Tag Archives: Words

Creative, My Opinion, Written

Lies and secrets

It was not easy for me to have any understanding. A greater effort was needed to have an acceptance of what I want to express here. An idea that permeated so much of my life could be described as this. And still, it was and still is to some extent or another. As the title reads: Lies and secrets.

The hardest thing it would make sense to think is what I know, feel, think, believe and so on are based on something unknown or not understood. In one way or another the almost blind acceptance that I was there, I saw with my eyes, heard, felt, tasted, others did as well or whatever the case may be so that it must be, it is immutable as truth. This make so much sense and then when I look at life and the world around me, make connections and comparisons or see contrast it raises questions. One of those is the lies and secrets people have from even themselves. It may sound like a stretch to have this happen or to do this but think about it if you can. This is a defense mechanism for trauma or other destructive experiences one may have in life. An act of self preservation if you chose to look at it this way.

Then there is reality. Reality is not a whole and shared thing. Ones experiences in every form from observations to thoughts and feelings filter and augment every aspect of how we even take in our environment and as this passed through our own very unique collection of reality altering filters we do not even take in to begin with what is the base or source reality.

One needs a degree of trust in self no doubt, but a complete disregard for the shift in what is and what we see as reality is in itself a lie. In maintaining that lie hides those secrets we cannot even face within our-self.

Coming to terms with this is not a quick or easy process. It takes much effort and time that can not easily be quantified. The end is also fuzzy. The journey to where one might go with these thoughts is once again, in my view where to be and cherish, enjoy and learn from. This is no small ask to pose in my mind and I keep asking anyway. Easy is not a destination. The path being worth it is where I find joy. The struggle on the way, the small victories are the reward. arriving at a destination tells me I need to find somewhere to go next. If I stop and claim contentment, saying I am done then I may as well have died. When I stop growing, learning I see this as the end of living.

I will never catch every lie or know all the secrets I hold from myself, that is not my desire. My goal is to keep living, learning and growing so I am more than a just body with a heartbeat. My heart should beat with more, far more than simply a physical biological action.

Just like cleaning or making the bed, it will get dirty again or you will turn down the covers to sleep, they will need to be done again. I will never get to a place that the mental cobwebs are never to return. I will also carry some amount of emotional baggage. I can attempt to be prepared to clean and carry these, or anticipate and expect this simply is and move on to my next mistake I might transform into something better than I ever saw it before.

As I was searching through photos for an image I took an unknown number of months ago I located a video clip of what I photographed and changed my direction. The featured image is from the video edit.

And here is the 5 second video I tossed together, because I wanted to.

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Creative, My Opinion, Written

Hiding in plain sight and I missed it

Fear. This one word says so much.

As I attempt to translate my thoughts into words this morning, the word fear is close the the core of those. I grew up in a place and in a family that taught and acted that if something can go wrong in some way, stay away or don’t do, avoid, etc. In one form or another this fear has separated me from so much. Add in my dad and I get a run away from anything that could possibly not turn out well childhood on.

I am not one to regret. I am not making a statement as such. Everything I have been exposed to, thought, felt or otherwise brings me to this very moment. It took all of the fear as part of this to help me to today.

In society we are sold fear in a relentless flashing neon billboard screen that is forcing us to pay attention to their marketing. be that your phone, TV, computer, The image or logo on that person’s clothes over there. It is nearly inescapable. The propaganda and mouth of the fear machine is often dressed in kindness or being helpful. The need to cover-up fear can look like just about anything. Instant gratification or greed, power, or the one that is easy for me to spot is this ‘whatever’ will make this or that easier, faster, etc. These are often as I see a band-aid to cover up fear.

Fear is the great motivator as I have heard it said. I remember when Steve Ballmer of Microsoft was claiming Linux is a cancer and the response from the open-source community was FUD. Ballmer was spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. This sales tactic is directly related to what I am trying to communicate.

In the end I do not know. In the context of this, why be afraid if there is no reason to be. Sure, I am not pleased when bad or painful things happen but it takes mistakes, pain and all the disappointment and the list could go on and on, but these are not pleasant as it takes a negative reaction to have any opportunity or hope for real, true growth. Lucky is one thing. Being given what one desires is another. Growth does not just happen as it takes more than just work. A painful event and reflection leading to insight and knowledge are one path to growth.

As I ask myself today, why have I been governed by fear the past many weeks? I see in this moment that being afraid of something that is probably not going to happen or even if it is a low chance to, why am I running away from all those mistakes that make success if I just get through the tough part, take the effort to learn and then use new experiences to grow?

I am not suggesting wreck less or blatant behavior here. I am telling myself to allow more mistakes or to accept I may sustain some form of injury be that emotional or otherwise.

