Category: systems

toxic masculinity

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There’s nothing wrong with strength, but posturing is never truly the mark of a strong man.

Indeed, kindness, compassion, sober second thought – the ability to see perspective and to act on a combination of conviction and data (never blinding oneself to what is for the sake of dogmatic ideals) – these are the hallmarks of a strong person.

Those who would sublimate themselves in order to help someone in need.

Those who show kindness to anyone who needs it.

Those who would stand up for those that need their help, regardless of the consequences to oneself, in the face of the laughing masses.

That’s fucking strength. That’s “masculine” (and really – it’s everyone. Nothing in this precludes anyone of any gender to be any of this – good and bad).

Anyway, that’s my point.

It takes more courage and strength to be soft and kind than it does to put up walls and pretend to be hard (and if you’re truly hard, well, then, why would we venerate you? As the Tao puts it – the hard and stiff are disciples of death; the supple and flexible are those of life.)

(Paraphrased, obviously.)

Corpses are rigid, and only move at the whim of others as they decay.

Life moves in an intricate dance, wills and choice mingling, and isn’t it better to dance well with your partners, than do the meathead thing and forget that a mosh pit isn’t sanctioned bullying; it’s energetic celebration.

Kindness isn’t toxic; neither is it feminine.

It’s human, and a fully obtainable ideal.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1130 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Night Shift, Stephen King
Comics: Voodoo v2 10-11, Grifter v3 11-12
Music: From A Basement On A Hill, Elliott Smith

leave ’em lying

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The rule down south now. Hell, anywhere right wing leaders are – they lie, lie and lie some more, and someday, someone’s going to leave them lying.

It’s what happens to all fascists in the end.

Chickens come home to roost. Houses made of cards collapse, and pretending to be humble, aw shucks or bombastic “the big lie is the best lie” won’t mean a goddamn thing.

They’re doing it to themselves. They could stop their downfall, but they don’t want to – this is a death cult, squeezing every last bit of misery they can, for the personal profit of their own power and their own pockets.

I preach kindness and pacifism; I preach fortitude and no compromise with bigots and authoritarians.

There is no grey area in dictatorships.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1446 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Well Of Shiuan, C.J. Cherryh
Comics: Voodoo v2 4-5, Grifter v3 5-6
Music: Friends, The Beach Boys (not today)

linguistics world/view

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I was watching a webcast on the preservation of indigenous languages (as I am wont to do) and a very intelligent federal employee by the name of Mandy sent my mind spinning in a manner few have lately.

It was her assertion that language and culture often have a symbiotic (my words, not hers) relationship, that language forms culture and culture language, that got me thinking, but another participant’s story about how frustrated she’d gotten with her grandfather in trying to translate some from his language to English (I’m sorry, I don’t remember the language now), and how he’d responded.

She wanted a word for resilient, a straight, word-for-word translation and he wouldn’t give it to her, because it doesn’t exist; in his language and culture, resilience wasn’t just a label, an assigned word; like many other things, it required description to truly carry the essence of resilience. A tent that stands up to Arctic winds without tearing. A man with the strength to travel weeks on end to his deer meat caches in order to feed his family in the winter.

That’s resilience. And it struck me that describing things that way resonates the actual meaning so much more clearly than a simple word can. It isn’t literal, as her grandfather told her; it’s felt sense.

Mandy’s assertion from the shores of Great Bear Lake were that in her culture, language comes from a different place, a different method of thought. Because in her culture, when one speaks and acts, when one considers their lives, it’s never, as it so often is in Western culture, and white North American culture (American culture), about solely you. Every thought, every communication, every action; it’s all in context, with the understanding that we are not separate from the world; we do not live in void. Our actions, our words, our thoughts – they happen as part of the larger universe, of the larger world, the larger community.

The larger family, even.

So, when we speak and when we act, we act and speak with all that in mind. And their language reflected that; the concepts, the methods of speaking, were reflected in the words and style. Her assertion was that these concepts, this language, needed to be taught, so that the culture of understanding where we exist in the world, that we are a part of it, and not separate from it, would not be lost in this me-me-me society we find ourselves in.

