The Mind Races On While the Pen Drags Behind

My previous post on The Paradox of Death is a bit more stream of consciousness than I had intended. That is one of the things that happens when writing about thinking existentially. I know I am going to have to reassess what I wrote; there are a lot of good thoughts in there, but I’m not surprised if people find it difficult to read. I had an idea and just could not hold it in a firm grasp, so the result is a bit of a train-wreck.

For a long time, that was what I tended to write most, when I kept a journal. The problem is not that I do not think clearly, but rather that I could never write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. That is something I have often struggled with as a writer. If I could write half as fast as I think, I would probably have finished most of the projects I’ve started. In the time it takes me to write a chapter, I can work out the details of an entire book, and by the time I finish another chapter or two, I have revised the story enough in my mind to make what I have written obsolete.

It is so much easier to juggle a universe in my head, and the ideas and inspirations I get come swift enough to make even a simple story overcomplicated. I have tried sketching out outlines and racing after my muse to churn out a rough draft, and I almost always get left in a cloud of dust. It is so rare that I have the time I need to get through that first marathon of sprint writing that I eventually got in the habit of writing nothing for months on end while I let my ideas and inspirations stew long enough to form into something reasonably solid and consistent.

I am going to put up a couple of chapters from a draft I started about a year before The Eve of Paradox that I really liked, but which I was not able to hold onto through the process of chasing my muse. I do not recall if I had a title in mind when I was writing it, so it will be posted under “Untitled Efforts.” I am still working on a new idea; I found these chapters while reviewing older work I might be able to fit into my current project. Since I have not published anything, many of my efforts have been based on versions of the same characters, so it isn’t hard to do.

The biggest problem I have, when trying to draw from my writing archive, is that I have more than enough plot material for several complete series. I end up having to narrow my focus down to one or two plot threads, and because of their position in the greater story arc, I also have to create a book length story arc to fit them into. Thus, I end up working on a different story than the one I set out to write initially. That makes the writing process both exciting and interesting, but it has not helped me much with getting published! Most of the time, it is just one of those things that derail my writing efforts to leave me with an unfinished manuscript and an itch to be writing something else.

The Paradox of Death

There is more to this, to existing, than meets the eye. Is there existence merely because existing has a way of affirming and asserting itself? Is there anything that is not existing that is itself valid? Is there anything precursive or external to existing? If existence is all there is, does it make any sense for our existence to be virtual and illusive. If existence itself is just an illusion, is there anything that is otherwise real?

The idea of appreciating what you have and not wasting it or throwing it away for what you do not have has been used to prevent people from striving to take control of their lives, but does the advice apply to existing—cherishing this state and striving not to trade it away for something that is not existence? Or is it all just words, and we are really missing the point?

I have tried to find a way to seize the means to master my own existence; choosing this as the most worthy endeavor. I already understand the spice of life, and the paradox. I have yet to conceive of a wider arena in which to grow and participate; an alternative to existing. I do not limit myself or my interests in the world as I have encountered it, but have sought to reach into the more extraordinary concourses and viaducts of being.

Indeed, if just basic survival in such a taxing world as this were not so antagonistic to personal development, I would have opened doors only dreamed of in our lives. There is too much holding on to really be able to let go and embrace the possibilities.

I have entertained doubt. Out of respect to the idea that I may not be the clearest sighted or the surest minded. With the limited experience at my command I have achieved answers to questions that, in spite of doubt, confirm the intuition I have always had about the possibilities of existing. In my pursuit of these answers, I have staked my assets on accuracy of thought and action. I have had to blaze new areas of information, and have refined the information I have found. I have tended to find my own answers before finding them echoed by the world.

If what I am learning is to be invested in, then existence is shaped by the available information and it is the integrity of this information that creates the integrity of existence. Existence can be altered and upgraded simply by positing new, more accurate and applicable models. Existence is not an absolute, but more of a very coherent dream. We are the dreamers and the dream. Or as I like to think, the artists and the art.