No stepping in front of buses or looking down the barrel of a gun but fall down, get up and keep going towards growth. I bet I will meet happiness in many forms along the way.

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Trans, Written

Can something…

Can something viewed as fake or synthetic be seen as real either within oneself or in others? The default correct answer here is it depends in my mind.

I have and continue to struggle and this is one of the foundations in this fight I have. I need so badly to be seen as myself. This is not an easy thing to achieve as a trans woman. Others cannot read my mind or know my soul but they can see with their eyes. The human eye is powerful and influential to people as a generality and so often experiences in my life support this.

The conundrum is I do not pass as a cis woman and synthetic or prosthetics can help me get closer. The hesitation is I will not be seen. The temporary augmentation is not real in a sense.

I could get surgery or do any number of things to make changes permanent. I am not rich and I have work to do in my thoughts before I could, not to mention the expense I cannot currently afford.

I do have a few wigs and prosthetic hips. I have not worn a wig in quite a long time. I supplement with a hat to help me not feel like a flashing neon target. I do not wear the hips, I did once but that was a trial and not much else.

Back to my opening question, can something synthetic be real? I am not asking in the Pinocchio sense or can synthetic become organic but in the representation way. Can artificial be, even if within ones own self, real and not an illusion, facade or lie?

I have to say yes, it is possible. The person of my last post I think can testify to that, though I have not asked. I know this can be for myself and that is the true and final evaluation that I am looking for this morning.

As I know this can be in one aspect, how can or could I transfer this from an external entity to self? This is where the division is in me. I can bring sytnthetik into reality and it be ‘real’ but what about me? can I add something or temporarily modify my appearance and feel real, beyond makeup, clothes or accessories?

I have not found my place in this world and life at this point. I an pushing and pulling with more effort, endurance and strength than I thought I could employ in a much longer timeline by factors I cannot comprehend. While this now accessible and no longer dormant, the ability I still seek out on the path to get closer to where I must go.

I think often and as far back as I can remember the notion that represents how I feel; Am I alien and everyone else human or it it the other way around. I could put on a face and act a part to fit in this world but that is acceptable to others. This is nothing but torture to me. I am done and walking out of this prison of torture that is relentless wherever I am or whatever I may do awake or asleep. In order for me to exist in any way I must take that long, treacherous and steep walk out of this hell I have been too afraid to leave.

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My Opinion, Written

Perfection

Why is this idea so pervasive in the world I see around me? What does perfection attain?

I would guess one could make all sorts of statements on those questions and I do get caught up in that at times myself. When I take time to think about this after stepping back and calming down from whatever is pushing me to seek out some manner of perfection I desire to pull away from those excuses and notions that perfect is in some way better than imperfections.

What I find is happiness is a goal and perfection is not synonymous with happiness one does not lead to the other. They can have a relationship however lose that may be in my eye.

Why do people tend to achieve perfection? As I do not know nor can say with any authority, my guess is what it is. In this connected society of like buttons and all that entails where profit is the driver in the form on money or popularity, perfection is needy, selfish and puts the wants of others ahead of what I or someone may need to get closer to happiness more often. As happy is not a place on really stays and never leaves. We travel through or touch for a bit. Maybe we visit or live next door to happy and drop in for a tea or coffee. Like the sunrise and set or phases of the moon we are not always calmly and comfortably watching the sunrise. Phases and cycles are a part of life.

I have long been one to resist competing with others and often chose to measure against myself. This too has drawbacks and I would like to remember I can slow down, relax and just see if happy is up for an afternoon chat or lunch meetup.

I am fallible as I am human. Perfection is a target that cannot remain still. Hit it once and it has moved before one can tray again. Goals are important and so can the path those goals take as I see it.

Why don’t I not make time with happiness and not a mirage of what happiness might be as the world around me appears to be selling. I am not in the mood to be sold what I do not need today.

In my dismissal of perfection I may be closer to heading i the direction of purpose and that sounds like a far more enjoyable and fruitful journey to a day with happy to me.

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My Opinion, Written

Alignment

There is a fine line between a conversation that is constructive and one that is not. I think this often is delineated by intent. Another sketchy area is labels. For me gender and orientation come to mind as a topic where labels are often just too much to drag into things.

For intent, what all involved bring to the conversation and any existing history amongst them is a factor that can set a tone for judgement as a pretext. If this weighing of others is a heavy part, then I would rather have no part myself.

I needed labels in a lot of ways but as a way to bring comprehension from communication I no longer see this as a proper method to get there. After mixing with judgement I tend to get a nasty concoction as a result.