It was a wonderful truth, and I agree – the more we think in terms of ourselves as part of the greater picture, and not as the whole world, the better off this world would be.

(And yes, I recognize the irony/hypocrisy of not knowing what the languages were; I could find them again, but after three days of trying to get to this, I’m squeezing it in where I can, and I’m not in a position to research it just this second – it came from a work site, and I’m not able to log in – I’ll post it later when I have the chance to find it, in addition to any resources I can find that might help keep these languages alive).

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1279 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Castle Of Wizardry, David Eddings
Comics: WildCats 3.0 24, Warblade: Razor's Edge 1-3
Music: The Four Lads Greatest Hits, The Four Lads (I think there's five of them)

it’s been a day of revelation

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Apparently, cutting grass and listening to post-Hoon Blind Melon will do that to someone, in that now, this far in, we see the shape of our lives as carved by our worst enemies.

In my case, crippling depression that I’ve mostly learned to live with, though it’s stolen so goddamn much from me.

So goddamn much.

I want to talk about language and culture and modes of thought, but this damn depression, and this damned lack of time.

So goddamn much.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1785 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Castle Of Wizardry, David Eddings
Comics: WildCats 20-23
Music: Fossil Fuels: The XTC Singles Collection 1977-1992, Discs 1-2, XTC

new ways of thinking

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Or old, technically. I have a whole thing to think about involving the nature of language and culture and ways of thinking, and…

Nope.

Someone’s here to pick up my brother’s dog.

Thoughts are for tomorrow, I guess.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 998 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Castle Of Wizardry, David Eddings
Comics: WildCats 3.0 16-19
Music: Forty Licks, The Rolling Stones

kindness, in mini

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Let’s start small. Yesterday, I had difficulty reconciling the lifestyle of kindness and compassion with the need to punch a Nazi in the nose (because that may be the kindest thing you can do for the world, and perhaps for them).

Today, I’m just thinking about little things, and mostly, it comes down to paying attention. Instead of living in our own heads, we focus outward and really pay attention to the people around us, the people with whom we interact. How are they responding to what’s happening around them?

Do they need help? A good chuckle? A hug? A pat on the back? Some uplifting words?

Or maybe they just need someone to sit with them and be there for them.

I’m naturally drawn to the underdog, the person everyone’s ignoring in place of the most obvious victim or the cause du jour. Caregiver burnout is a real thing, and I think it behooves us to show some grace to those who do the work.

It’s very easy to feel empathy for an aging mother whose mind is wavering, or someone in a wheelchair, and very easy to criticize those who are most responsible for their welfare, who have set aside their own wants and needs in order to take care of someone else.

And it’s easy to sympathize with those who are caregivers, except when they get frustrated or dare to take a little something for themselves. Then, it’s easy to criticize; they’re bad people for getting angry at their charge, for taking a few moments to collect themselves while a child or parent is screaming; the accused, seeing the press whirl up against them without any regard for fact or nuance.

It’s easy to judge, to write off, to label as mean, as a bitch, an asshole, an abuser.

It’s much more difficult to try and understand, and in that, there is kindness.

I guess this wasn’t really mini at all.

More on that another time.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2094 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 38-39, Grifter v2 11, WildC.A.T.S./X-Men 2
Music: Fly On The Wall, AC/DC

kindness in the face of insanity

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I’ll admit, this is the part of kindness where I struggle. I know, in Buddhist though, Taoist thought, compassion is for everyone, no matter who they are or what they represent.

And I understand that. But I see kindness as having little effect on the authoritarians of the world, or on those who absolutely refuse to help themselves. In many cases, kindness is an enabling factor, not a mitigating one.

Kindness needs to be tempered with a resolve that doesn’t allow for bad behaviour to continue. Tough love, I believe it’s called, but I hate the concept itself – it’s so ripe for exploitation and coercion. Like so many great concepts “in theory”, there are always those who would twist the sentiment to their own end.