There are many ways to pose this same idea; the thinker and the thought, has a special ring that should strike chords in anyone, simply because it is accurate, and may well be true. Ideas like these do not ask for fear, but that people consider very carefully what dreams, art and thoughts are—with such influence upon existence.

We are like children, making the rules to our own games, and measuring ourselves by how well we adapt and function under these rules. But, what I think is that the rules are only a tool; a way to place context and consequence on our actions. It suggests an odd idea. Existence is not bound by rules, but experience is. Existing is making one’s own rules for one’s own reasons. In fact, rules don’t even seem like the right concept; designs, ideas, patterns, all serve, since the point of existence deals with seeking definition.

There are so many paradoxical aspects to the basic perspective of being. Is this all the creation of something from nothing? Is this actually the distinction of something from everything? Is this the recognition of things that were always there, just unrecognized and overlooked? Is this just self, and the expression of self? Is information just there, or is it created for the use and then discarded?

Where is the true initiative in existence; which things are side effects and which things are primary causes? Are we decisive creatures or reactive creatures? Meaning, do we initiate, or are we initiated? Or are we self initiating? Have we perhaps gotten ourselves too tangled in our rules (our game), and been forced to stop and decide if we value our rules (our game) more than we value ourselves? Or have we suddenly realized that the rules were so twisted that we were supposed to realize that they were just ideas and that we could outgrow them and live by our own?

Whatever the question, it all boils down to making a choice. In that case, perhaps we should try to make it an informed choice. Since we cannot count on reliable authorities for information on the mystery of existence, we will simply have to put it together ourselves as best we can. Thinking the most daring and integral thoughts, always striving for the most accuracy, there will still be paradoxes to thwart us.

Each paradox is an indication that there is more than just an idea to consider, but a condition, aspect or quality of existence. Since the best definition of a thing is the thing itself, it is important to be able to recognize something when we encounter it or refer to it. Since there is always more than one way to look at something, we have to look at each thing from a number of perspectives; generally the perspectives indicated by the matter in question.

To study ourselves, we have to look at ourselves from our perspective as well as that of science, philosophy, psychology, belief, and so on. There is bound to be some perspective that has more bearing. Now, each of these perspectives also has its way of imposing its rules, and any of these designs will be valid. The task is to decide which of these really goes anywhere viable.

If an option leads to stagnation and entropy, it obviously is not a very good option. Since the worst that could happen would be for our choice to be wrong—though there is no right or wrong—it really has more to do with application. So, the worst that could happen is for us to think that we will choose the best, but choosing the worst out of habit or indecisiveness.

One of the things that has always bothered us is the fact that when we begin our lives there is no handbook explaining what we are and what we are supposed to be doing. We grow up being told what other people have decided and being asked to accept other people’s opinions on what this all means. Most often, we are conditioned to accept that the rules of the game are more important than the players.

However, any child will tell us that a game is meaningless if no one wants to play it. Add to that the fact that any game that has pointless or insufferable rules will quickly loose the interest and support of the players, if not the players themselves. Our game is rather interesting. The rules really suck and one of them is that we have to play or we will be denied the option of playing any game at all.

We begin the game by learning that everybody loses in the end, and the only alternative to losing the game is to lose it even quicker. Even the best players ultimately lose. And the very worst thing we can do is to try to change the game, its rules, or ourselves outside of what the rules allow. The only nice aspect of this game is that we are allowed to have our own little games within it, so long as these games do not conflict with or contradict the main game itself.

But, that is just another opinion, and should be registered as such. Regardless of what game we are playing with our existence, our existence itself is there just the same. That is what is important. Some of us are not really playing games. Some of us are aware that existence asks more of us than any game.

Until thinking is outlawed in this game, we have a right to be concerned with our existence and where we are going with it. Thinking, if it ever is made against the rules, will become the sole asset of those who are forced to oppose the game; which would put those obsessed with playing games at a great disadvantage in keeping their game alive.

