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Thursday - Part 2, February 28, 2002
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For some reason I included only a portion of Thursday's Highlights.
Here are the rest!
--Jerry
SU GANDOLF
"Queer is a category that includes gay and
unconventional hetero individuals." --Caio
So many categories!
More mutable than you give them credit for. That
doesn't mean that anyone should change... What a
silly thought.
If there were no Caios, would we need them? Do we
need them? As a counterpoint, maybe. But sitting
alone in your room, "are" you essentially "hetero",
"queer", "transgendered", or anything else? Funny,
the other discussion about women touches on this
too. Nina, maybe Melody, seem to be saying there
*is* something essential about "womanhood". But if
we have never had the chance to exist outside of a
violently dualistic society in regards to sex,
gender and sexuality, what are we really saying?
Perhaps only that we've never truly been our
*selves*? What is really the nature of the direct
experience, without extrapolating out to what is
"normal", what is "woman", what is "man"?
I love you guys, I love these discussions, and I
respect what has brought you here. This is a rich
and complex area, and, thanks god, I don't have to
have the answers. Caio's fear creates an energy
here that I don't like, but this, too, shall pass.
Su (who can be seen in the Madonna movie Truth or
Dare holding up a Queer Nation banner at the gay
pride parade. Hmmm...)
___________________________________________________________________
GENE POOLE
SEXUAL GENDER: THE LAST DUALITY?
Hi Listas,
Well, that is a catchy subject line, eh? Too bad I
can't go much further into the subject, but I would
like to.
Carl Jung showed (to those who look) that every man
has inside, a woman, and every woman has inside, a
man; and so, if you can follow this, the woman
inside me, has a man inside her, and so on ad
infinitum.
Taoist Shamans have said:
"What has a front Has a back;
The bigger the front The bigger the back."
Thus, the man who is 'all man', who is 'purely a
man', has inside, an equally 'pure' woman; and this
polarity and the energy which it carries, makes the
man seek the most obviously 'feminine' of women.
This behaviour, carried on for millions of years,
has led to a striking difference in the appearance
of men and women. But interestingly, if we look
closely at the pictures of the most popular and
'beautiful' people, we can see that the difference
is quite slight. Remember this Beatles lyric?
"Have you seen polythene Pam? She's so good-looking
that she looks like a man... "
The external person (equals) cameo
The internal person (equals) intaglio
So somewhere deep inside, underneath or prior to
any sexual gender assignments, is the Root-Being;
and somehow, I seriously doubt that this Root-Being
has 'sexual gender' as one of its characteristics.
It may be, that samskara (strong tendencies due to
unresolved 'issues') is what determines the
'external' gender assignment, but in any case, that
is as they say, a 'cameo performance' and one which
is to say the least, the most superficial; it is
indeed 'out front', yet it is the Root-Being who is
really happening.
"Who Am I?"
Root-Being.
Only in the social systems, does sexual gender
matter; and the more we _identify_ as sexually
gendered (it seems to me), the more superficial we
become; and the less likely it becomes that we will
ever know Root-Being.
So whether or not sexual gender is actually The
Last Duality (it seems that life/death may deserve
that title), it is a powerful one.
Identity (a collection of memories of events) is
built over time in a social context. If sexual
gender is questioned, identity is threatened, and
when identity is threatened, all kinds of powerful
defenses arise in defense.
Knowing oneself as 'Root-Being' could possibly
defuse those defenses.
It is easy to confuse identity (a social
impression) with Root-Being, until Root-Being
displaces identity; at this point, Root-Being
carries identity in its back pocket, like a
driver's license.
_____________________________________________________________
BOBBY G.
Mental qualities can be categorized.
The most obvious is thinking. One thought leads to
another. When the chain stops before another
starts, the individual magically appears for a
short time.
Memory seems to be thinking also but is really just
the stimulus for thinking. A memory "package"
occurs and a chain of thought begins. Perhaps it is
mind reliving the content of the memory. Or perhaps
the memory sparks another chain of thought.
Logic and conclusion making, correlating data,
sifting through options with accurate cognition,
seem to validate thinking as admirable. The chain
of thoughts (thinking) does not produce this
quality of logic and is a discernible distraction.
Imagining and dreaming produce art which is
essential in our imperfect world. We must imagine
how it can be better to make it better.
Intuition is that quality which allows knowing what
is occurring.
Mind is a concept used to group these qualities.
The truth is there is no thing called mind, only
one or more of these qualities existing in real
time. The idea of a tree exists while you think it.
The idea of the mind exists while you think it.
Likewise you exist only while thinking about
yourself although "you" are always implied as the
cornerstone of the structure in which every thought
acquires its meaning.
The quality of "I amness" does not originate in the
mind. The present moment or Real Time itself is all
there is, so the source of "I amness" must be here.
Being doesn't require thought but thought requires
being.
_________________________________________________________________________
NINA
A few days ago I heard that people spend 90%ish of
their time defending their point of view.
Holy moly, that's a heckuva lotta time and energy
and creativity. Let me count the ways I have to
defend my point of view! Uh! Well, no, that would
be, once again, defending my point of view.
Then I ask myself: what would I do instead?
Just contemplating...
_______________________________________________________________________
MELODY:
I'm finding myself asking that very question these
days - not about being gay, and how gays are
regarded -
but about being 'woman' and my issues with how
women are treated.
This insight about labeling people as "this, and
not that" is really speaking to the core of
'Melody' right now.
NINA:
Right on, Melody.
(Disclaimer note: here's my point of view, which I
will defend, perhaps a little bit, but since I
don't hold much attachment to this particular view,
if you push it, I might just drop the whole thing
and ignore you, letting you keep your point of view
while I go off and edit or delete my own.)
Last time around, I worked in an office full of
women. Being a woman was an issue there. Big
(minority) business, you might say. Certainly, I
found a lot of parallel experience in that group. A
happy consensus, unwordedly accepting union of
context. If you know what I mean, and you probably
do. /big conspiratorial grin/
This time around, I work in an office full of men
who find my preferences, tendencies, diet,
interests, activities and gender to be a something
of a mystery, if not a set of categorical this or
thats, and tasty fodder for all manner of joking. I
find my identity under attack regularly, typically
from missiles (uh!) that hit or graze areas
associated with gender or sexuality. It is tempting
to catch them on it, and whip them with an
admittedly sharply witted tongue, but I am not
comfortable fanning the flames in the direction of
sexual harrassment. Ah, but what I have found is
that I really don't have an opinion on this sort of
exchange anymore.
Jody brought up a good point (hehe, that word has
the effect of a hot poker now!) a few posts back,
though. A point that considered the potentially
negative political repercussions (as we accept
them, as we hold up a certain standard of human
rights as a goal) of having, taking, or acting on
'no personal opinion'.
I don't know where this leaves or takes us.
blank-faced, Nina

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