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Post by freakydeaky on Jun 14, 2015 11:45:16 GMT -5
I already told you about The Left Hand of Darkness - androgyny is a very important topic in that novel. Again, Ursula LeGuin imagines a new concept, like a thought experiment: what if people on some planet had no binary male-female gender, but were genderless, both and neither. Ultimately, she forces you to view them as simply human. For me personally, that is exactly how I view people: I don't care if they're male or female - androgyny appeals to me, as well, because it is the outward representation of that idea: that gender is ultimately a social construct and doesn't really exist in humans. Biologically, there are a few differences between male and female sex - not as many as some people think, though - (but let's not forget there are all kinds of intersex people as well - they are neither male nor female, which means this binary does not even exist in biology; it's a false assumption there as well) - and there are even fewer differences (if there are any differences at all) when it comes to "male and female" gender. Because gender is how you feel and identify on the inside. And on the inside, people are much too complex to say: "I am just this one thing", whatever that one thing may be. It's a false assumption that we are all either men or women on the inside and that this is some sort of natural division. First off, I know I don't have just one defining gender inside of my Self, and I don't think I'm unique in this respect - in fact, I don't think it's just a group of people within the LGBTQI population. I think genderlessness exists everywhere, no matter what your sex, what your sexual orientation, what your proclaimed gender may be. I call myself a woman, I self-identify as a woman, but I also know that I am not a woman in my mind. I've always known that my mind is of all genders and none. The mind has no gender, but I can use it to imagine whatever gender I desire. That's probably one of the reasons I'm a writer and I like telling stories, because I can imagine myself in the shoes of any character and I don't have a problem envisioning how would a man deal with this situation? Those kinds of things just don't occur to me. It's absurd to me. My characters are figments of my imagination, they are exactly the way I want them to be and they act according to the personality I've given them. Not according to their gender. Halle-fucking-lujah, how refreshing to hear someone put into words how I have always felt. This idea that girls should like 'girl things' and boys 'boys things' never made sense to me, I always saw it as so limiting, and I wondered why people held to this lie. People telling me what I like because I'm a woman, and it wouldn't resonate with me. I always admired people who questioned it publicly, as Morrissey did, David Bowie, of course. Gary Numan. Jean Genet. Marc Bolan. Many artists, no surprise, as they tend to see the world more honestly, and are brave enough to step out of the conditioning and mind programmed upbringing most of us experience. TG there has always been some artist in my life that I could look up to who thought like me so I didn't feel so alone, even though they weren't in my personal life. Finding your tribe can be hard, but the internet and art, esp music, has made it easier. At least you know they're there! I always liked artists who played with gender and sexuality. Who pushed those boundaries particularly, as well as genres. It was one of the reasons I liked Adam as I went back thru his public persona years, having only discovered him recently. I found it funny that he was often referred to as the only male gay artist who had a 'top hit' but I suppose they mean in America, as we had it with Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Boy George et al. Is he really the first in the States??? Anyway, when using terms like girl, gay, straight, etc, I use it loosely, knowing it is fluid, and I hope we can do away with these terms and labels and be free of them, and free of expectation. If you think that everything is 'female' in the womb until the secondary sex characteristics develop, and sometimes that development happens later in life, during adolescents too, we're all much closer than we've been lead to think, we all come from one thing, the same thing, then our differences aren't so huge, it's just how we choose to think of them. |
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Post by toramenor on Jun 15, 2015 2:36:03 GMT -5
mirages, please always bear in mind that when I write stuff here, I am never prescribing how others should feel or think about anything, and I am never trying to say: this is how anyone should be. Remember what I wrote a while back (this is always my caveat): ... going back to my thoughts on freedom to be yourself and freedom of self-expression, which I think are somewhere in my previous posts in this thread. This is what I believe: it may not be easy to figure out who you are; it may not be easy to express yourself fully and completely - but this is your life and nobody else can live it for you. If you don't do it, who will? Nobody can tell you who you are, because you are the only one who can discover that. Nobody can tell you what you're feeling, because they can't live inside your mind. And nobody can express your true self, because nobody can know you better than you. Now, all of this may sound kinda lonely, or even isolating, as if we were all islands, alone in the middle of a vast ocean. And it's true that being unique implies being alone, but that's why it's important to have the freedom not just to be yourself but also to express yourself without fear of reprisals/rejection/judgement - because by expressing yourself you connect with other unique people who are then able to see you for who you truly are. Through self-expression you are connected with others and therefore you are not alone. *** freakydeaky I'm glad you enjoy my philosophizing  I tend to do that sometimes, there are other posts in this thread where I've mentioned or explored similar themes. There's one about Virginia Woolf and her idea of the "androgynous mind"... I can't find it right now, but it's here somewhere...