I have found I give the ‘it depends’ or a overly broad set of words to most questions at the start. For example; if I am asked by someone I am not close with or in a group and I just want to be with people not debate about where or what to eat I have answered ‘I prefer food from the northern hemisphere general;y.’

It depends is more often than i acknowledge the only reasonable answer that is correct or accurate enough when you have two or more people. Throw in time and a response will hopefully change and evolve as we experience and learn. With the complexity some have in their mood as subtle as it may appear something so fundamental as what to eat gets stupidly complex, rapidly.

Labels have a place I know. Terms aid in communication and when other aspects that seem so predominant are added in it just gets messy.

I am human just as I hope we all are. I do not nor have any desire to get it all right and exhaust a thought I may communicate into every permutation of each minutia. I personally enjoy and respect a dose of enigma and personal perspective and interpretation. I like to have this in art be it as an observer or creator.

I hope I am not as alone as it would feel to want and need difference around me, it helps me learn, grow and understand. It is a way to make mistakes that circle back into learning and becoming a better person. This all comes crashing down when intent and judgement convert a conversation into a debate and pushes to have a right and wrong outcome. It is predisposed to end in a less useful result.

Be free and let others be free but stop and walk away before any harm is done.

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My Opinion, Photgraphy, San Francisco, Written

Where Am I Going

I asked myself this question as I walked the streets of San Francisco. On this sunny Thanksgiving. I spent time with the city I love. I was going in the direction of Ocean Beach. As I cannot be with the people I would like to, I kept thinking to myself, where am I going?

After I opened the second package of Kleenex I used to wipe up the tears, I was struck with a thought carrying an inertia and a kinetic energy like the waves crashing on the beach with the power to destroy and sustain life.

I am already where I am going.

This transformed into an answer of what I was just asking myself in repetition.

Over the next mile to the beach I went up and down hills, both litteral and emotional.

I am still as I sit in Golden gate Park flowing over those mental and emotional hills.

I am already where I am going. Even as I have much to do in my journey, I am where I need to be. This in itself is where I need life to located. If I were at the end, then that is where I would be, not somewhere along the way.

I set out today after I created a playlist I titled ‘sad walk’ to find something I did not expect. To find comfort, just as I did.

As I carried my camera, some photos I took on my walk in the greatest city on earth, just exactly where I need to be.

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My Opinion

Working on it

There was a time in my life I worked and I don’t mean I had a job when I say worked. I buried myself in what I referred to then as my career. When I was not at work I read and learned to improve. I might have been at work too much.

Today I have basically the same job but when I am not on the clock so to speak I do not work. My reason for working in the capacity I once did is no longer present.

I worked the way I did for a reason and I lied to myself at the time what that reason was. I told myself all the things one says or hears about such behavior, it was, for the most part a guise. I gained from this and in many of the expected ways. I am pretty good at what I do, or so I think so and others seem to express this as well.

The real reason I worked and pushed as I did was always there, yet I discounted that. I needed to escape from my own life at the time. I was in a place I did not belong and I was not who I am. I used work in a feild that has frequent emergencies to distract me. I needed this. I needed to buy myself time to get to where I could be, where I could be alive. It took a very long time, decades in fact. I did it eventually. I broke free from the life I lived in hiding.

Today I work to have some structure, schedule and of course pay the bills. I use what I have learned through my experience to do my job. I also bring myself, my whole self be it good bad or indifferent with me. The work I do is technical and I have allowed my creative self to inject more and more. Showing up with humanity, creativity and technical skills I tend to push the boundaries a bit at times.

I like what I do but wish I could do something with my abilities that means more than supplying a fortune 500 company with my knowledge and efforts. One day that may be a reality but I am not there yet.

I have grown through work but more importantly it bought me time and taught me lessons so I can be here and alive, both literally and figuratively, today.

I have said more times than I could recall over the past year plus; it took everything in my life to get to exactly where I am today. I hold no regrets.

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My Opinion, Written

Quantum

Most people have been inundated with the words binary or spectrum recently. If you talk about Autism or gender and many other topics of social discourse currently out there in the environment we occupy.

I would like to ask, even if to just myself, what about a related but different word – quantum?

As most are probably aware in a binary system there are 2 possible values. On / off, true, false, yes / no, etc. Before binary was popular the word boolean is what I have been exposed to as a definition or descriptor of this system.

Then we have spectrum. A range of values from one absolute to another and all the gradient variations in-between. A line from one end to the other. One could take this line and add a second dimension to create a plane. Think of a color wheel where the possible values are a single dot located at some point in the 2D spectrum. Be there 100 or 16 million or more possible points.