Even from within a situation as disadvantageous to our existence, our evolution, as such a game, there are things to learn that still apply to our evolution. Perhaps because it is in our nature that we tend to see what we are forced to confront better than what we are not, one of the things we see in our world is pattern decay.

A living pattern that is growing is very self-maintaining. It can still become distorted, but for the most part, it doesn’t fall apart as easily as a non-living pattern. In any structure built to house life, a certain amount of debris begins to collect as part of life that has to be confronted and dealt with constantly or it soon overwhelms the edifice and begins to choke the life out of it.

When the inhabitants of the establishment are determined and responsible to the edifice, they maintain the patterns, and it remains close to the original expression. If the maintenance is slack, then chaos inevitable takes over. In the mystery of existence, this is found even in the decay of transmitted signals; they have to be boosted and reinforced to carry further. Mountains crumble, deserts spread, and rivers grow clogged with silt or pollution. Stars grow dim or explode. Words, ideas, games lose their meaning.

Memory fades.

Anything which once exists in a deliberate form eventually becomes random and hazy. This is why the new replaces the old. Because the old stops being really alive. We see entropy; degeneration of the patterns that we worked so hard to establish. Do we want this to happen to us? To humanity? It doesn’t matter how hard we try to hold on to something; if we don’t use it, we lose it. Ourselves included. It is impossible to hold on, but it is not impossible to go on.

To stay alive, we have to keep moving. We have to keep recreating ourselves; renewing each gesture and affectation. The best way to keep life is to keep living life. The best way to keep living life is to keep growing. Not literally in an organic mass; but as a constant refinement and exploration. The organism is growing to achieve a temporary design of adulthood.

In doing so it rushes past the marvelous condition of childhood. As much as adulthood has the purpose of reproduction to renew the race, there are no provisions to renew the individual. But individuals are the heart of existence. To survive, the race has to keep replacing its heart.

An individual comes so close to really being alive. An individual holds all of the experience gained from a life, and an individual takes it all with him or her when the flesh decays. Which is a shame. Granted experience is in the past, but that passing experience is the seed of greater and more refined experiences to come. Why does all our sophistication have to die? Especially when sophistication is what our world needs to really grow; what our race needs to grow.

Death has a place in the design, along with destruction and decay. These are all expressions of change, and existence needs change. The problem is, death is a meaningless end. It is illogical for existence to end in death. I shouldn’t have to convince anyone. The answers, and the questions, are all there. It’s my life. It’s your life. I have to live mine, and you have to live yours. Some day we will have a world worth living in, if we have to create it from scratch.

The Impact of Social Stratification

We’re all human. None of us have a say in what circumstances we are born. Pretty much any other characteristic by which people can be defined produces some form of social stratification. Thinking about it boggles the mind. I’ve grown up with the ideas of caste and class, and tried to understand how anyone can willingly accept being “put in their place” by the people around them. In the end, I think it all comes down to the perception of power, the ways in which circumstances can be used to dominate society.

It is fair to say that society, like reality itself, is created and sustained by our participation. Society is an unspoken contract, and one that is sort of worked out on the fly and passed down in its present, imperfect form through each generation. We pride ourselves on the progress we have made, but honestly it seems that whatever progress we have made has been in spite of ourselves. But, how can we address it critically and sensibly?

It is so easy to point the finger of blame, or to rationalize human behavior, but I’m still asking myself, “Why does anyone put up with this?” There are certain things, things we have created, that make us desperately unequal. Consider the tendency of formal organizations to create authority, or formal systems to create wealth, or formal status or merit to create prestige.

These are useful things, but they need to be paired with responsibility, integrity, and humility. Look at the way that groups are formed on the basis of common identity or purpose, but create trends of positive and negative discrimination, and the guidelines for institutionalizing them as caste or class. Think of the many ways that individuals who have gained a privileged place in society have acted to protect their privilege by limiting opportunities, controlling resources, creating surplus labor forced to compete for reduced wages.

