Reaching 50

Well, today's my birthday.  I'm 50.  Lots of jokes about me being old.  Which is funny, for a couple of reasons.  First of all, there's the fact that I believe age is a matter of mind - if you don't mind, it don't matter!  Anyone who knows me will vouch for my decidedly not-middle-age behavior.  Sometimes I get scolded right along with the children.

The other, bigger, point is this:  There was a time that my making it to 30 was questionable.  I'd been hospitalized three times, once for an actual suicide attempt and the others as prevention.  Suicide had been a frequent thought since my late teens.  I'm a Prozac success story - the controversial anti-depressant has literally saved my life.  It wasn't as simple as me popping a pill and everything was all better, though.

The Prozac only reins it in - I refer to "it" as The Demon or Sybrie The Tenth (more on that in a minute).  Because it was reined in, I could research the problem, and those know me will appreciate just how bad it was that I couldn't do research.  I've been in and out of counseling - my current LSW says I'm good to go without unless I have a crisis.  I've learned and use coping methods.

I strongly recommend "Overcoming Depression" to anyone dealing with this problem - directly or indirectly.  The authors are a married couple with a Greek surname.  His is, I'm pretty sure, Demetri Papolous.  It explains the biological and psychological causes and gives guidelines for living with and tracking the course of the illness.  I wore out my first copy!

The coping methods work better for some individuals than for others, obviously.  The ones I find work best for me are humor and what I call the Charlie Translator.  Charlie was my dad, and he had a real problem with expressing himself - even praise sounded negative.  So I trained myself to filter what people say and do through the Charlie Translator and then apply a heavy dose of Benefit of The Doubt.

Humor usually takes the form of hyperbole.  Sometimes it seems like I'm seriously claiming to be crazier than I am, but remember that when I was diagnosed (and put on Prozac) that the mentally ill were scary to most people.  I took that fear and mocked it, and the habit has remained.  Sybrie the Tenth was born of this - I made a crack once about "nine out of ten of my personalities".  It became a running joke, especially with my friend Sandy.  That tenth personality is The Demon, or Number Ten.  Sandy eventually combined "Sybil" and "Carrie" and we gave her the royal-sounding name Sybrie The Tenth.  (I do not actually have multiples - and no mockery of those who do is intended.)

Some methods of coping can be quite annoying.  If you know someone like this, be patient with them. They aren't hurting you, or anyone else, so let it go.  This is how they keep their Sybrie in the cage.  If they are hurting someone (including themselves) then they need to find a new method ASAP.

Anyway, thanks for reading.  Nine out of ten of my personalities are enjoying being 50.

Private lives of Public Figures

Bill Cosby slipping women a mickey and raping them.  Michael Jackson molesting children.  Johnny Depp slapping his wife around.  Too many to name cheating on spouses/significant others.  Sex and drugs in general.

Celebrities are role models, but so are we.  The only difference is that their sphere of influence is larger.  Fans of the folks I listed above will object, no doubt, that an accusation is not the same as having actually done the deed. For purposes of the point I'm about to make, all of that is immaterial.

Years ago, I was told that to go to the movies was to reward "the Hollywood lifestyle" of divorce and adultery and debauchery.  It made no sense to me then and makes no sense to me now.  We pay actors to act, singers to sing, comedians to make us laugh.

Laughing at "BROWM right on top of good ole Noah" doesn't mean I'm okay with roofies.  Rocking out to Thriller doesn't mean I believe kids need molested.  Enjoying Pirates of the Caribbean doesn't mean I like punching women.  None of that even means I think the accusations are unfounded. (Some I do believe are unfounded or exaggerated, but that's also beside my point.)

Look at the current Presidential race.  All these candidates are being judged, at least in part, on their personal lives instead of the qualifications for the job.  Can you imagine being told you didn't get a customer service job because you didn't divorce your cheating husband?  Not because you came into the interview and insulted the other interviewees, not because you refused to serve the poor or the ethnic, but for something that has no bearing on the job?

It's lunch time.  If I go to Subway, it doesn't mean I'm okay with what Jared did.  It just means I like them sandwiches!  

Thoughts on Public Bathrooms

 Apparently some laws have been passed that state you have to use the restroom designated for the sex on your birth certificate.  A major chain store also announced it was making all restrooms unisex. Heated debate rages all over social media and the news.

