Thanksgiving 2018: Gratitude for Pain

The holiday season is in full swing in America. Christmas items have been in stores since before Halloween, but I haven’t seen much of them because I haven’t done much shopping. In fact, I don’t know what kind of money I may or may not have for Christmas. I might not have anything at all to spend.

            We’re fast approaching Thanksgiving, an extremely American holiday dedicated to feasting, or, as it’s rather commonly imagined, absolutely stuffing your face until your stomach screams in protest and you pass out in a food coma. Naturally, this is followed by Black Friday, which has essentially become a holiday all its own, arguably more American than Thanksgiving itself. Black Friday is a true ode to consumerism, and ever so American as people literally assault one another just to spend less money for products they don’t really need, than they would have spent otherwise.

            At this time of year, the paradox is this: We give thanks for what we have, only to wake up the very next morning and buy more things. It seems quite contradictory to me, and that’s why I don’t participate in Black Friday. I don’t participate in Cyber Monday, either, although the idea is rather brilliant for targeting people like me who would rather die of suffocation or drowning than ever be caught in a Black Friday crowd at an outlet store.

I’d like to dedicate this entry to gratitude.

            Often, people who have been through trauma as I have find that this is an exceptionally difficult holiday. Family dysfunction throughout our lives throws a cog in the gears of attempted joy on a day dedicated to, well, food. That’s why I think it’s important that I talk about my past as I say what I’m grateful for.

My father has never hosted an event for Thanksgiving.

            He’s seldom had his own residence, but more than that, I have no memory in my life of my father hosting Thanksgiving, with or without roommates. He always sees his mother, my grandmother, for the holidays. This isn’t a bad thing until one realizes he wasn’t there for a lot of Thanksgivings. He broke a lot of promises and made me feel very small when he would see me. He’s been one of the most dismissive people in my life of my dreams, my desires, my goals, and my personality—my own essence of being.

I’m thankful for my dad.

            The abuse and neglect have taught me a lot about forgiveness and human nature. No, it’s not human nature to be the way he was, but given his own background, the explanations exist. The reasons are there, and they have nothing to do with me. I’m not convinced my dad loves me the way a father’s supposed to love his daughter, and there’s no way to go back in time to give him another chance to be my dad. But he’s doing better with his new kid than he did with me, and even if he doesn’t contact me very often, it seems he’d like to have a relationship with me. Maybe it’s guilt. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

            He’s my father. I respect him for his experiences and wisdom, for what they’re worth.

Thanksgiving with my mother is never a great time.

            I’m sure she’s hosted Thanksgiving in my lifetime. I’m almost sure I have refused to attend them if she’s hosted. More often, she would take us to her uncle Ken’s house, with her mother. These days, Uncle Ken doesn’t seem like much of an option. He seems to be losing his marbles much the way his late mother did (dementia is a beast), so my mother told me the celebration this year would be like last year: hosted at her mother’s house.

            The problem is, it’s always awkward. The good news is, it’s only awkward, now. The reasons for the awkwardness aren’t great, though, as my mother was a terrible parent. I can’t speak for how she parents now, but I have a hunch it’s only marginally better. She makes a lot of poor choices, and has for most if not all of her life. She’s certainly made poor choices and poor judgment for the entirety of my life.

I’m thankful for my mom.

            Let’s be real. No matter how much of a fuck-up my mother may be, she still gave me this life. With the trials, tribulations, and exposure to opposing and coexistent worlds, I wouldn’t be here without her. It’s a hell of a trip, living life. It’s not easy, nobody gives you any shortcuts or manuals, and anyone who gets those things is only lucky to those who do not know better. The truth is, even the silver spoons and life manuals only do so much, and nothing beats the hard, hands-on experience that comes from bumbling through life without instructions.

            My mom’s been through trauma at least as much as I have, if not more. She didn’t have the best mother in the world, either, and she didn’t have the best father. I would never speak ill of the dead, much less the grandfather I never knew. I met some of his family and they never spoke badly about him, but I know what my mother and uncle have told me. While I’m thankful for my mother giving birth to me, I’m more thankful to her for letting me go when she did. I’ve often wished I could go back in time and take away the two years I spent with her. I’ve thought, I wouldn’t have developed such anxiety, or I wouldn’t have developed an adjustment disorder, if only she’d never had custody of me.

            Even so, if I hadn’t lived with her, I wouldn’t know what it’s like to live in poverty. I wouldn’t know what it’s like to have an abusive, dysfunctional household. I wouldn’t know what it’s like to be yelled and screamed at instead of spoken to, or what it’s like to beaten with a wooden spoon. I wouldn’t know what it’s like to have lice, to be outcast and treated like shit for things you have no control over.