The fact is that any system or organization can be leveraged to create power, in one of many forms. Money is economic power. Prestige is social power. Authority is political power. This is power we all have, but depending on where we are in the system, that power is either channeled away from us, or right into our hands, and it happens because we allow it to happen. The problem is that social stratification dramatically shifts the balance and flow of power. The more concentrated the power structure becomes, the more severe the inequalities of society.

The ultimate danger is not revolution, however. The more extreme the imbalance is, the more coercive the power structure becomes, the more controlling it becomes. The real danger is not that people will fight the system. The real danger is that they will simply abandon it. They will try to escape their miserable lives through drugs and debauchery, they will turn to crime and simply take what they require, or they will quietly, desperately, take their own lives.

Still Scratching That Itch

The whole moving and searching for a better job thing is going slowly, so even with school work, there’s been time to write. Maybe I should not say, write, precisely. I have had a bit of time to pound out some new ideas and wrestle with some old ones, and I am coming to an agreement with myself about what I wanted to write, what I actually wrote, and what I hope to get written. I’ve actually been working on a group of related stories based on a common inspiration for years, so there is more material for me to draw from than the seven chapters I’ve posted.

I’ve noticed that a few people have actually looked at those, so that’s a bit of encouragement to try and do something with them. The funny thing is, if I posted my actual writing journal I would have something to post daily, but all my ideas, stark naked, would probably bend people’s minds and at the very least spoil any book that comes out in the end. It’s amazing how much writing goes into just developing the world and characters of a book, though, and each new idea that crops up changes everything in both subtle and dramatic ways.

Just asking a simple “what if” at any point can generate a few pages of notes detailing the consequences of that revision. I don’t think anyone in my family really understands how I could spend years writing and never produce a complete manuscript. As tempting as it is to think of that as a failing on my part as a writer, the absence of a complete manuscript does not mean I have not accomplished anything. In the hundred or so partial manuscripts and related notes, I have generated enough ideas and plot threads to write consistently for the rest of my life — as long as I create a sound foundation to build them all on in the first work I bring to completion.

Paying the Price

As true as it is that some people are incapable of valuing things they have not paid the price for, the fact is that free money is never free. There is terrible cost for being on the public dole, that is immediately evident when you walk into a welfare community. Being on public assistance or living on a reservation, the cost of that free income or housing is having to live in poverty. It provides just enough to survive but not enough to advance. While many assistance programs include job training and placement programs, the jobs one can qualify for rarely provide better incomes.

Taken in the context of the way people on state or federal assistance are forced to jump through hoops just to get food, clothing, housing or basic medical services, it is hard to imagine a more discouraging or disheartening life style. People who are subjected to this tend to have little appreciation for the system that provides for them (the rest of society for the most part) because the system has no appreciation for them. Part of this comes from having someone else decide which of their needs deserve to be met, or what sort of help they deserve to get.

To simply exist in the world requires more time and resources than an individual can provide for themselves. It simply is not possible to advance if you can not start out on an even footing with the rest of the world, and people in poverty rarely do. The best most impoverished families can do is to work twice as hard as everyone else for half as much in the hope of giving their children the opportunities they never had. No one can choose what family, race, community, culture or nation to be born into, or the advantages and disadvantages that they have as an accident of birth.

It’s human nature to say that “no child shall be left behind” but in reality some children get born with one hell of a head start. Just knowing you got dealt a bad hand in life is enough to make you pretty unhappy, but when you also realize that the deck was stacked against you that unhappiness can become something much uglier. Poverty is the direct consequence of the creation and accumulation of wealth. Poverty is symptom of a disease that infects civilization, and until civilization can overcome this disease it will continue to be sick and just a bit deranged.