"Perverts will pretend to be transgender to get to our daughters."  Do you think only male perverts exist, and that they only go after girls?  Even if a pervert were to do this - as has happened - all he can do legally is "accidentally" expose himself.  Anything else is covered under other laws.  During a trial, the revelation of his birth certificate would make him in violation of this one.   It is your job as a parent (or parent proxy) to protect the child from threats.  If you are too busy to escort the kid to the restroom, that's on you.

Are we going to station guards at every restroom and require matching the physical evidence with the birth certificate?  What if the two don't match?  We send a person with a penis into the women's room anyway - refer back to the perv argument.  What do you do when the "man" you've stopped proves to have both a vagina and a female birth certificate?

We have probably all, at some point in our adult lives, shared a public restroom with another adult bearing different genitals than ours.  We never knew because they had the exterior appearance of our sex.  They went into the stall and shut the door, just like we did.  Or maybe you ignored the Restroom Closed For Cleaning signs and the janitor was using one of the toilets - that happened a lot when I was a janitor.

Why are they wasting time and money (taxpayer's money) on laws that make no sense and can't be enforced?  I've not done the math, but I'm sure the salaries of these lawmakers earned while passing this nonsense is a lot more than 15 bucks an hour - you know, the amount useful people are greedy for wanting.

Labels

Back in my day, the same people we now say have Social Anxiety were simply Painfully Shy.   When I was hospitalized for Dysthymia (a form of Clinical Depression), I explained it to my grandmother with the catch-all "Nerves".   So have we, as a society, become weaker or stronger?  Some say a medical diagnosis is better, that we've come to understand things better.  Others call it the rather vulgar "pussification" of society.  Honestly, I don't think it matters.

To me "She has Social Anxiety" isn't much different than "She's painfully shy".  Either way, it means I'm going to give her some space and let her deal as she feels best.  My grandmother went to her grave saying I had "Nerves" - a term that would cover a myriad of today's medical diagnoses.  They say hers was a simpler time, and at least in this area, they are right.  "Nerves" meant the person has trouble dealing with life, but that they weren't a danger.  Come to think of it, that would cover Social Anxiety...

Coloreds become Blacks become African-Americans, because for some reason the earlier terms become offensive.  (I am deliberately ignoring certain words, which were/are almost always used as insults.  I've known folks to use those words innocently, but they were rare - and usually ignorant.)

Political labels change, too, as the parties evolve.  The same party that fought giving the freed slaves rights after the Civil War is the one today championing their descendants. Theodore Roosevelt, the man behind the National Parks, belonged to the party that today puts money over nature.

I can't refer to myself as fat without people freaking out.  Guess what, folks?  I'm not quite five and a half feet tall and I average 200 pounds. You can use whatever label you like, but it has the same definition.

But I digress.  Why do we feel the need to update our labels?  My first example, I think, comes from the notion that a medical diagnosis is more likely to be respected.  Words are symbols, and maybe they become tainted by association with folks who use them cruelly, like the swastika and the Rebel Flag?

Political Subtleties

Before I met my friend, my experience with Anarchists was limited to those who call for a violent overthrow of the government.  My friend patiently and respectfully explained to me that Anarchism, like all ideologies, has subdivisions.  Those I had known are not representative of the large majority - most Anarchists practice what they call the Non Aggression Principle.  They based their belief on the very idea that, if left alone by government, people will be able to live peaceably and help each other out voluntarily.  The few jerks who won't will end up effectively banishing themselves.

Yet we see people freely slap the label Communist on Bernie Sanders.  Communism and Socialism are closely related, yes.  Both fall under the same ideological umbrella.  Yet there are the same sort of subtle differences we find in Anarchism.  Communism is to Socialism what those Violent Over-throwers are to Anarchy.  They are the fanatics.  

Fanatics exist in every group, be it political, religious, racial, sexual....  Islam has ISIS, Christianity has WBC...  It is wrong to assume your neighbor Abdul wants to chop off your head because you ate a ham sandwich.  It is wrong to assume Pastor Smith wants gays executed.  I know Catholics who see birth control as a matter of conscience and accept the idea of abortion under certain circumstances, feminists who are happily married to men and even have children, lesbians who don't hate men and even raise straight children of both sexes.

