With deep sadness....

I write this post tonight.  I am so very tired of fear and the hatred that stems from it.  Why does this have to be?  We choose our life, our reality.  Why sink to the depths of the stench of fear.  I am feeling this sadness in an extreme way tonight.  I have a dear friend who is in a position I would never wish on anyone.  I know this person, my brother, better than I know virtually anyone else.  He is of good heart.  Yet he battles his demons.  His life has not been one of ease; he carries the scars of many past battles.  Yet even as he fights to return to the being he once was, he wages a battle with the dark side.  In his desire to save the soul of another I fear he will lose his battle.  Oh, I feel so very sorry for him in his dilemma.  If he stays to help the other rise from the shadow he risks being pulled headlong into the darkness of himself.  And I cannot help him.  I have made the decision to be in my place of power, to stand with the pillar of integrity.  I can't easily share my thoughts with him without pulling him into a place where winning is a zero probability.  At what point does one's own path rise above the charitable cause?  I know I ramble, but that's where I am tonight.  All this would make far more sense if I could be more specific.  But that is not to be; not at this time. But I put words into place to share my whole being with my blog, so sometimes this is where I happen to be.

I HATE FIREWORKS!

Well, maybe hate might be a bit strong.  I guess I should also be a bit more specific.  I have a strong dislike for back yard fireworks.  Like many others, I love to watch a good fireworks display, and there are certainly many very good ones to be seen.  Most towns have a display.  So why do people feel the need to purchase their own fireworks.  Imagine, if everyone donated the money they would spend on fireworks to their municipality, there could be an even bigger show for all to watch.  And, for those who do not wish to partake, it would not be forced upon them.  Last year the neighbors in my area put on quite a show.  Constant fireworks, really big, commercial quality jobs, for over an hour nonstop.  My horses totally freaked out.  My wife and I had to stand there with them trying to calm them down, sweat forming a puddle under my wife's little Arabian mare.  Definitely not a fun experience for them, nor us.  And I try not to think about the number of cats and dogs that are traumatized during our "celebrations".  How many pets are so frightened they run away, often lost forever to their grieving families.  Fun stuff.  And worst of all, how many of our war weary vets suffering from PTSD relive traumatic battle field experiences being subjected to the explosive concussions and flashing lights of fireworks exploding expectantly around them.  Fireworks are definitely cool to me, but maybe we should let the pros handle them.  I'm just sayin'.

And yet another commentary on gay and transgender....Damn this is getting old!

The following is in response to an email from a friend of mine.  I'll not reproduce the email that encouraged this response.  I believe the reader will be able to surmise the gist of the content.  I do hope my response does not threaten our friendship; we need to keep the conversation going!

(Name), what I hear is that if one is not in the "normal" category, meaning in the majority, they do not deserve the rights of the majority.  Please do not take this personally, but I find that argument ridiculous.  First off, it is no problem to have multiple individual bathrooms.  Many restaurants and other public facilities are already doing this.  Many university dorms have had this arrangement for years.  I imagine this would be far safer then the large crowded bathrooms found in many schools.  Just because it is not convenient is not an adequate argument.  Again, it goes back to the question of whether you believe homosexuality or transgender is a choice or not.  Science has provided much data suggesting it is not.  Why do we hold such fear of diversity?  I celebrate the realization that the human form has such complexity.  Seventy percent of human fertilization's fail to develop into a viable fetus, yet we persist.  Imagine the challenge of creating a human being from a single cell; cells growing and dividing and differentiating into the many parts of our form.  To me, this is a miracle.  Yet, you persist in simplifying the process.  Have a penis, you're a boy.  Our sexual organs have a relatively minor role in the formation of our psyche.  What about hermaphrodites?  How do we explain them?  Was that a choice?  How about Klinefelter's Syndrome (XXY genotype)?  And about mental illness.  What exactly is mental illness?  Is it when someone is considered a threat to themselves or others?  What about genius mental ability.  Is that a mental illness?  They are deviants as well.   It can be induced by environmental factors, by trauma, even by the chemicals in the food we eat.  Again, our brain is such a complex thing.  Cut it out of the scull of a corpse and it's merely a hunk of grey goop.  Yet look at what it does.  We have yet a very primitive understanding of the human form. We persist in the belief that the brain is the center of our psyche, yet there are more neurons in the heart, and in the gut then are present in the brain.  Our ancestors understood this when they expressed reactions to the environment as "heart felt" and "gut instinct".  My point is that we do not have a complete understanding of these things.  Psychiatry has been in agreement for some time now that transgender is not a mental illness.  I imagine it certainly could lead to that if one is abandoned by their family and friends for wanting to express their belief of their true identity.  Imagine the loneliness one must feel in such circumstances.  No, I will never accept the behavior of fear because I do not understand something.  Maybe it's because I could be lumped in the "deviant" category.  After all, the medical community has never been able to identify a physiological problem causing my stuttering.  Am I mentally ill?  I have a genius IQ, maybe that makes me a deviant?  I find it amazing that there are no two people in the history of our existence that are identical in genotype or phenotype.  I like that, and I will encourage every person to be the person they envision themselves to be.  I have always said I believe we set our limits far too low.  I say to all, reach for the stars!