It is natural to assume that the disease is greed, but let’s be honest, its only human to want more than we need. The problem is that some people are ruthless enough to simply take whatever they want; a certain pair of continents come to mind as examples. I would also like to point out that, while there are semantic differences between “criminals” and “rebels” the defining characteristic of any society’s ne’er-do-wells is that they are usually people who, feeling that they are not properly represented or established in society, do not respect the establishments of society.

It is not necessary to be in poverty to be a criminal, or a terrorist, or what have you, but being in poverty puts you a lot closer to the fringe of society where you have more to gain by bucking the system than you do by participating in it. As long as there are people out there who have better prospects working against society, there will be people content to exploit or disrupt it. The parasitic element of our society is created by our own institutions, in the way they are organized, the way the operate, and the way they perpetuate imbalances in the status quo.

To see who is at fault, you simply look at who benefits from the status quo the most consistently. Crime and welfare have been accepted by those people as an acceptable operational reality of industry, economics and politics. The first question everyone needs to ask is, “who has the right to determine privilege?” Privilege is certainly not distributed based on who does the most work, or even who does the most important work. In both cases, the poor do. To understand how important the working poor are, try to imagine what would happen to civilization if they all stopped doing their jobs!

Granted, there are some very specialized fields that have great value, and the individuals who perform those functions are handsomely rewarded, but it does not always follow that a highly valued worker does the most important work. Any job can become “worthless” if enough people are skilled at doing it — that’s simple “supply and demand” and it applies to general labor or brain surgery. Teachers, who perform an essential social function, are valued proportionately to the perceived value or significance of the students they instruct.

Yes, other factors like tenure and experience apply, but a gifted grade-school teacher is easily overlooked in favor of a competent tenured professor at an elite university. Which brings up the second question everyone needs to ask, “who has the right to determine the value of my contribution to society?” The answer to both of the questions raised should be “Me.” Any other answer ought to show you what’s wrong with the system. Beyond the most basic necessities, “chasing the dollar” is a very unfulfilling way to spend life.

With so much emphasis on making money, particularly in business, it becomes too easy to lose sight of why we are working in the first place. Most people accept the argument that money is superior to barter, but both systems of exchange are dependent upon assigning a fair value to the production of goods and services. The value of the dollar fluctuates, and over the past hundred years has plummeted through inflation, but the cost of an hour’s work is still an hour spent working. The true value is in what is accomplished, and how hard it is to accomplish — and only the person doing the work knows that!

The day people stopped setting the value of their own work was the day that people lost their independence and freedom. When there is always someone else deciding the value of your work and your worth in the community, what assurance is there that the decision will be fair? Living is the only privilege we truly have, and we have the responsibility of making our own contribution to the world valuable. Anything that distorts or denies that is part of the problem. If you want more in life, you have to be more, you have to do more; you can’t just keep doing the same thing you have been doing all along.

You are going to have to do something you don’t want to do — because if you wanted to do it, you would have already tried. But, you can never know if you’ll like doing something until you try, and in some cases until you succeed. This is all common sense stuff, but it’s amazing how easy it is for people to avoid even thinking these simple thoughts when they need to, or taking it to heart. And really, all the good advice in the world is worthless if a person is not listening, and it can’t be used unless a person can take it upon themselves to use it.

Life really does not have a purpose if you don’t live your life on purpose. People really do a lot better in the world when they act like they have a good reason for being here. Blissful ignorance of the world is a handicap, however pleasant it might seem. An open mind should always be guarded by open eyes.

Take a Moment to Reflect

Even with the best intentions no one has the right to impose a system of thought or action on anyone against their will. Ironically, that is exactly what has happened to all of us as we were born into this world. It is in some ways no different than being born into slavery, in the sense that we come into the world having no say in the system that will govern our lives, and we spend our most vulnerable years being programmed to become obedient citizens and uphold the status quo.

