Gender Dysphoria

Some people are born physically and genetically male and female.   It may come as a shock to some people to learn that not everyone is born genetically and physically either male or female.   People are sometimes born a combination of these two sexes.   Sometimes, at birth the doctors will try to correct the situation and perform surgery and provide medications to enhance a person's gender identification. But the fact remains, that is not the way they were born.  

 Life can be extremely difficult for these people, as others may notice they do not look typically male or female. They may have difficulty blending in with society and suffer from negative peer pressure.  They need our compassion as they try to lead their lives in our critical world.  

The world health organization (WHO) currently views people who are physically male or female, but who are gender dysphoric as having a mental illness.   However the WHO is reviewing that position and may eventually come to recognize gender dysphoria as something other.  

 I don't need to wait for the WHO to tell me how to feel about this. If I cannot judge physically and genetically intersex people, because that would be insensitive and unfair, then I'm going to hold back on judging others who are gender dysphoric.  

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

Human judgment is often seriously flawed. We live in a relative world, and we cannot possibly understand every angle and everything going on around us. Recently as our society has become more and more intolerant, people within it have chafed at its confines.

It's very easy to say you're not like me, so I don't like you. But, let's stop doing that; let's all try to remember that God created all of us, and we are one world and one people.

A Wonderful Life for You

I don't read many novels. I was denied higher education by my mother because she thought I should get married and education would be wasted on me.

I read so much, books on physics, mathematics, history, aeronautics, psychology.  Always trying to make up for what I must have missed.

A favorite topic of mine is religion and spirituality.  I studied employee benefits and became an employee benefits manager.

Along the way, while I was helping myself fill a void, I found a way to serve others.

I remember a family who were kept apart for over a decade because of American immigration policy.  I wrote many letters for our employee attesting to his employment with us and that I knew him for many years.  This was not part of my job.  One day, at the company Christmas party, I was very surprised when a tiny woman came up to me with a hug.  'You're the woman who wrote all the letters!'  She pointed to her teenage children.  They were all in America, and they were beaming at me!

I read the book 'Tuesday's with Morrie.'  About a man with ALS, this is a true story about the wisdom of a dying man.  One thing I remember was Morrie asking how we have given back to our community, to our society.  I felt guilty, thinking I don't coach little league baseball like my husband.  I just go to work every day.  I spent 30 years taking trains for 2 or more hours a day to work in New York, handling a demanding Benefits Manager's position.  I had two pension plans, a 401k and group insurance to worry about.  There were thousands of people depending on these plans to take care of their medical, dental, life insurance, disability, retirement and savings needs.  The company depended on me to keep these plans in legal compliance and maintain their cost-efficiency.

I didn't see that I had found a profession that served people.  When they were sick, they came to me to help them.  When insurance matters got too complicated, they came to my desk or called and I would untangle the issues.  When they died, I would see to their survivors benefits for their families.  Buying a house, they would come to me to work out 401k loans or withdrawals.  I took care of  retirement, maternity disability, and helped when mental or substance abuse issues created a need for specific treatment or bridging of insurance coverage.  I served people all day long, using my intellect and know-how with compassion.  I didn't realize how many people I've reached, touched, helped.

Looking back, before I began that career, at age 20, I found myself alone and emotionally depleted from a failed marriage to an emotionally abusive man who was a hard drinker and unfaithful husband.  I had blocked out all the most emotionally stressful memories of two painful relationships.  I had nothing to live for and nothing to come home to.  My memories were gone and I was literally missing ... myself. I was a shell of my former personality.  I knew I had no one who needed me, and no reason to come home.

One day I saw a commercial about children who needed help in South America.  I watched the little children running through the fields.  They needed help, and I wanted to help.  I had just started a new job as a secretary in a personnel department in NY.  I didn't make much money, but for the first time in several years, I was financially stable.  I needed to be there for those kids.

It was then I became a member of Foster Parents Plan, and I knew there were people who needed me.  I had a reason to go on.  They assigned me to be the foster parent to a little girl in Indonesia.  Over the years I've helped raise several of these children, rescuing them from poverty and providing the basics of a clean home, healthy food, clothes and education.

I've been a member ever since, helping to feed, clothe, and educate children in foreign lands.  Today they are called Childreach or Plan International:

https://www.planusa.org/

Whenever I feel unfulfilled, I remember the movie It's a Wonderful Life, and I think back on the people who have different lives because I was put here on this earth.  My wonderful son, my friends, my spouse, people I've helped or trained.  I realize it's not about me.  It's for you.  We are here for each other.

We all know how to help one another.  When our families or extended families struggle, we do what we can, financially, emotionally or physically to help.  I do that too and I know you do.  We reach out and support local food banks and charities.  In America we have several safety nets to help struggling families and senior citizens.  When we work and pay taxes, we help support our fellow citizens and educate the next generation.  These are all good, worthy causes.  But we are also citizens of the world.  I'm grateful I've also had a chance to help children in Nicaragua and Indonesia and now as a contributor to the general fund, anywhere in the world where children are in need.