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Post by freakydeaky on Jun 15, 2015 9:57:42 GMT -5
mirages, please always bear in mind that when I write stuff here, I am never prescribing how others should feel or think about anything, and I am never trying to say: this is how anyone should be. Remember what I wrote a while back (this is always my caveat): *** freakydeaky I'm glad you enjoy my philosophizing I tend to do that sometimes, there are other posts in this thread where I've mentioned or explored similar themes. There's one about Virginia Woolf and her idea of the "androgynous mind"... I can't find it right now, but it's here somewhere... Yes, me too, I'm just talking from my perspective... I love Virginia Woolf! Ok I am away in the UK from tomorrow for a week, so will have to look over some older posts when I get back, but sounds interesting..And you can philosophize away to your heart's content, my interest has been piqued..  |
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Post by toramenor on Jun 16, 2015 2:00:02 GMT -5
mirages, please always bear in mind that when I write stuff here, I am never prescribing how others should feel or think about anything, and I am never trying to say: this is how anyone should be. Remember what I wrote a while back (this is always my caveat): ... going back to my thoughts on freedom to be yourself and freedom of self-expression, which I think are somewhere in my previous posts in this thread. This is what I believe: it may not be easy to figure out who you are; it may not be easy to express yourself fully and completely - but this is your life and nobody else can live it for you. If you don't do it, who will? Nobody can tell you who you are, because you are the only one who can discover that. Nobody can tell you what you're feeling, because they can't live inside your mind. And nobody can express your true self, because nobody can know you better than you. Now, all of this may sound kinda lonely, or even isolating, as if we were all islands, alone in the middle of a vast ocean. And it's true that being unique implies being alone, but that's why it's important to have the freedom not just to be yourself but also to express yourself without fear of reprisals/rejection/judgement - because by expressing yourself you connect with other unique people who are then able to see you for who you truly are. Through self-expression you are connected with others and therefore you are not alone. *** What I was trying to say with all this, and didn't have much time to expound on, is this: mirages, when I write stuff here, I'm really just philosophizing, expressing myself - it's a piece of prose, meant to give people a small insight into my mind. I am being myself and I am expressing myself - that is the way I try to connect to others. But that connection does not depend on their agreeing with everything I say -- the connection is made through me showing who I am (or at least a piece of me) and then the other person accepting that. It's not about agreeing, it's about getting to know somebody. So, it's fine whether or not you agree with my views on gender above, or when I wrote about what magic means to me as a writer, or when I wrote about why I love Ursula Le Guin, or anything, really. I'm always interested to hear what other people have to say on the topics that I'm thinking about, but - for me - it's not about trading arguments, it's simply about sharing our thoughts and ideas. It's never a discussion; it's a meandering conversation that leads from one idea to the next and the next, and so on.... That's what I like about this thread: everyone can just post what they're thinking, or post a piece of their writing, or pose an interesting philosophical question, or comment on what's going on in the outside world... *** I love Virginia Woolf! Ok I am away in the UK from tomorrow for a week, so will have to look over some older posts when I get back, but sounds interesting..And you can philosophize away to your heart's content, my interest has been piqued.. take your time, those posts aren't going anywhere, I hope (and if you like, you should start from the beginning, there are some great posts by other people - pieces of poetry and thought that are worth checking out) - but in the meantime, I found the post about Woolf, so I'm bringing it here: Nice article about gender identity.