Thanksgiving with my grandparents is a wholesome family experience.

            Throughout everything, I remain most thankful to my grandparents. They took me in, gave me shelter, provided me with everything I needed: food, drink, education, clothing, healthcare, and even vacations. Thanksgivings and Christmases with my grandparents is almost always a great time. Still, it’s occasionally been something like your typical American family Thanksgiving: awkwardness and some fighting.

            Year before last, when I was married, I didn’t enjoy Thanksgiving with my grandparents. Part of it was that my ex-husband had ruined my daughter’s and his own appetite before we arrived.

I’m thankful for my grandparents.

            They’ve always had my back. They’ve helped me more than anyone else in my life. There’s no way I’ll ever be able to repay them, and that’s okay, because I’ve learned throughout my life thus far that it’s more important to pay it forward than to pay it back. I didn’t learn that from my grandparents, or my mother or father. I learned that through the myriad of experiences I’ve had, and it’s something that’s confirmed every now and then as I continue living.

            If it weren’t for the time I had with my grandparents, I wouldn’t know that it’s possible to improve my station in life. I wouldn’t know anything about the possibility of a person to overcome their past, their heritage, their own culture. If it weren’t for my grandparents, I’d never have joined the military, and if it weren’t for the military, I wouldn’t have as open a mind as I do.

            A lot of fear remains. I’m not married anymore, and I’m grateful to no longer be in an unhealthy and toxic relationship. I’m grateful for my daughter, who wouldn’t be here if not for my ex-husband. I’m grateful for the lessons I gleaned from my relationship with him, the character wisdom I gained.

Life is a journey whose end you can’t see, and whose beginning varies in meaning and importance.

            I’m in a better place than my parents have done. I’m relatively stable, with every opportunity to keep what I have and continue to improve. It’s overwhelming, and difficult. I can’t survive on a single income, unless I manage to increase my VA disability to 100%. I believe I qualify for such a rating, but it’s not something that’s been high on my list of priorities because I’d rather push myself to do better. I don’t want to lie around doing nothing, collecting a check just for having a pulse.

            Life is about the struggle. It’s about the journey, the ups and the downs. It may be true that we don’t have a choice to have it any other way, and showing gratitude is a great way to cope.

A Deadly Mistake

The worst mistake man ever made was to speed everything up. As the old man in The Shawshank Redemption said before hanging himself: “The world went and got itself into a big damn hurry.” While at that time he referred to the abundance of automobiles and the sudden speed with which business was being done, today that speed has accelerated even more.

            Today, we live in what appears to be an instant world. Instant food, instant communication; the only thing that’s not instant is our transportation, and even then we’ve managed to speed it up in many ways and for many purposes, though our freeways remain jam-packed at rush hour and stand completely still any time a collision occurs. The Internet, it has been argued, has had many benefits, but perhaps if we step back and examine the evidence to these “benefits,” we will find that they are only beneficial in the context of a fast, instant world wherein any task can be done instantaneously as long as it can be done digitally. In fact, I would argue the Internet has done more harm than good, for despite the speed with which processes can be completed, people feel more like they have no time to do things—to create a coherent thought, to research a point as completely as it can be researched—even to relax and take a break from all the pressures that have resulted from the breakneck speed to which we have developed. The more we connect in the virtual world, the more we demand immediate results, the less we connect in real life and the more alienated we feel from our peers.

            Relationships build over time. They are a natural process like the rest of life. The Internet, in many ways, is destroying the very foundation of a relationship. No longer do people take time to get to know one another. They group together online and share things, but often times when someone shows a point of view that disagrees with the group, the person holding the opposing position is ousted from the group itself. The more connected we feel in the virtual, instant world, the less connected we feel to and within real life. People don’t touch each other as much anymore; their fingers are too busy swiping and tapping screens, pressing keys, clicking mice; their eyes are too occupied by a screen; their ears are so preoccupied with electronics that they fail to pick up sound waves that emanate next to them from partners, family members, friends, colleagues, etc.

            Naturally, one might ask me, “If that’s your argument, why do you use the Internet?” The answer is simple: I grew up with its development. I began using computers in 2001, at the age of 9. I played the hell out of The Sims and I spent more time online than I did talking to my family, every chance I got. Suddenly, the world seems so much bigger for the addition of the World Wide Web, and so much smaller when we remain rooted in reality. My experience in the military expanded the world greatly for me, and also showed me that as big as it gets, it is only so big. The thing is, I think that’s okay.