There is a saying Giving is Receiving. All you can take with you is the character you build.

The Shadow on Social Media

What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows...

Many people present their highest self ( as they perceive it ) to the outside world. They demonize their own shadow, not realizing that much of its anger is from being forced to live in the dark. The monsters you meet online get a chance to come out behind the veil of social media. It's part of the psychological evolution of the person.

I see people say things online that I actually know they would not say in person.  They are airing out their innermost darkest thoughts.  Over time, they will recognize the difference between a harsh reality and its unsophisticated expression.  

For example, I may have a negative reaction to something you said or did.  I won't express it.  I find it unacceptable to express doubt, insecurity, fear or negativity.  It doesn't go away, that feeling, it gets shoved into the shadows of my mind.

One day, I walk away from you, and you never saw it coming.  It would have been better if we talked about it. If I wait too long to let my Shadow out, it will be a much coarser, angry thought.  This is what happens and for better or worse, the opportunity to express negativity behind the veil of a "screen" provides a release valve for the Shadow.

The answer to this is to learn to face your own thoughts head on.  Why do I feel upset, angry, or fearful? If you said or did something that I don't like, or don't understand, and we talk about it, am I afraid of your answer?  If people don't explain their real concerns, without censorship, we cannot build trust and we cannot work toward solutions.

That does not mean name-calling or insults.  It means being brave enough to tell the truth.  Unfortunately, we only see this when there is so much frustration at our political correctness that it boils over into rudeness.

Meddlesome Priest [Warning Politics]

As he testified to why he took Trump's comments (re dropping the Michael Flynn investigation) seriously, I was quite surprised to hear James Comey reference an obscure segment of Medieval English history.  I absolutely loved the meddlesome priest comment.  Burst out laughing.  I watched in amazement as I realized his interrogator (Sen Angus King) completely understood the comment.  'Not everyone in American politics is ignorant like Trump' I frankly realized.  It was a comforting realization.

It shows Comey is well-read.  Furthermore, given his education and FBI background, he can play politics and the government like a fiddle.  Trump is well out of his depth.  Don't think anything Comey has done this far is anything but a meticulous calculation.  He pretends he was unsure about certain actions and defends his inscrutable and sometimes illogical decisions this way.

Don't get me wrong, I am seriously disgusted with Comey.  I believe he interfered with an American election because he didn't like either candidate.  However, his well-timed letter to Congress over a non-existent investigation knocked Hillary Clinton out of the race.  (Don't forget, we later learned that Comey knew the Clinton evidence had been planted; he then said he really wanted to keep up the facade of an investigation so the real targets would remain unaware he was onto them.  We're dealing with a cagey, manipulative person here.) Comey knew Hillary had been investigated for years and it yielded nothing.  That was the only way to get her, via rumor and innuendo at a time when it hurts most, right before the election.  It would be a lot easier to trap an open-mouthed braggart and blundering ass like Trump.  So Comey took aim and picked off Clinton.  At the same time, he plunged our nation into crisis.  We now have an inept and immoral government, one that stands in contempt of the majority of its own citizens.

We also now have a burgeoning replica of the Watergate crisis with James Comey meticulously laying the groundwork to close the trap in on Trump.  Along the way, he's started to implicate Pence.  This is James Comey's game to lose, a very dangerous high-stakes game.  I would guess Comey's next move is to lure Trump into a lie and then produce more evidence to expose the lie.  Unwittingly, Trump has already offered to testify under oath, because he thinks Comey already shot his load.  He really is a much easier target than Hillary Clinton.

Yes, we never saw it coming.  James Comey is the real dark horse in this race and it may be he who ultimately takes out Clinton, Trump and Pence.  What then?  How far ahead has Comey set his trap?

[In medieval England, King Henry II had a long-standing feud with the ArchBishop of Canterbury.  One day in exasperation the King ranted 'Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Priest!'  Within a month the ArchBishop was dead, murdered by several knights as he attended to his duties in the church.  The ArchBishop would later be venerated as a Saint.]

The charge

Ignorance reigns and its followers behave with carte blanche in imbecilic abandon now that their chief idiot blathers on night and day in witless derision of every noble ideal.

They never understood the world and this is their moment -their 15 minutes - the revenge of the shadow cult. They must speak for they must know the price of their own words.

This too is just a temporary dive as humanity recharges and will inevitably surge forth with brand new ideals and renewed vigor.  The shadow will ride along.

There will become a time when the luminaries of this world graduate to the next.  Without these times of uncertainty, the shadow cult will be utterly unprepared for that day.  The day would come for them to leaven humanity and they would have nothing but unspent darkness in their souls.

We will watch them thrash about for a while, but not for too long.