Fuck Freud and fuck the totality of the psyche. "Humanity" is the sum-total of the embodied beings who privately have "impulses, desires and inclinations" (and more) which we can not directly share with each other, but who publicly share a culture of material goods which we produce and consume together.

This is the final word on the subject. Anything further you might add on the matter will just be sour grapes.

the totality of the psyche — Blue Lux

Ahhhhh, I see. "Totality of the psyche". Yes, totality of the psyche is the very model of limpid clarity, compared to that murky clunker "humanity".

You are basically saying, again, that the abject, terrible screams and agonies of rape/murder victims do not matter, and we should focus more on maintaining this ideal of a humanity that does not resort to evil. Evil does not exist. — Blue Lux

No one here has suggested that the suffering of murder and rape victims does not matter. If it didn't matter, there would be no laws against either of those acts, and no punishment either. Obviously, they matter. Equally obvious is that evil most certainly does exist.

That your partner was raped as a child is an evil; that someone was prepared to rape him as a child is an evil. But evil is not undone by more evil. We needn't get into theology here. Just as a practical matter, the evil done to your partner would not be undone by anything that was done to the rapist.

↪Bitter Crank To call homosexuality a crime is brainless. Trump might have been right in saying that countries like that are sh#tholes countries full of absolutely ignorant, mongoloid-like people. — Blue Lux

Lots of countries are shitholes, no doubt about it. Of course it is stupid to call homosexuality a crime -- though the mongoloid idiot people in the US, Germany, UK, and other imbecilic places decriminalized homosexuality only recently. I know a few elderly people who were subjected to brutal medical treatment--frontal lobotomy--for being homosexual--never mind acting on it.

If humanity is constituted by the behavior and actions of humans... Humanity is diseased! — Blue Lux

You may have heard of original sin, perhaps? That man is incapable of not sinning? That the Fall left us depraved? I don't subscribe to original sin theology, but it's one theological theory that seems to have plenty of historical validation. We need not fear walking through the valley of death, because we are the meanest sons of bitches in the valley.

If a person, by whatever means, commits an atrocity... They should therefore have no rights — Blue Lux

You are, no doubt, aware that in a number of countries (Nigeria, for example) homosexual sex is a capital crime. It's a capital crime, punished by cruel and unusual methods elsewhere too. Homosexuals are considered abominations by some people, so... are they justified in burning us at the stake?

1. There could be machines that do it instead of a person. — Blue Lux

Execution machines? Is this the best idea you can come up with?

Humanity is an illusion. — Blue Lux

I said "bullshit" when Margaret Thatcher said there is no such thing as society, and I say "bullshit" when you say there is no such thing as humanity.

4. They dehumanized themselves. That is radical responsibility. — Blue Lux

Yes. Child rapists, serial murderers, mass murderers, and others defile themselves by their heinous acts, dehumanize themselves and alienate the rest of humanity from themselves, etc. We are well advised to avoid the same to ourselves by giving in to blood lust, by listening in to the screams of the tortured, etc.

We know full well how we operate: People have greatly enjoyed watching lynchings which involved castrations, penis removals, burnings alive, and so forth -- not in the medieval period, but within the lifetimes of living people.

But look: There isn't a wide gulf separating any human being from a murderer, a rapist, a bomber, etc. The difference is somewhat in kind, certainly, but mostly the difference is in degree. That's why we can contemplate cutting off the penis (without anesthesia, I suppose) of someone who committed rape. That is why we can imagine disemboweling someone who committed murder. Not only can we imagine it, there would probably be plenty of applicants for the job.

Staying human isn't a passive act. We have to work at, mostly by expending considerable energy in suppressing our worst urges.

The reasons civilized, humane people object to public hangings, drawing and quartering, skinning alive, burning at the strake, chopping off hands/tongues/penises and anything liable to a clever, are four-fold:

First, performing torture unto death is an inherently dehumanizing, degrading experience for the person elected to perform the task.

