holy Holy

Detox, if you were my drag mother I would be Rejuve

Morphine, if you were my drag mother I would be Meness

Meness
Imaginary Meness (Mother Morphine)

Shea Coulee, if you were my drag mother I would be Maple Coulee

Jorgeous, if you were my drag mother I would be Canna Queen

Farrah Moan, if you were my drag mother I would be Bea Moan

Bea Moan
Imaginary Bea Moan (Mother Farrah)

Priyanka, if you were my drag mother I would be Sia Bia (see ya, WOULD wanna be ya!)

Sasha Velour, if you were my drag mother I would be Sweetie Velour

Dawn, if you were my drag mother I would be Whorizon

Whorizon
Imaginary Whorizon (Mother Dawn)

The Vivienne, if you were my drag mother I would be Vies.

Vies
Imaginary Vies (Mother Vivienne)

Plasma, if you were my drag mother I would be Placebo I.V.

Placebo
Imaginary Placebo I.V. (Mother Plasma)

Q, if you were my drag mother I would be I

I
Imaginary I (Mother Q)

Jimbo, if you were my drag mother I would be Super Sillious

Sillious
Imaginary Super Sillious (Mother Jimbo)

Pandora Boxx, if you were my drag mother I would be Clarity Bell

Clarity Bell
Imaginary Clarity Bell (Mother Pandora)

Shanelle, if you were my drag mother I would be Sherrelle

Nymphia Wind, if you were my drag mother I would be North Wind

Alyssa Edwards, if you were my drag mother I would be Praise Bea

Praise Bea
Imaginary Praise Bea (Mother Alyssa)

Victoria Scone, if you were my drag mother I would be Freida Love

Imaginary Frieda Love (Mother Victoria Scone)

Crystal Methyd, if you were my drag mother I would be Whymsy Way

Whymsy Way
Imaginary Whymsy Way (Mother Crystal)

Yvie Oddly, if you were my drag mother I would by Ivy Evens

Trixie Mattel, if you were my drag mother I would be Charlatan Price

Gottmik, if you were my drag mother I would be Pretty Punch

Pretty Punch
Imaginary Pretty Punch (Mother Gottmik)

Eureka!, if you were my drag mother I would be Eunomia
Eunomia
Imaginary Eunomia (Mother Eureka!)

Monee Exchange, if you were my drag mother I would be Trade Chambers

Trade
Imaginary Trade Chambers (Mother Monee)

RuPaul, if you were my drag mother I would be Honey Do (she better don't!)

Honey Do
Imaginary Honey Do (Mother Ru)













Tuesday, April 23, 2024

The time is now

Mother Eunomia

Billionaires,

Your legacy can't be this. To die the most hated, as the world falls to pieces, in the name of your game of profit. The meanest, the worst, the most vile. Do you think the problems are not solvable? Is that why you continue to enact your cynical amassing and hoarding? But please, take heart, because it is all solvable. With the right foundations and emergent models, with the information we already have about how people behave and how systems work. Three generations, a hundred years. Or seven generations if you prefer the conservative estimate. But your legacy is to begin it, right. To put in place the foundations and the vision and the safeguards for ethical implementation. To use your funds instead of bombs and bullets, bombs of funds, bullets of funds, to eradicate the enemies of poverty, oppression, destruction, and exploitation, as you root out an enemy. Create an industry of peace. If you don't know how, ask me. You took all the resources of the world under your wing, so you have chosen the responsibility to use those resources to save the world you've destroyed to amass them. You need to shift your game, now. NOW.

All that is left when any of us die is dust dissipated into this planet of life, as long as it lives. Please let it live. 