As children we learn that the double-standard is pretty much the rule in virtually all situations, and while there seem to be thousands of problems in the world, the one thing all problems have in common is apathy and indifference. The older generation has already been through the school of hard knocks and become bitter, skeptical, intolerant, or what have you — the end result being that most people have given up on trying to make the world a better place and turned their attention to finding a better place in the world. While most people are busy pushing and shoving each other aside trying to “get their share” no one is taking responsibility for the world we share.

Now, I understand that self interest is important for people’s well-being, but our selfishness as a species has become blinding. It isn’t enough that we’re consuming the world’s renewable resources faster than the world can cope with, or that we’re depleting the world’s limited resources as fast as we can dig them up, but we also pile up mountains of debt for our children to conduct wars with nations we’ve given up trying to be friends with. People need to wake up and realize that no one is going to fix the world for them.

The people who have seized control of our world are abusing the authority they’ve been given, ignoring the responsibilities we’ve entrusted them with. I’m not just talking about our presidents and prime ministers, here; I am talking about the people who are given authority in all walks of life that are exploiting the system for their own benefit. I’m even talking about the customers who abuse the courtesy of employees to get special attention or service. Every single abuse of the public trust is passed on to another human being, and while people are complaining about how they are being mistreated, each person who uses their misfortune as an excuse to abuse the public trust is helping to destroy the world we live in.

Not all at once, not today, but almost every day, somewhere, for someone, it manifests as robbery, assault, rape, murder. That is how it works. The end of the world comes one person at a time. Every time a person dies, the world loses something irreplaceable.

There have always been those who believe that the world would be a better place without some people in it, and there have always been people willing to kill anyone who gets in their way. We have all been one of those people, at some point in our lives, for some part of our lives. The worst possible human being exists within all of us, as does the best. We can choose to understand this, and we can choose what sort of human being we will allow ourselves to be. We can choose to be weak, we can choose to be insignificant, or we can choose to be powerful and extraordinary.

Those choices are ours, and we make them by doing what those choices call for. But, no one is going to make the right choice if no one cares. The only thing that people need, really, is something that most people have — or can get access to — and the only thing they need to do is stop taking it for granted. It’s called a mirror. Take a good look, because that is who is going to change the world — or not — and that is who you have to fight to succeed.

The Best Way to Fit In? Don’t Stand Out

Grouping is an activity that comes instinctively and automatically to people. It is part of a filtering process that allows us to make sense of our universe. Anything can serve as criteria for grouping, but because this is a perceptual-interpretive process; differences and similarities in physical characteristics are the most prevalent. As we learn and grow, we also associate ideas and experiences with the items in our cognitive inventory. We give values to people, places and things based on personal experience, inherited attitudes and beliefs, and assumptions. Part of our ability to form instant impressions and make immediate judgments is based upon preconception — ideas we have formed previously.

Stereotyping is the result of reaching conclusions based on limited observation or information — often inaccurate or unreliable information. The thing that really differentiates the act of grouping people from the act of stereotyping is thinking. When grouping, you are engaged in a thinking process, perceiving and interpreting raw information, but when stereotyping you are simply calling up some predigested conclusion to save the time, effort and attention required to make an accurate and appropriate judgment. It is called “jumping to conclusions” and it is something we do so much that we rarely even notice it. What this means for social relations is disastrous. By assuming that we “know” what we are confronting when we encounter another human being, we actually fail to perceive that individual as a person. We not only take him or her for granted, we automatically dismiss them as being worthy of greater consideration.

The tendency to concentrate into isolated ethnic groups is a natural instinct for most people. It stems from the desire for a common identity or a desire to belong, and apparently the easiest way for a person to fit in is to not stand out. It is an almost universal aversion to being different. It is the differences between us that become the focus of conflict, as immature as it is. The ability to single a person out of a group gives the group power or justifies decisions that would otherwise be unjustifiable. There are no human traits that are immune to discrimination.

