More Words!

There are a couple other things I’ve seen/heard recently that maybe, help explain things a bit better.  I worry quite a bit about this, you know, that I have not explained well enough.  I really worry that I missed something while telling people about it, or that people will fill in details in their mind because they are afraid to ask questions.  Another concern is the idea of a surface understanding.  Like, yeah, ok, I understand that you are switching teams and I understand how, but I don’t understand completely why.

Basically, I worry that I explained the ‘how’ and ‘what’ too much, and that I missed out on the ‘why.’  Probably the best reason I have for not explaining why in as much detail is that I didn’t have that much detail in the first place.  I mean, I could hardly explain it to myself, but only because one does not always need words to communicate solely within one’s mind.  However, when it comes down to it, eventually, words have to be formed and ideas have to be spread, mostly because waving your arms real fast and grunting and smiling doesn’t really get any point across too well.

It is getting easier to make those words, but it also helps to have some other folks pick up my slack and say nice things.  In fact, lets start with a simple one that I’m sure will make sense.  How often, in our interactions, have I made consistent eye contact?  More or less some small fraction of a percentage of time, right?  I think it makes sense to say that I was afraid to make eye contact because when I look at you, dear reader, I see you.  When you look at me, really look in my eyes, I felt like you weren’t really seeing me.  I know this is simplified a bit, and maybe inaccurate in the first part, but the former makes a great deal of sense.  I wanted to be understood and recognized, and I couldn’t put together why I couldn’t be seen as what I needed to be seen.  So, I invoked the Ostrich Defense.  If I don’t see you, you can’t see me.  If you don’t see me, well, I don’t have to worry about being seen and misunderstood.  I could just float along, as a cloud or a ghost, and no one would see.  This is getting better, trust me.  It ain’t easy to break a habit that has lasted this long, but I’m getting there.

So, also, I read recently, which inspired me to write this, actually, that ‘invisibility is indivisible from visibility.’  The philosopher Berkeley had ideas about this, that ‘to be is to be percieved.’  I know that is probably technically a metaphysical idea, but it spills into the epistemological side very well.  To boil it down a bit, when you are seen, you are real, and what you are seen as is what you are.  We are indeed social creatures, but we are what we are in our minds.  We are also, in some part, what we appear to be to others.  So, maybe we could look at the current situation.  It’s almost like being without an identity right now.  Either going out as a boy and lying to myself and others, or going out as a girl which is, for practical reasons, not possible at present.  Being in a binary-leaning society, I can’t just take six of one and half a dozen of the other and go out like that.

If the outside, perceived me is one thing, and the inside, true me is another different thing, well, it makes sense that that particular situation doesn’t really spawn great happiness.  These two selves, as it were, can’t be separated.  They are tied together and each affects the other.  You know, I can’t say I’m on this side of the line, because I’m not anymore than I am on the other side.  As I have heard recently, it’s a lot like I’ve defected, but have found nowhere to really find asylum.  I abandoned one side, and am not accepted by the other, simply because I just don’t look it yet.  Because of the bond between internal and external, I’m just sort of, well, in between.  I’m waiting to take my citizenship test, if you wanted to keep on with the defection/asylum metaphor.

Of course, it’s alright, because it’s coming.  At least I have made the right steps, and for now, I’m cool with it.  For reals.

Also, again, if anyone has any questions at all, even super duper awkward ones, you know how to get a hold of me.  Hopefully this might help explain a little bit more the ‘why.’  Well, even if it didn’t for you, it felt good to get it down.