Second, legislating torture unto death dehumanizes and degrades both the legislators and their electors

Third, viewing a torture unto death (these sorts of things have always been popular where allowed), is dehumanizing and degrading to the observer,

fourth, being tortured unto death is dehumanizing and degrading to the subject.

Everyone involved in torture unto death, either directly or as indirectly as merely approving of this kind of punishment is contaminated by the retrograde act of ancient tribal justice.

All this applies to torture short of death, as well.

Look, we're making some progress. Many in the world disapprove of female clitorectomy, female disinfibulation (scaring the vagina shut prior to marriage), and male circumcision. Foot binding in china was ended... about a century ago. There are laws in many countries (particularly in the West) against torturing people to extract information. There are strong objections to putting prisoners in solitary confinement for periods longer than... 3 days, is it? (Some prisoners have been kept in solitary for months or years.) Most countries in the west have patient protection through informed consent. #MeToo gets people fired for unsubstantiated claims of sexual harassment. Transexuals, Transgendered people, and homosexuals have legal protection. Et cetera.

If being hanged, electrocuted, drugged, gassed, shot, or strangled doesn't prevent people from committing capital crimes, I don't think making this even more grotesque will do the trick.

We have to accept that a certain number of slight, moderate, and very bad criminal acts will occur in society. they will range from shoplifting to serial murder and serial rape. The best we can do is try to prevent crime (we really don't try very hard in that area), rehabilitate criminals (we flat-out fail in most cases) and separate dangerous people from society (right now we separate way, way too many ordinary criminals from society -- at huge expense with no benefit to anyone except the prison business of states and private industry).

If someone found his or her spouse in flagrante delictio and in rage kills the interloper on the spot, they are likely to receive a long prison sentence to keep them out of society -- even though (if memory serves me) they are quite unlikely to murder anyone else. There quite infrequent recidivism doesn't mean they should not be punished -- just that a long term (at public expense) is probably quite unproductive.

Thieves, on the other hand, tend to reoffend -- likely because they will not find prison rehabilitative, and will end up back in the community and circumstances where they started.

I was not born to be determined. I was born free. I have always been free. I choose everything that I am. — Blue Lux

These are heroic claims. They are validating and contribute to your sense of being a proudly autonomous being. They might, however, be a bit of a delusion, or misapprehension. I resist your confidence not because I want to degrade you in any way, but because your claim may be wrong, and I want to encourage you to think it through again. Whether you think it through again or not, you'll still be gay, still be confident of who you are, still be an autonomous being (more or less), and still be happy with who you are.

We are given a certain embodied form at conception and during prenatal development. The way the neural tube of the fetus develops into the brain has a great deal to say about "who I am" without any choice on my part. I am gay, male, visually impaired, fairly bright, 5'10", once dark brown but now white hair, male pattern balding (rats!), descended from English and Irish forebears, etc. I didn't choose any of this. I am reasonably well educated -- that was a choice pursued over many years of formal and informal study. There are people who (so they say) never read another book after college. I presume they chose to stop learning.

We are a mix of embodied conditions which we could not have chosen and choices which we could and did make.

Some gay men choose to dress in drag from time to time. I might have made that choice, but I was too stupid to figure out how to pull that off. Some people make wise decisions throughout their lives which advance their careers. I may have chosen--or it may have been a given--to be an obstinate resistor to the general goals of American society, so I failed to have a glorious career. That had to do with choice, mostly. (or maybe not.)

The list of givens, choices, chance occurrences, and so forth that make us who we are is long. Yes, we do make choices, but we can not be sure that the way we choose isn't also the result of a given. Some people, for instance, are risk averse (or risk tolerant), and make decisions accordingly. Risk tolerance or aversion seems to be present from an early age.

Whose prose are we reading here? No author cited.

I'm just saying "no gender" is just as much a category as "gender." — TheWillowOfDarkness

How does a human not have gender? My computer does not have gender and a door knob lacks gender (even if it's LA poignée de porte). You know, it's a knob -- its range of behaviors is extremely limited, unless it is very inventive. But door knobs are morons.