Height, weight, color, sex, intelligence, class, nationality, regionality, whatever it is that makes an individual unique can be used to shut them out of the group. Racial discrimination gets a lot of attention, but what about gender-identity discrimination? When a person who has female psychology and male anatomy acts normal (that is, dressing and acting feminine) and gets raped and or murdered, that is an example of extreme prejudice and discrimination.

The fact is, being different is enough to get a person killed. The reality is, civilization is founded on an impulse that encourages intolerance and breeds fear of individuality.

Each new generation is raised in an environment defined by lingering prejudice and emerging enlightenment, responding to the lingering injustices in positive and negative ways that inform the next generation’s prejudices. The victims are not just disadvantaged minorities isolated from “mainstream society” in ghettoes, or resentfully integrated into “suburbia.” Most of the people in the world struggle with poverty and discrimination because poverty and discrimination tend to be self-sustaining and mutually reinforcing. The thing most people overlook is the fact that the rich are a minority isolated from mainstream society — including the majority of individuals of their own race or ethnicity.

While this may sound like a discriminatory statement, minorities continue to struggle with the System mostly because it is not their System. The government and industry of the United States was created by a specific group with the specific purpose of supporting and promoting their own group. It is a privileged system and while it’s laid out on paper as ideals and laws, it is made real by people who do discriminate and are prejudiced — sometimes negatively, against people of other races or ethnic origins, but primarily positively toward their own race and ethnic group. It is perfectly reasonable to point out this selfishness on the part of the elite, and it is not entirely enviable, but it is human. A better system can only be created by people who hold less exclusive views of people.

A Touch of Fear

A good scare is like good sex. It is gripping and all consuming for an eternal moment, but once it has washed through you and you catch your breath, it evaporates. Like smoke, it unravels, curling in upon itself and expanding into nothing. Before you know it, only the memory remains.

Being at Odds with Life

I never imagined that I had a monopoly on being at odds with life. It is simply a state of being with which I am much too familiar. I have spent most of my life struggling with things that most people take for granted, stumbling and falling in places where most people stride with confidence and conviction. Strangely, I can dance through other places where most people crawl along blindly in fear and confusion or turn and run from in terror. I am not like everyone else, and I can not just be like everyone else and do what everyone else does. In order to live like other people, I have to learn the role and act the part — but the performance I put on never ends and by going through the motions I end up not having a life of my own.

There are people who are paid millions of dollars to use the skills I use simply to survive. My life has been a job that no one hired me for and no one pays me to do. I do this simply because I was born in a body that disguises my true nature. I do this because it is the only way I can do anything, be anything, have anything at all. There is one interesting benefit; I am in constant turmoil because of a conflict between who I am and what I appear to be. I know I have a soul, because my mind is not strong enough to exist at such complete odds with my body. In spite of every effort and encouragement to conform to my physical reality, I continue to exist as a girl in my own mind.

My mind has fallen apart and reset to this female identity too many times for me to question who I really am. Trying to be a man destroys me. There is a limit to how long I can play the part before it kills me. It is like holding my breath under water. I have to surface one in a while to breathe or risk drowning. Unfortunately, I have to keep taking that risk because the people around me can only acknowledge the person I appear to be; only the physical part of me is accepted as being real or legitimate. Oh, I can talk myself blue about who I really am, but most people will continue to perceive me as a mentally defective man — or worse, a sexually defective man.

I could get a sex change — pardon me, I mean, I could elect to undergo gender reassignment surgery — in which case I would no longer be considered a man. I might even, with lots of work, pass for a woman. But I would not be female. I can not even begin to explain the problems I’ve had with the very idea of surgical intervention, but it was being forced to confront it as the only real option available for correcting things that drove me to the brink of suicide. That is a very odd place to end up as the result of wanting a real life. For now, the fact that I literally can not afford it, and for health reasons should not risk it, is all that keeps me from pursuing in desperation to get out of living as a man.