Virginia Woolf on Why the Best Mind Is AndrogynousVirginia Woolf: Of course, Woolf uses the binary male/female, where I would perhaps put in a spectrum, but she makes great points and her insights are truly ahead of her time. I've always thought of her that she saw the world as it was and as it should have been, and that she felt the tragedy when the two did not coincide. |
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Post by mirages on Jun 16, 2015 9:17:51 GMT -5
What I was trying to say with all this, and didn't have much time to expound on, is this: mirages, when I write stuff here, I'm really just philosophizing, expressing myself - it's a piece of prose, meant to give people a small insight into my mind. I am being myself and I am expressing myself - that is the way I try to connect to others. But that connection does not depend on their agreeing with everything I say -- the connection is made through me showing who I am (or at least a piece of me) and then the other person accepting that. It's not about agreeing, it's about getting to know somebody. So, it's fine whether or not you agree with my views on gender above, or when I wrote about what magic means to me as a writer, or when I wrote about why I love Ursula Le Guin, or anything, really. Ah, I see -- the use of "agree/disagree" must have come across as argumentative, where my intent was more to explore why I basically agreed with what you were saying but had a sense that there was something else I wanted to explore as well. That, to me, is part of conversation or the refining of ideas and not dispute. But, now I know how it can sound, especially online, so I' can be more considerate. |
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Post by toramenor on Jun 16, 2015 13:02:53 GMT -5
I also watched the Bill Moyers interview with Ursula LeGuin last night -- they talk a lot about "The Lathe of Heaven," which the presenter references at the end of LeGuin's speech that you posted earlier. I may have to pick that one up. She also has some thoughts on characters and gender toward the end of the interview. I finally watched the interview, thanks for bringing it over - utterly fascinating.... her explanation of how we have lots of men and women inside us - how we can be more than we think, is just so simple and I so identify... and I loved how she talked about the characters finding her, and how her process starts - from words, or a character's voice - the characters tell her their stories and she just waits for them to come to her, in a way... like I said, completely fascinating... My writing process usually starts with a single scene - which can be at the beginning, or in the middle, or near the end of the story, but the main character is in that scene, so it's an important scene, obviously. I don't necessarily know who the main character is yet, what they look like, or what their story is, but they do something or say something that I find irresistible and that draws me in. It's like, I need to find out more about this, I need to explore what's going on here. It's almost like watching a trailer for a movie, and thinking: I need to see this movie, I need to find out what happens in this story, I need to watch these characters and I find out more about them. So, the writing process can turn into a discovery, as if the story and the characters do already exist somewhere out there and I just need to discover them. Sometimes, however, the process begins completely differently, almost as an exercise in thought: what if the world were like this?.... and I start jotting down notes about this imaginary world: what races inhabit it, is there magic, what are the main societies, what is the political landscape, are there any religions? etc. I basically start from the big picture, from the global, and then gradually zoom in on some characters who find themselves living in these conditions I've set out for them, in the world I've created for them. And they are necessarily affected by this world--in other words, they would have been completely different (perhaps had different personalities, different motivations, different lives to live) if I had imagined them first and then created the world around them.... But because the world was created first - in a way, the characters appear as people who I need, almost as if choosing actors to play certain roles. So - the story comes before the characters, almost.... But, that is just an outline, because as soon as the characters are formed, the story may become flexible - the characters are now changing the story because I allow them to lead me, and not the other way around. The actors which I have chosen to play these parts that I needed filled are now improvising according to their own individual personalities and that changes the rules for me, because, now, even if I know where the story is headed, I may not know how the characters will end up there. So, again, it seems, I am discovering the story through the process of writing it.... Who knows, maybe I'm just too in love with the creative process itself, the discovery of it, and that's why I have such a trouble finishing my projects. Or, the answer might lie in psychology. A few months ago, I attended a leadership training course, and the trainer had us all do some kind of psychological test (I forget what it's called), which was supposed to show us which roles in a team we are most suited for, based on our psychology, I guess. Not surprisingly, my top team role was "original thinker", and the worst one was "finisher" (I scored 0 on that one! lol ).... But, these are all skills that can be worked on... (at least I hope so... ) |