People should discuss politics while drinking. Strong drink makes for a lighter heart and a less critical mind. Plus, if you drink enough, you won't remember the stupid things that were said, to you, by you...

The American punishment system composed of long prison terms, capital punishment, grotesque prison conditions, et al are largely for the benefit and satisfaction of everyone except the convicted who, because they have been convicted, no longer matter in the eyes of the public.

It's a system that often de-humanizes, alienates, and degrades the criminal.

Whether justice is miscarried or not, a conviction and even a short term in prison is often an enduring punishment, because having been convicting and having served time is frequently an effective barrier against employment.

You are simply wrong. — Blue Lux

Perhaps; perhaps not.

I am glad your friend is happier as Ryan than he was as Rachel. I've read stories about young people like Rachel/Ryan (various ages) and as I mentioned, I've known a number of transsexuals; maybe a dozen since the 1970s--three quite well. I take their perceived and expressed problems seriously, and I respect them as persons. But this isn't about any particular person. It's about a phenomena which has gradually become increasingly visible over the last 60 to 70 years in various countries around the world.

I started out taking the explanations of trans persons at face value, and did so for oh...40 years, at least. It has only been recently that I have started questioning the stated rationale, or etiology of transsexual/transgenderism. Is it organic? Is it caused by the same sort of at-present-unknown-prenatal-or-genetic-conditions that causes sexual orientation?

Or is it caused more by the prompting of social cues? You know, POMO theory says that sexuality and gender are constructed. There's nothing biological about it the POMO camp says. Is the trans movement socially constructed? Does it come out of social views about gendered behavior? Is transsexual/transgenderism a consequence of profound cultural change?

I don't have a dog in this fight (I'm not trans) but I am perplexed, and I don't believe the phenomena has been adequately explained.

Adults should listen to the concerns children have about themselves, including depression, gender identity, etc. — Maw

Of course. But that doesn't mean that everything children say about how they feel amounts to good diagnosis.

Pronouns, in this discussion, are not the heart of the issue. They are quite peripheral. The heart of the issue is an individual's invention that he is now a she (or she is now a he). It is the invention that is the problem, not the pronoun.

I will readily grant that a determined person can pull this off, and in many settings can pass. Several times I've witnessed the transformation over time as a sows ear was transitioned into a silk purse. How about a secular Jewish woman transitioning into an ultra-orthodox Jewish male? That change involved moving a lot of mental furniture. My contention is that the individual is INVENTING a new persona. I don't have anything against people inventing new personas for themselves, either. (There are people I wish to hell would find a new persona.) What I object to is the claim that their new persona reflects a biological reality, that they were really the opposite gender all along, and now they are the right one.

No. Biologically, they are pretty much the same body and mind they were before the transition. (How could it be otherwise?) They may have experienced a metanoia -- new life -- (butterfly analogy) and good for them. Excuse me for seeing in them the same worm they were before they sewed on wings.

I might not believe a 45 year old guy is entirely on the level who announces that he is transgender and is going to become a woman. But, you know, he is 45 years old. Old enough to take care of himself, herself, whatever. I find it quite unsatisfactory when young people, children in elementary school, early adolescents just starting puberty, 18 year olds... make the same announcement. This strikes me, frankly, as a social infection.

I suspect that these claims are made under parental influence (in the case of very young children) or because it seems like a solution to "the difficult matter of one's persona -- who the hell am I?" I was gay and confused about my identity for years. I'm glad that I was not pushed into an early and active gay identity, or that "transsexual" or "Transgender" had even been heard of. i've never once thought I was trans in any way, but these days it might be suggested. Peers might encourage it. In the 1950s, of course, such a thing was out of the question.