Thursday, April 4, 2024

Tangled

Tangled (CAI 2019)

There is not a direction my mind turns that isn't laced with worry. I think every person I care about has reasons I worry for them, from close to distant, to the world as a whole. I reach around in my mind and I can't settle on anyone who is just doing well. There is no safe haven for my thoughts, no space in which I feel secure in good feelings, not even sleep anymore. My painting is filled with angst, my writing is stalled by inadequacy, most of my days are filled with repetitive maintenance trying to stave off erosion, and I'm tired and in pain most of the time. Too many of the people in the world seem to be in a self-destructive thrall that is more and more threatening to just general peaceful coexistence. I feel like my voice is unhearable, I am invisible, and only platitudes ever even try to assail that sense.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Contextualizing a lifetime

 

Account (Midjourney-generated 2023)

This is the download today, rough-hewn and unedited as I have NO TIME FOR THIS:

The Body and Spirit require several layers of translation as their comprehension of reality is very different. Body has Mind and Spirit has Wisdom. Generally speaking, Spirit only decides about important things, consulting Wisdom, which is bringing the knowledge of mind, body, and experience to a place Spirit can begin to understand and act upon. For most of our lives, Mind and Body make most decisions, overseen and nudged by Wisdom. 

Mind and Wisdom can speak directly about some things. Body and Spirit can speak directly about some things, and decide without Wisdom or Mind at all. Spirit can listen to Mind without the input of Wisdom, especially if Body is in favor, and act rashly or decisively (judged by our relation to the outcome). But generally, Spirit decides based on Wisdom, Body decides based on Mind, and their own whims of being. 

In each decade, the Spirit is at a stage or cycle of the lifetime, which then translates itself into the being to inform and guide choices and decisions that come most often during those periods. Body similarly informs Spirit, translating through Mind to Wisdom, which can affect how Spirit responds. 

If we are lucky we get 8 or maybe 9 periods of our lives, often measured by decades.

Pre-birth

Body - gestating (evacuating)

Mind - developing (stunting)

Wisdom - building (distorting)

Spirit - noticing (tuning out)


1st 10 years

Body - developing  (stunting)  

Mind - building (distorting)

Wisdom - noticing (tuning out)

Spirit - open (protective)


Pre-Teen

Body - building  (distorting)

Mind - noticing (tuning out)  

Wisdom - open (protective)

Spirit - asserting (insisting)


Teen   

Body - noticing  (tuning out)

Mind - open (protective)

Wisdom - asserting (insisting)

Spirit - expressing (doing)



20’s 

Body - open  (protective)

Mind - asserting (insisting) 

Wisdom - expressing (doing)

Spirit - evaluating (coasting)


30’s

Body - asserting (insisting)

Mind - expressing (doing)

Wisdom - evaluating (coasting)

Spirit - integrating (ignoring)


40’s

Body - expressing (doing) 

Mind - evaluating (coasting)

Wisdom - integrating (ignoring)

Spirit - attending (suppressing)  



50’s

Body - evaluating (coasting)   

Mind -integrating (ignoring)

Wisdom - attending (suppressing)  

Spirit - honouring (dismissing)


60’s

Body - integrating (ignoring)

Mind - attending (suppressing)

Wisdom - honouring (dismissing)

Spirit - deepening (disengaging)



70’s 

Body - attending (suppressing)  

Mind - honouring (dismissing)

Wisdom - deepening (disengaging)

Spirit - focusing (limiting)


80’s 

Body - honouring (dismissing)

Mind - deepening (disengaging)

Wisdom- focusing (limiting)

Spirit - preparing (avoiding)


90’s  

Body - deepening (disengaging)

Mind - focusing (limiting)

Wisdom - preparing (avoiding)

Spirit - ready (afraid)


Thursday, February 8, 2024

I am not for you

Over Shadow

I am not for you.

My talents are not for entertaining you.

My works are not for you to consume.

My love is not yours to have,

My time is not yours to claim.

But, I may give those to you anyway, for love, for fame, for fun

as a good host will offer her best pastries to the guest.

I am for Earth. I am for Peace. I am for Myself and my Family 4 and Our 

Good Life. 

We may intersect, support, help, enjoy

that's my joy

We may decide to hold cause in common

that's my passion

We may choose to share intimate understanding

that is my life's breath

and

I am not here for you.

We may choose to stay out of each other's repellent field

or disinterested way

and that is my loss, to not be for you, as I am, as you need.

But I am here, dealing too late with the weight of denials

hoping to shed some pounds and maybe lighten the uphill load for my last days of chances

to be here for a reason, after all.