I listened to this record dozens of times in elementary school.
I have, I must admit, a very minor kind of dysphoria.
I’ve always felt like I was a thin, supple, gymnastics type person stuck in the body of an extremely overweight ogre.
I’ve always wanted to do things this body is simply not designed to do. Like dance, or climb like a ninja, or vault over objects when I am feeling especially exuberant.
That’s why I love video games where I can do that stuff. Games like the Assassin’s Creed franchise, or the Shadow of Mordor games.
In those games, at least, I can move like I want to be able to move. Like some strange part of me thinks I should be able to move.
As in, I will get vivid flashes of the desire to move that way, all athletic and toned and acrobatic, that I of course can’t do anything with but wait for them to pass.
But I can see what that part of me wants to do so clearly in my mind.
Basically, I wish I could parkour. That shit has fascinated me every since it was still called “free running” and I saw a piece on it on some news show.
I want so badly to be able to move like that. To just flow up walls and over rooftops and along fences and such, almost like a cat.
But I can’t do that kind of thing. And it’s not just because I’m old and crippled and fat. I wouldn’t be able to do it even if I was 25 and my ideal weight and I had kept on working out at the UPEI rec center instead of letting my social anxiety make me stop.
I could have used some Paxil back then,
Anyhow, my point is, even I was the picture of physical health, I still couldn’t parkour. This fleshly frame of mine is capable of many powerful things. It can carry a lot, it can do a lot of work, it can endure much, it can protect the quarterback.
But it’s not built for agility and there is nothing I could do short of a total brain transplant to change that.
Take that as a hint, science. Get on it!
And it strikes me that this very minor kind of dysphoria must be fairly common, at least amongst us deep and thoughtful types.
The average person, thankfully, just becomes whatever they are to become holus-bolus without ever thinking about what body they wish they’d gotten.
It takes some serious brainpower to make yourself miserable like that.
Where was I? Oh right, minor dysphoria being common.
I mean, we know that there can be a mismatch between body and brain. That’s medical fact. It’s almost like the brain and the body come from separate dice rolls and it’s sheer luck when they happen to match.
Well, okay, maybe it’s not that bad. But it’s bad.
That’s why I am so very supportive of not just trans people but anyone who feels like the inside does not match the outside and I want them to do whatever they need to do in order to feel right.
Even if it’s something other people find “cringe”. Like the “fat bearded dude in a Sailor Moon outfit” trope.
I’m not going to judge. If that makes you feel good, go for it, and let the weaklings cringe. You’re living for you, NOT them.
And I am saying this as someone who needs to pretend to be an anthropomorphic fox from outer space on a regular basis in order to feel sane.
Make the outside match the inside.
It doesn’t work the other way around, though many have tried.
More after the break.
From the inside out
For me, everything always starts from the middle.
By that, I mean that for me, inspiration and motivation and even belief have to come from somewhere deep inside me.
Maybe that’s a testament to just how much of an introverted intellectual I am. I dunno.
And I know that this reliance on the deepest and most mysterious, most intuitive part of my mind might sound a tad odd coming from a science loving rational materialist like me, but to me there’s no conflict because my reason and my intuition have always worked together seamlessly.
They’re like the left and right hands of my mind. Sure, one of them is probably stronger and/or more agile than the other, but I’d still be lost without either of them.
Ever had to deal with a temporary loss of the use of your non-dominant (submissive?) hand? Because that will teach you how much you need it right quick.
So even my most rigorously analytical thought processes use that awe-inspiring supercomputer that is my deep intuitive mind to do all the heavy lifting.
And even my most enigmatic creative thoughts, the ones that seem to have an enormously dense burst of information compressed into a nanosecond, still needs my conscious, rational mind to decompress, unpack, and organize them.
To me it’s all the same in the end. And I could not tell you where one begins and the other ends. Nor do I care.
The question that could really bake your noodle is whether or not I’m smart because of this close relationship between my brain hemispheres, or if my hemispheres get along so well because I am so darn smart.
Both. Neither. A quantum superposition of all possible states. Who cares?
I definitely don’t want to get caught up in yet another senseless dichotomy.
I have never responded well to being told I have to choose a side.
Fuck your goddamned sides. I don’t care whether Team Red or Team Blue wins. I’m not some junior jingoist eager to get picking a side over with as quickly and as thoughtlessly as possible so I can get to fighting (the fun part) all the faster.
Leave me out of your petty dominance games.
Or if I have to participate, let me be the ref.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.