As I introduce my thoughts on the quantum variation I pull from the little understanding I have on how quantum computing works, specifically the qbit. In typical computing where binary is an off or on, in a qbit you begin with an off or on, but both states can concurrently hold multiple values of off or on. Like a number that is denoted as a power or superscript.

When I, and I would be inclined to think I am not alone, have a thought that generates an opinion on a discrete idea I may and often do have variations with my opinion that are adjusted or influenced by more factors or variables than I could possibly list or account for. Generalizing this, time is a significant category under which numerous possibilities can be categorized. Time can be part of environmental factors, or not. What have my empirical experiences been over a span of time and how do they influence and to what degree the moment in which I may communicate or act as a result of an opinion I hold?

When I think of how to quantify my experience I tend to jump straight over to qualify. This exercise, to me, seems like making a finite conclusion on something that is in constant flux. You could measure a point in time, but before the measurement can be processed in ones mind the value has moved on. I am aware of trends and projections, however I am thinking of human nature and the often present idea of chaos we tend to point at in human behavior and response.

To get to my thought, it would seem to me that an opinion I may have can and very often does have the properties of a qbit, or having multiple values at the exact same moment.

No intended detraction from binary or spectrum systems, but I like to blend in and stand out, so ponder of the quantum qbit if you are so inclined.

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My Opinion

Conundrum

This is my opinion and nothing more. I am happy for people to disagree as I could learn something.

You don’t know what you don’t know, until you do.

One of the problems is that we’ve all been taught very effectively to not listen to anybody else we disagree with. The advent of fake news and we have all become so skilled at holding our ground and refusing to listen to anyone else who has any disagreement with us. We’ve lost the ability to actually listen. With that ability we have set aside the ability to show compassion or be caring for other people and we can’t listen anymore or any farther than we have to in order to defend our ground. That is a big problem. How do you bring somebody to a point to listen if it has been ingrained in them to ignore so well, to deny any notions of those who do not hold their views.

If someone can get people to listen to get them and to agree that those they disagree with are villains. You can develop a group of people who have an automatic response to those the instigator disagrees with. In this situation people refuse to listen to the other side. They begin to believe that anything from those who do not agree with them has bad intent, so they feel justified in not listening, they are evil, they are wrong. This sounds like a recipe to manipulate and control. It makes trust imbalanced and adds false credibility to the ones pointing their finger and detracts in-proportionately from those they aim at. A lot of lying and brainwashing can happen that skews views and distorts reality.

People don’t have to, they don’t have to listen to anyone to anymore who disagrees with them, there is no discussion and there is no discourse without an argument or a combative position. That is the problem and when the problem nullifies the most effective method to work to a solution – what a catch 22 and being between a large rock and a very hard difficult place.

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My Opinion, Written

I guess you would have an opinion on this

Great, you have an opinion. That is not bad in itself. What you do with your opinion, however can take a benign state to either good or bad. Like tools of many types, they are not positive or negative in a state of non-use. It is a person, as fallible as we are, that uses a tool like language for example, and the manner in which it is employed is the determination of the result.

Take this Taoist saying: “When the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.” I hope you can get the sentiment in this.

How about something a bit more modern?

Language is the liquid
That we’re all dissolved in
Great for solving problems
After it creates a problem

Modest Mouse “Blame It On The Tetons”

Let me say again, have your opinion. Just use your opinion in a way that does not cause harm.

With my use of the word harm I am well aware that can be a Pandora’s box. Allow me to explain, again, what this means when I say this.

Harm is when you take choice away from others, or make a choice that limits someones choice. Easy example is, if you kill someone you take every possible future choice away from them.

If you deny choice in others or anyone denies you choice, then harm is what results. So make you choice so long as it does not harm anyone.

That might be a messed up way to lead into this, but I didn’t hurt anyone so all is good.

Now I am going to say something about myself, give you my opinion if you want to look at it that way. I have made and will surely continue to make choices people will not understand and that is fine by me. You do you and let me be me. Do not presume that you know all that goes on in my heart, mind and life based on whatever momentary observation(s) you grab on to. The same goes for anyone else.

If you don’t understand another choice then in all likelihood you are missing something, like what is going on in the heart and mind of the other making a choice. Now, I am fully aware it is not easy to look at oneself and say something like, I don’t understand and well there is just things I do not or cannot know, so I will reserve judgement until I can learn more.

Unless one is all knowing, one should hold pushing judgement on others as much as a person is able to.

I know I am over simplifying all this, but I do hope you have intellect and can come to your own conclusions when drawing on the words here.

So have your opinion and please use this tool for good and positive things and not to hurt others, and just have a good day.

P.S. I am guilty of this and yes, this is a rant. I will get over it.

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