I am actually afraid of what would happen if I could afford to go through with it. Not because I would regret doing it. I’ve spent so much of my life hiding who I really am, I am not sure if I would know how to just be myself. The other concerns, real and terrifying as they are, just don’t compare to the fact that I would end up alone and uncertain of myself. The hardest part of what I have survived is the one part that will be emphasized most if I were to do the right thing for myself. I know that I would get past that point, and survive if the process itself doesn’t kill me — a risk I was always willing to take. In the end, the final curse is that no matter what I do, I have no idea how I am supposed to fit in anywhere. If I have no place in this world, either way, why do I put myself through all of this misery?

Open Letter to Lindsay Lohan

Hello, Lindsay. I don’t know you and you certainly do not know me! That said, I do not really expect you to actually read this letter, and if you do, I really do not expect anything from you. Still, it is an open letter for you, and regardless of who else reads it, it is meant only for you.

I don’t have a very clear idea why I am doing this, and if anything actually comes of it, I will probably regret it at some point. I’m not even sure how to begin. I am not your friend. I am not even asking to be your friend — I don’t want anything from you. I appreciate what you have done in your life as an artist more than enough. I do have a kind of selfish interest in you, and honestly it’s weird enough to scare you if it is looked at in a certain way. So, I’ll run the risk of weirding you out right up front: I probably would have liked being you.

I’m not talking about the fame and money, and definitely not the problems you’ve had — I’ll get to those in a bit! No, I would have just been happy to have been a normal, red headed girl who was encouraged to take on the world from a very young age. I didn’t get that. I don’t know why that matters, but it does, and there’s not much I can do about it but to be considered — and feel like — a freak, simply because I know who I am and am not able to deny it for my own convenience or anyone else’s. So, yeah, you’re living the life I always dreamed of!

I’m sure you’d tell me that it’s not all it’s cooked up to be. I certainly get that impression from what filters through all the tabloid abuse. I am sorry for that. I mean, I really don’t know you so the only reason I know anything about you is because you have a public life and millions of people are eager to invade your privacy. Maintaining my privacy has been the only thing that kept me sane while my condition was driving me to explore every avenue of self-destruction available to me. It was never my intention to kill myself, or ruin my life — but it doesn’t really have to be, does it?

Life is, well, messy and complicated, and I’m pretty much convinced that it’s a kind of proving ground. We’re here to see what makes us crack, and if we’re lucky we can find our flaws and fix them before we run out of life. I don’t know if there’s any point to it, or any reward. I think that knowing what all of this is for might invalidate the reason for us having to do it. I don’t think it is necessary for us to suffer through this alone — but when there is no one you can turn to, no knowing who you can trust, you face it alone in spite of being surrounded by family and friends.

If anything, it makes you even more alone. It takes that particular dagger and twists it into your gut. I totally get that. Been there. Done that. Someday I’ll write a book about it and become rich and famous! Or… not. It doesn’t matter. I faced my demons and am now perfectly safe in the company of sharp, pointy objects and guns. Like my personal demons, they’re still dangerous, but I know how to keep them from mixing dangerously, and that’s a strange sort of life skill to acquire. I don’t know what you need, Lindsay, honestly; again, I don’t really know you.

I am a stranger, and a strange individual to boot. I am probably the last person you would turn to for help. The point of all this, though, is that I would help. I know a part of me would die if you met a tragic end, so I have gone to this — actually, quite pathetic — effort to send this letter via six-degrees of separation. I am not sure what will come of it. I only know that you need something of the heart, something of the mind and soul, something to restore your center or make you whole. I don’t have it. But if you ask me to, I will help you find it.

I’m not your friend, but if you really need one you can always try asking a stranger.

A stranger.

Now, as for all you potential spectators. I know this is somewhat absurd, and the most likely way for this letter to come to Lindsay’s attention is because one of you is reading it. I am concerned, and I am genuine, and I don’t expect anyone to take my word for it. If you are reading this, and you really are her friend I hope she can get what she needs from you. I’m only providing an option, a very, way out of the way, out of the blue alternative to the long dark night of the soul. A different perspective.