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Post by mirages on Jun 16, 2015 14:16:51 GMT -5
Who knows, maybe I'm just too in love with the creative process itself, the discovery of it, and that's why I have such a trouble finishing my projects. Or, the answer might lie in psychology. A few months ago, I attended a leadership training course, and the trainer had us all do some kind of psychological test (I forget what it's called), which was supposed to show us which roles in a team we are most suited for, based on our psychology, I guess. Not surprisingly, my top team role was "original thinker", and the worst one was "finisher" (I scored 0 on that one! lol ).... But, these are all skills that can be worked on... (at least I hope so... ) All of your comments on your writing process were interesting, toramenor, but I thought I'd just highlight the last para for now because what you're describing is a typical Perceiving or P personality type according to the Jungian personality type indicator developed by Myers-Briggs. P's love potential, new ideas and new projects and they hate closure because it shuts the door to more cool new stuff coming in. The complementary type is Judging, J, and J's are great at closure, making decisions, finishing projects and moving on, meeting deadlines, that sort of thing. Of the four sets of complementary "types", P's and J's come into conflict most often, but once they can identify the unique gift and usefulness of the other way of doing things, the can work well together in teams -- or a single individual can do what you've done above with another typing system and say, "Hey, I see I'm strong here, but probably need to develop that other set of skills in order to round out my personality/tool kit/whatever." That's the only really good thing about typing systems, I think -- not to create a box for people to live in or a category to affiliate with and fight for as superior to others -- it always amuses me how quickly we humans *will* try to go there, though. One office I worked in did a typing test that similar to the one you describe, and I thought the neat thing about it was that people who may have been in non-creative jobs could be identified as potential generators and new ideas and initiatives ... our director put together a team of these folks to develop new directions. Unfortunately in that particular case they didn't actually generate much, but I thought it had potential to break people out of silos. (In that case, it just created new silos!). Myself, I swing both ways on the P/J scale and it's context-dependant: I've taken the indicator at home and at home, and tend to come out slightly J at work (deadlines, deadlines!) and a little mroe P in my personal life. More of a continuum, as with most things. |
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Post by mirages on Jun 16, 2015 14:19:56 GMT -5
I finally watched the interview, thanks for bringing it over - utterly fascinating.... her explanation of how we have lots of men and women inside us - how we can be more than we think, is just so simple and I so identify... and I loved how she talked about the characters finding her, and how her process starts - from words, or a character's voice - the characters tell her their stories and she just waits for them to come to her, in a way... like I said, completely fascinating... My writing process usually starts with a single scene - which can be at the beginning, or in the middle, or near the end of the story, but the main character is in that scene, so it's an important scene, obviously. I don't necessarily know who the main character is yet, what they look like, or what their story is, but they do something or say something that I find irresistible and that draws me in. It's like, I need to find out more about this, I need to explore what's going on here. It's almost like watching a trailer for a movie, and thinking: I need to see this movie, I need to find out what happens in this story, I need to watch these characters and I find out more about them. So, the writing process can turn into a discovery, as if the story and the characters do already exist somewhere out there and I just need to discover them. Sometimes, however, the process begins completely differently, almost as an exercise in thought: what if the world were like this?.... and I start jotting down notes about this imaginary world: what races inhabit it, is there magic, what are the main societies, what is the political landscape, are there any religions? etc. I basically start from the big picture, from the global, and then gradually zoom in on some characters who find themselves living in these conditions I've set out for them, in the world I've created for them. And they are necessarily affected by this world--in other words, they would have been completely different (perhaps had different personalities, different motivations, different lives to live) if I had imagined them first and then created the world around them.... But because the world was created first - in a way, the