            Our population on this planet is such that there is no way any one person can meet every single other person on the planet. Still, I think that our goal in life should be to make connections, to communicate, to learn and grow from one another. Our purpose should not be to drive a sales bargain, to find the bottom line of a deal, to cheat and swindle our way to the top of an imaginary ladder or the front of an imaginary race. The Internet has done me much good in my life, it is true, but to connect this to what I said before, I would wager that the benefits I have experienced have been a direct result of the desire in our society for immediate results. Research papers are due in just enough time to find as many sources as possible, and most of those sources today come from the Internet rather than a library. Printed books are going out of style in favour of digital copies that can instantly be downloaded, eliminating the need for people to get out in public and interact with other bookworms in shops, or shopkeepers themselves.

            Pokémon GO was the best technological advancement in gaming since Ingress. It got more people outside than did Ingress, and even now, as it continues to update, people can come together within the game, make friends, and trade Pokémon. These are new developments and while I can talk all day long against technology, I can also talk all day long in support of it, because this kind of development is just what we need to get people outside and interacting with one another in real life again. Further advancements must be made, however. We cannot allow ourselves to be limited to these games to explore the outside world and meet people face-to-face. The problem still exists that everything in this world today is moving too fast.

            People today are literally working themselves to death. This phenomenon has been reported by Forbes in this article, and Time covered it in their own article. It seems that overwork is most common in Japan, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the cardiology-related deaths in America are caused by the stresses of overworking.

            It’s time to slow down. The Internet may have many uses, but it’s so large it’s literally uncontrollable. There are proxies and workarounds for the most censored nations. Truly, unless a person lacks a connection, the Internet is nigh unavoidable in today’s age. Still, I think its development was in many ways a mistake and I wonder how we might be able to change it so that it could be used more primarily for research purposes, or more accurately, how we might slow down the frantic rat race of our society while maintaining the use of the Internet for all the good it does us.

Beginning to Untangle Gender Identity and the Law

            America is riddled with fear. We see it every day: Violence, apathy, confusion, and fear. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or who you are; in America, you’re afraid of something. There are intelligent people on both sides of every argument about policy. Whether you consider yourself liberal or conservative or somewhere in between, there’s something you’re afraid of. Some people would use this to your advantage. Others would use it to limit your freedoms and imprison you, whether in a facility or within yourself.

            We begin to untangle these issues by talking about both sides. Communication is a two-way street and I have witnessed first-hand, second-hand and third-hand how poor communication can ruin a perfectly good friendship. People can be friends no matter what side of the fence they are on, as long as they are willing to listen to each other’s points of view.  

            The gender identity debate seems to be strong, these days. The thing is, it’s not a very important argument. It doesn’t really matter what someone calls you as long as they treat you with dignity and respect—as you deserve based on your behaviour. It doesn’t matter what or who you say you are, or what or who you actually are. What matters is what you do with what you have. Are you making things around you better, or worse?

            When it comes to the gender identity debate, this question comes into play frequently. On the Left, the idea seems to be along these lines: “Anyone who doesn’t recognize my self-identity is making my life worse by disrespecting me.” On the right, the idea seems to be something along the lines of: “People who claim to be something they’re not are making my life worse by taking my attention away from things that matter.” Both of these ideas are expanded upon in many ways all over social media and society.

            Let’s start with the idea outlined above for the Left: “Anyone who doesn’t recognize my self-identity is making my life worse by disrespecting me.” It has been seen in some universities that there are people who believe this idea means that a person who uses the wrong pronoun when talking to another person is committing assault or harassment against the other person. This has legal implications and, if implicated, would have real ramifications in the legal world. People could be arrested for harassment or assault just for calling a transgender woman “he,” even if it was an accident. It implies that a transgender person would charge someone with such a crime just for using the wrong pronoun.

            To another degree, less extreme, the idea above simply means that everyone should make an active effort to use “proper pronouns” when addressing other people. The people who think this way and can articulate a reasonable argument tend to phrase their opinions in a way similar to: “Once you know someone’s preferred identity and pronouns, you need to use them when you’re talking to them. It’s disrespectful not to because you’re refusing to accept who they are. Centrists can also think of things this way.

            The Right tends to see things a little differently. “People who claim to be something they’re not are making my life worse by taking my attention away from things that matter.” Many intelligent people who think this way believe that gender identity isn’t even slightly important. They may believe there are only two sexes and only two genders; they may believe that sex and gender are the same thing, and they may even believe other things that have nothing to do with gender identity but are often seen by the Left as bigoted, prejudicial, and inaccurate. The point here is that with this argument, gender identity shouldn’t be a priority. It shouldn’t matter what someone calls you or what you think you are, and people on the Right tend to see those who prioritize pronouns and “special” identities as just wanting to be “special” and get special attention.