Human beings operate many delusional systems. Look at religion. I understand that people really and truly believe that God looks after them. I used to subscribe to that delusion too. Once one understands religions as a delusional system, one can't then grant it reality. The same applies to trans-issues. Once one sees it as invention and delusion, one can't credit it with being reality.

The Greek and Romans who were two major players in the rise of Western Civilization. They were olive skinned and not white. They have been lumped as white, by a left wing racism scam. Christianity began in the middle east where Arab skin color was the norm. They were not white. — wellwisher

Is a darkly tanned German not white? Is a light-skinned Syrian not an Arab?

"Race" owes its existence to the geography of human expansion outwards from Africa. One group went west (Europeans), two went east (Asians and Amerindians). Africans moved around too, but within Africa. If we assume for a moment that Norwegians and Greeks are both native Europeans with no other-group mixing, we would still end up with differences in skin tone. Over time, people who are exposed to higher levels of ultraviolet sun light develop more melanin as a defensive reaction. People who live near the poles (Norwegians, for example) lose melanin over time so that they can manufacture enough Vitamin D to survive.

Of course there was mixing among groups that were close to each other. But what makes "Western Civilization", or the other Civilizations, is culture, not melanin.

"Bad behavior" is a human phenomena, not a racial phenomena. People are just not that nice, and no matter where they are, no matter what civilization they have created, no matter how good they are overall--we still have horrible practices. As for the United States, you can not get away with finding one section of the country innocent and another section guilty; you can't hold one political party as noble and decent and the other parties as criminal enterprises.

In the history of slavery and Amerindian genocide, every part of the country was involved, no political party represented the interests of poor whites, blacks, amerindians or asians for very long -- no longer than it was temporarily expedient. True: there were more abolitionists in the NE than there were in the SE parts of the US. True: The North, and the Republican Party (as it was in 1860) led the war to maintain the Union and attempt reconstruction of the South. True: a Republic president issued the Emancipation Proclamation. True: after the civil war, after reconstruction had failed and was given up for dead, the North and South, Democrats and Republicans (as they were then constituted) resumed political aims which were not in the interests of poor whites, blacks, amerindians or asians. Both parties tended to serve the interests of rich people who, in this country, happened to be white.

The history of all civilization includes dungeons, massacres, ethnic cleansing of one sort or another, misgovernment, tyranny, slavery, corruption, class favoritism (the richest getting the most and best favors), and so on and so forth. It also includes great art, libraries, invention, religious innovations, good environmentalism, learning, and so on and so forth.

Please don't improve the site very much. Some of us are getting old and changes are upsetting. Gmail is about to spring a new version on me. I don't know how much more I can take before I soil my Depends.

The English-speaking world could do with an Academy of English. Considering how much French was shoved down Anglo Saxon throats by W the C in an act of mass Franco-fellatio, maybe L'Académie Française could open a branch in London and New York to supervise the Francophile Contribution to English.

I'll volunteer to head up the Anglo Saxon Vocabulary Recovery Program.

Et bordel de merde, si tes capable de comprendre qu'une table est au feminin en langue de Voltaire, tu devrais pas avoir trop de misere avec l'idee d'appeler un mec 'elle'. — Akanthinos

Per Google Translate: "And shit hell, if you can understand that a table is female in Voltaire, you should not have too much misery with the idea of ​​calling a guy 'her'."

L'Académie Française needs to have a tête à tête with Monsieurs Sergey Brin and Larry Page (they own about half of Google).

That's just jumping around the context of my words. — Terran Imperium

and

Same here. Of course, my choice of word might have been poor. Although as I said the context of my words were pretty clear about that. — Terran Imperium

I was just being flippant there. Sorry.

Well you certainly are a crank. ... Where have I heard this song and dance from before? — MindForged

Please note: I wasn't suggesting at all that trans people should be treated badly. What I said was that I didn't want to become part of their performance of what they imagined themselves to be. Other people can do that if they want.

I've known quite a few transsexuals over the last 45 years. Most of them were likable people, some were charming, some were a pain in the neck. They all had an array of talents and abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Some of them I count as friends.