characters appear as people who I need, almost as if choosing actors to play certain roles. So - the story comes before the characters, almost.... But, that is just an outline, because as soon as the characters are formed, the story may become flexible - the characters are now changing the story because I allow them to lead me, and not the other way around. The actors which I have chosen to play these parts that I needed filled are now improvising according to their own individual personalities and that changes the rules for me, because, now, even if I know where the story is headed, I may not know how the characters will end up there. So, again, it seems, I am discovering the story through the process of writing it.... I was fascinated by her description of characters coming to her, too. I can't say I've ever experienced that, but I have experienced what you describe as the story moving on seemingly of its own and surprising you. However, I think several decades of writing professionally with a particular audience and objective in mind for what I write has made me way to controlling and goal-oriented about my writing process. I like a lot of the ideas above as places to start loosening up and allowing the story to form itself. |
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Post by freakydeaky on Jun 24, 2015 6:10:39 GMT -5
I love Virginia Woolf! Ok I am away in the UK from tomorrow for a week, so will have to look over some older posts when I get back, but sounds interesting..And you can philosophize away to your heart's content, my interest has been piqued.. take your time, those posts aren't going anywhere, I hope (and if you like, you should start from the beginning, there are some great posts by other people - pieces of poetry and thought that are worth checking out) - but in the meantime, I found the post about Woolf, so I'm bringing it here: Nice article about gender identity.
Virginia Woolf on Why the Best Mind Is AndrogynousVirginia Woolf: Of course, Woolf uses the binary male/female, where I would perhaps put in a spectrum, but she makes great points and her insights are truly ahead of her time. I've always thought of her that she saw the world as it was and as it should have been, and that she felt the tragedy when the two did not coincide. I was just thinking as I was reading her quote that maybe we are limiting ourselves by using or still believing in the polarity of male/female. I would see it as a spectrum. But she certainly had a more expansive view of the world, which very often can cause us a lot of pain. I managed to read the first few pages of the thread. I'm such an arty fart, I love poetry and prose, great to have a space where people can creatively express themselves..I hope that means people will be more open minded, as I'm bound to say something that'll rub someone up the wrong way..not my intention, but always seems to happen. Maybe I project not being understood, and the Universe just confirms that for me. |
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Post by toramenor on Jun 26, 2015 10:09:41 GMT -5
Considering tomorrow is Pride Day, I thought it might be appropriate to post some of my favourite thoughts on bravery. - The bravest people face their pain and turn it into joy.
- Be brave when people malign you. Look them in the eyes like an eagle, but do not malign them. Don't allow yourself to be on the same level as people with evil thoughts.
- Children, adults, the old people, all ask me: what is bravery? I tell everyone: bravery is staying true to yourself despite all adversities and trials.
- Wisdom without bravery doesn't mean anything, because bravery gives wise people the strength to speak their minds in spite of all threats and impossibilities.
(Gautama Siddhartha) As a human rights activist, I think I try to be brave for the sake of building a better society and a better future. In my personal life, however, there are areas where I feel like I have been brave enough, but then there are areas of my life where I feel like I should be braver, do more or do something other than what I am doing.... I think bravery is, again, like wisdom, something we can't really measure or quantify. There should be no comparisons between people: "oh, this person is braver than that person because...." whatever the reason... No. Ultimately, today, just try to be braver than you were yesterday. You must answer to your Self first and foremost. As Rabindranath Tagore wrote: "I can only wipe my own tears and change the melody of my own song. Because time is short." Yes - we tell ourselves that we are being brave for others, but we must first be brave for our own sake. It all starts from within. It cannot come from the outside. No one can give you bravery; you must seek it within yourself. And I believe it is there in all of us; we just sometimes forget how to find it. It stays just out of reach, because we neglect to practice searching our minds and hearts. But bravery is still there, perhaps lying dormant, forgotten. The important thing is to stay awake. Happy Pride Day! |
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I tend to do that sometimes, there are other posts in this thread where I've mentioned or explored similar themes. There's one about Virginia Woolf and her idea of the "androgynous mind"... I can't find it right now, but it's here somewhere...