            Many reasonable people, Centrists and those on the Right, see bigger issues as more important. By “bigger issue,” I mean an issue that affects everyone, regardless of what, where, or who they are. These issues include climate change, corrupt government, capitalism, big banks, voter fraud, and pollution. Many people do not want to spend their time figuring out that their friend Jon wants to be called Catie now and doesn’t want to be referred to as “he” or “him,” anymore. They’d rather hang out with Jon, be free to make the mistake of using Catie’s old name and pronouns, and still have fun or get work done together.

            The universities are a place for concern for people who do not prioritize gender identity as a problem that needs to be fixed. I know many people who are more than happy to use Catie’s new name and stop calling her Jon. They might make a mistake sometimes, because Catie still looks like Jon and is pretty hairy and bulky, but these are genuine people who do what they can to be sure their friends are comfortable.

            It is a fact that gender and sex are not the same thing, even in science. This does not mean that gender and sex are completely separate, however. On Tumblr, there can be found more “genders” than an ordinary or reasonable person would want to count in a day. Many of them do not make sense and may include alien or animal qualities, or both. Tumblr is an insane spot of the Internet and the gender identity debate runs as deep as it gets unreasonable. Just because a person with a male body can have the mind and spirit of a girl, and a person with a male body can have the mind and spirit of a boy, does not mean they are not human, and “animalkin” genders and genders that “change” regularly are not acceptable in the world of law.

            So, we transition into our talk about legal consequences of ideas presented within the gender identity argument. This also brings hate speech into the discussion here, where we detangle the mess that is this whole debate when it comes to law.

            In many places, including universities, there’s an idea that “hate speech” should be considered a crime. There is some debate and discussion over whether to classify “hate speech” as harassment or assault, but make no mistake: harassment and assault are crimes. They are also torts (civil wrongs), which naturally have lighter implications of law, but when these discussions are being had at these high levels, they’re talking about crimes.

            First, a person must define “hate speech.” In this case, we’re talking about gender identity. In this case, the Left might say “hate speech” is when a person doesn’t use the “proper pronoun” while talking to another person. Therefore, by calling Catie by Jon and addressing her as “he” or “him,” Catie could theoretically charge the person with harassment or assault for “hate speech,” by not using Catie’s preferred pronouns.

            In the legal world, the ramifications of this limit free speech. It’s reasonable for a Centrist or someone on the right to worry about freedom of speech from government prosecution when people talk about enacting laws that would classify “hate speech” in such a way.

            An argument from the Left concerning free speech in terms of hate speech and gender identity is as follows: “Free speech can and should be limited.” They’re absolutely correct to say this, but that doesn’t mean it should be limited to the point of infringing on liberty—another Constitutional right wherein the interpretation is often debated.

            Law can be debated. Liberty can be debated. The definition of “hate speech” can be debated, and it can even be debated whether or not a person can be transgender. What is fact, however, is that gender identity is not something that should shape our laws. The Left is right to fear the slippery slope of infringements of rights that could easily come after a piece of legislation passes to condemn “hate speech” in an extreme way.

            This fear can be seen with the Canadian bill C-16. This bill is sometimes cited in debates about “hate speech” and “free speech.” Those who may not understand it very well think that this law, in Canada, allows a person to charge another with the crime of harassment or assault because that person uses the “wrong pronoun” when talking to them. This is false.

            First, you can read the bill C-16 at https://openparliament.ca/bills/42-1/C-16/. Here, it is described as an act that amends a previous statute and applies to propaganda. A reasonable person might then look up the word “propaganda.” Here is where even a reasonable person may be confused. If they go to Google first, the definition that comes up is as follows:

prop·a·gan·da

ˌpräpəˈɡandə/Submit

noun

1. derogatory

information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.

"he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda"

synonyms:       information, promotion, advertising, publicity, spin; More

2. a committee of cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church responsible for foreign missions, founded in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV.

            A legal definition for propaganda can be found at https://thelawdictionary.org/propaganda/. Someone who reads Google’s definition might think that it can apply to anything. This is especially true if someone doesn’t understand that propaganda must be published, or if they do not understand what a publication is. Essentially, a publication is anything put into written form, with or without pictures (but typically with pictures), and distributed to other people, or third parties. The legal definition at the link above explains that propaganda is a persuasive publication with a targeted message. I have used propaganda throughout this blog entry to influence how you take the information I present.

            Ultimately, I think gender identity has no real place in the law except for anti-discrimination laws. Beyond that, the idea that a person who calls a person by the “wrong pronoun” should be charged with assault or harassment seems like an extreme response to a social situation that could be handled with more effective communication. I think that we have bigger fish to fry. My goal here was simply to give some information that might help people understand that Canada is not, in fact, arresting people for using the wrong words.