If you are a member of any group (and who isn't), the proper response to an ignorant party is not to attack them.  On any level.  My own personal experience with Fanatic Anarchism might be "anecdotal evidence" and therefore a logical fallacy, but you aren't going to get anywhere by insulting me.  I am willing to be convinced - said friend can vouch for that - but only by a respectful discussion.  

And if you expect me to see subtle differences, you need to be willing to see them as well.  Or you are guilty of a logical fallacy of your own, as well as of being a hypocrite.   

First Ladies

Presidential elections are approaching, and with them yet another woman is going to find herself First Lady.  Or maybe a guy, since we have a heterosexual female in the running.  Bill might get out of it - we've had Presidents whose First Lady was a daughter or niece.  I always feel for these women.  They just can't catch a break.

Mary Lincoln thought the American people needed to see her as prosperous, to combat that whole Civil War bleakness.  Instead they called her frivolous and wasteful.  Nancy Reagan, a Hollywood woman, was also called these things because of her expensive tastes.  Yet Michelle Obama is "cheap" for buying clothes most American women can afford.  Barbara Bush, and to a lesser extent, her daughter-in-law Laura, were practical women and thus labeled frumpy.  So...  the First Lady is standing in her closet, knowing she's going to be mocked no matter what outfit she chooses.

It's become tradition that the First Lady choose a pet cause.  Jackie Kennedy famously renovated and redecorated the White House, saving a good deal of history from ending up in a landfill.  Yet it seems she's the only one to get proper credit for her efforts.  Nancy Reagan went after drug abuse and "Just Say No" is laughed at.  Hillary and Michelle get called all kinds of names for wanting actual regulations.  Again, the poor First Lady is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't.

I'd hate to be in her shoes, whoever she may be.  Because nothing she's going to do is going to be right.  If she wears fancy clothes, she's a snob.  If she's frugal, she has no sense of style.  If she comes on too strong with her pet cause, she's a shrew.  If she comes on not strong enough, she'll be laughed at and/or ignored.  She'll be too old or too young.  She'll have a scandalous past or she'll be boring.

Sometimes I think Rachel Jackson had the right idea - when her husband was elected, she promptly dropped dead.

Body Modification

A few years ago, my nephew made the choice to shave his head.  I was horrified.  To me, a shaved head meant Skinhead - racist, gay-bashing Neo-Nazi. Of course, he is of an entirely different generation and doesn't have those associations.  What's this got to do with the topic at hand, you ask? Bear with me.

Tattoos and piercings are the subject of much debate with more of the younger generation entering the job market.  To them, these things are a matter of choice and have no bearing on a person's job performance.  To an extent, I agree with them.  (I personally have no tattoos.  I wear one ear ring in each lobe.  I have considered ink, but the art I've decided on would be quite expensive, so it probably will never happen.)

The problem with body modification is one of perception, just like the shaved head.  Most employers belong to my generation, one taught that these things are unprofessional.  When I entered the work force, a visible tattoo or facial piercing made an applicant unemployable even as a janitor. The rules gradually relaxed - at one point I worked with a fellow who had (among other tattoos) an eyeball on his Adam's Apple.  Which brings me to my next point.

Eyeball Man worked hard and got along with co-workers.  He was the first to offer his jumper cables if your car wouldn't start.  But I couldn't stop staring at that eye.  It moved when he talked.  In short, it was distracting.  And he scared customers, usually the elderly and children, so he was on the overnight shift.  His ink limited his options.

The same can be said for piercings.  They don't stop you from working, from being a good person, or even from holding a PhD.  But to draw attention to your self-expression by constantly sticking your tongue out and manipulating the stud through it, to wiggle the ring on your lip with the tongue or sucking it in and out of the hole, is distracting and unprofessional.

When I worked, nearly every job I had required a uniform.  I used my ear rings to mark myself as an individual.  But what would it say about me if I toyed with my ear rings the entire work day?  Or if I insisted upon wearing life-sized human skulls?  The same applies to tattoos and piercings.  You have the right to individuality and others have the right to feel comfortable in your presence.  It is possible to express yourself without being an ass.