FaceFuck lists(ed) 58 gender options (below) from which to choose. Most of these look kind of redundant to me, but I am sure there are partisans ready to defend to their death the critical difference between being a cis male and a cis man, between gender fluid and gender juice. My growing antipathy to transsexualism as a movement is derived much more from these latter day gender jockeys, who probably don't know their asses from their elbows, than the previous generation of transsexuals who just wanted to be a woman instead of a man.

FuckFace's list
Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis boom bah humbug
Cisgender
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans*
Trans Female
Trans* Female
Trans Male
Trans* Male
Trans Man
Trans* Man
Trans Person
Trans* Person
Trans Woman
Trans* Woman
Transfeminine
Transgender
Transgender Female
Transgender Male
Transgender Man
Transgender Person
Transgender Woman
Transmasculine
Transsexual
Transsexual Female
Transsexual Male
Transsexual Man
Transsexual Person
Transsexual Woman
Two-Spirit

you can't force a treatment down a patient's throat — Terran Imperium

Of course you can. The patient may not like it, it may not be legal, it's very bad manners, but it is definitely possible.

You can't pretend to be something when you aren't — Terran Imperium

Of course you can. Anyone can "pretend" anything. The audience may not believe the fakery, the fakery may not be performed very well, and one may not be rewarded for one's efforts, but it is possible.

(Old joke: Neurotics build castles in the sky; psychotics live in them; psychiatrists collect the rent. In the case of sexual identity, gender clinics are collecting the rent.)

One of the phenomena we are confronted with a lot these days is excessive sensitivity to real or imagined slights, an epidemic of narcissism, and extremely inflexible ideology. So you have people whose ideology (feminism, just one of several) is very reactive. They are always set to go off when stepped on (like land mines), and their bellyaching is amplified in an echo chamber.

Of course it's possible for a man to imagine he is a woman, and visa versa. If they are good actors, he can fake it convincingly. Ditto for women who imagine they are men. I say, "Go right ahead. Imagine what you want, and if you can pull it off, you can act as if your fantasies are real. If you can't, people will just laugh at you. If you are an interesting person (whatever else you are) I'll be polite--I might even want to be your friend. What I won't do is join the show. I'm not going to pretend that you are actually a woman. If you have a penis, testicles, beard, xy chromosomes, and so on--all in working order, you can go to a chop shop and get remodeled, take estrogen, get your breasts enlarged, change your hair, wardrobe, etc. and you may look just like a woman. But to me you are still a man, (and visa versa if you are a woman imagining herself to be a man).

1. As children we mimic others' behaviour — Benkei

Yes, we do. Quite so. But there is a critical step that occurs at the same time involving parental instruction and punishment. Children are instructed to obey, behave, be quiet, play nicely with others, etc. and when they don't, they are punished. Punishment may be nothing more than being required to sit on a chair for a while (what terror!) or stay in their room alone (appalling) or some such thing. They may also be spanked (quelle horreur!). The essence of the child's punishment is the display of parental disapproval, and for a very young child, the possibility of the parent withdrawing their love (though of course the child wouldn't think in those terms). The parent has no intention of withdrawing their love, of course.

The fear of love's loss is what instills in the child the desire to "be good"--later on to act ethically. If this desire is not instilled, the child probably will not have a strong orientation towards acting ethically. That doesn't mean they will end up in prison before they reach 21, but they may slip and slide more around ethical issues. They may, for instance, preferentially opt to work for the Trump administration.

2. At some point we internalise our own behaviour along certain ethical rules — Benkei

What is internalized is the role of the parent. The parent is the guide for good behavior, and by the time the child is in pre-school (3-4-5 years of age) the job of internalizing mama cop and papa cop is done (one sincerely hopes). The internalized role of determining right behavior will get more complicated as the child grows up.

I have a couple suspicions but they must remain confidential. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Based on the quality of his prose, I suspect apo of being a journalist. (A suspicion of "journalist" should in no way, manner, shape, or form be considered negative).