Tough love as the excuse for an abusive parent. Kindness as a shield for an exploitive guru. Compassion as way to enable another’s bad behaviour and thereby, avoid conflict.

It is not kindness to let people continue to behave poorly in their lives. Sometimes, the greatest kindness is letting go of that person, or devising a means by which their harm can be minimized (or eliminated altogether – and since I preach non-violence as much as possible, I prefer minimization – not ignorance, awareness without engagement).

Sometimes, the most kind thing is to recognize that the person you need to be kind to is yourself, and that the person who you believed deserved your kindness is not of more consequence than that. If compassion for another is killing you, it flies in the face of compassion. Compassion does not equal martyr.

Then again, maybe I just don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. Perhaps I’m only saying this because I feel on the verge of breaking, and am putting up walls to allow myself time to rebuild, refocus and rest.

Thus, it’s back to the Buddhist texts and a continued re-reading of Tao Te Ching. Kindness, empathy, compassion – the structure is in there somewhere.

And I’ll get it eventually.

I hope.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1369 words, novel: Father Lightning (and the tradition of missing my updated target on the first day continues)

Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton (wait, is this a rewrite?  Ugh.)
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 37-38, Grifter 9-10
Music: Flowers, The Rolling Stones

one off notes

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Sometimes, I look back on my notes and can’t help but either shake my head or laugh.

Occasionally, in the middle of snippets about sentence structure or opining over character motivation, there will be an unexpected political rant or description of a whole other scenario for a character that would never fit into the book.

Entire lives and tragedies will have been lived out within the random scraps of my writings, entire storylines, whole new books carried out over a half a page. Tortures, ecstasies, vindications, justifications, explanation, exhortations and belittling of the idiot writing it all down.

It’s actually pretty common for me to make a note of how much I suck in the middle of editing notes.

For the record, I’m probably not as bad as all that, but since nothing’s really been published yet, I might be.

Of course, I’m living for the kindness now, and that does reflect on the self.

Be nicer to yourself, Empty. There’s no getting away from you, after all.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 2050 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice
Comics: Grifter 10, Grifter/Shi 1, Spawn/WildC.A.T.S. 3, WildC.A.T.S. 28
Music: Flick Of The Switch, AC/DC

process vs 4.0s

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I was thinking about Tom Sterner’s note of the conundrum of actual learning versus the grades-based culture of modern education. How if a 2.0 and a 4.0 GPA go up against each other for the same job, the job will go to the 4.0 every time because the 4.0 represents to our product-based society the most potential.

On the other hand, if the 2.0 had focused on learning what they needed to learn, learning to live in the process, but not scoring well, they’d have nothing to show for the fact that they knew more and were better long term learners than the 4.0.

It’s presented as a paradox, but the more I think about it, it doesn’t matter. Maybe it matters to the hiring party, but functionally, having learned to live in the process, the 2.0 is better off in a thousand different ways, including self-sufficiency and quality of life and presence.

Are they really disadvantaged? They actually know how to do things. They know stuff. They are enjoying the process, and that always attracts attention.

I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s all that dire. That’s all I’m saying. Would that we could do away with the grade system in favour of, you know, actual learning, and I think we’d all be better off.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 1287 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Against The Fall Of Night, Arthur C. Clarke
Comics: Spartan: Warrior Spirit 2-3, Grifter 4-5
Music: Fixed, Nine Inch Nails

kindness starts at home?

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I mean, is it possible that the first step in kindness is not just being nice to the people who are close to you, but maybe, showing yourself the kind of kindness you’d like to impart onto others?

Forgiveness for past transgressions. Forgiveness for failures, for inaction, for embarrassing blunders.

Forgiveness for little things.

Big things.

Bad behaviour.

Forgiveness for being a dumbass.

Because there’s always that. In the grand scheme of things, we are all morons.

So, forgive yourself for that. We’re all the same in that regard.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 800 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Pebble In The Sky, Isaac Asimov
Comics: WildCats Adventures 7, WildC.A.T.S. Special 1, Warblade: Endangered Species 4, WildC.A.T.S. 20
Music: First Impressions Of Earth, The Strokes