Oddly, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights doesn't mention the right to water. Article 25 (1) at least mentions food and shelter. It reads...

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. — UN UDHR

Which is odd because the Universal Declaration covers just about every other conceivable right that anyone would want to claim. Perhaps in 1948 water was invisible, just as "a tolerable average atmospheric temperature" and "tolerably clean air" may have been invisible at the time. Or perhaps the authors who went to such great length to spell out every other conceivable right subsumed "water" under "food.

Already in the present, and more so in the future, breathable air (a lot better than New Delhi on a bad day) and drinkable water have become a very basic need that is going unmet. "Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!" Coleridge rhymed. It's tomorrow's great crisis.

From what I remember — Sir2u

That was an old joke (heard at least 50 years ago) aligned to 1970s realities and before, and was told in Luther Land. Priests were still well thought of and Baptists were a rarity. Rabbis there were none, but a Jew was needed for the joke. Most of the really good jokes I've heard are 50 years old, because over the last 30 or 40 years, the really funny joke has become impossible.

Of course, the priests were romping over the choirboys back then--even doing their mothers, occasionally. 1970 priests are the material in the current scandals. The several gay priests I knew back in the1970s may or may not have had the occasional choirboy, I don't know. most were sexually active but decent guys.

we are absolutely incapable of expressing to anyone else, specifically and superlatively, meaning.
Is this the case?
Am I thus alone to my own experiences after all? — Blue Lux

Yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that we are unique individuals whose experiences are not duplicated. Yes, in the sense that our POV is singular. Yes, in the sense that we can not transfuse the contents of our brains with others (like a Vulcan mind meld (Star Trek) or the Bene Gesserit mind sharing (Dune). But... even though we are singular, unique individuals, we are not shrink-wrapped in lead and asbestos.

No, in the sense that we are porous. Before our birth until our death we constantly exchange information with other singular, unique beings who are also porous. We did not invent the language with which we hear, read, think, speak, and write. We did not invent the culture in which we are immersed. We are quite inter-dependent. We are even porous on a biological level, taking in one another's molecules, viruses, bacteria, proteins, etc. and expelling our own.

Not only are we engaged with one another on many levels from before birth until death, but we are biologically required to be so engaged. If we are not so engaged, we will die an early death.

We are both individual, unique, alone AND tangled up with many other individuals, most of whom came before us (as progenitors or cultural creators) or are rubbing up against us now. We can draw a curtain around ourselves and pretend that we are all alone, but this will give way pretty quickly to hunger, thirst, and boredom, and we will pull the curtains back and go look for company--probably to triumphantly explain to them how we are all alone.

We can speak intelligently, we can transmit complex meaning accurately and vividly (in poetry, for instance) because we draw from a common well of meaning (the vast ocean of culture). True, we can make communication very difficult through deliberate efforts or incompetence, but we can get the point across when we want to.

If it were the case that "we are absolutely incapable of expressing to anyone else, specifically and superlatively, meaning." then there wouldn't be a cultural ocean to draw from, we wouldn't have language, and we wouldn't be chatting with one another. We would be worse off than pan troglodytes throwing feces at each other.

It's probably not polite to break out laughing during a funeral just because somebody mentioned life after death, but sure -- laugh at religion. All of them. Often. Loudly.

Like this:

A farmer had to go to town to get machine parts, so he told his wife to be careful because some reverend or another would probably stop by.

"If it's the Catholic priest, be sure to hide all the liquor, because you know how priests always get drunk. If it's a Lutheran minister, hide the food, because you know how they tend to eat everything. If it's a rabbi, hide the money. Now if the Baptist minister stops by" and here he turns to his young son, "you get up on mommy's lap and you stay there."

Is it part of human nature to be racist, sexist, and what ever else you can think of to discriminate against? — Sir2u

How to put this politely... In a nutshell, yes. It is part of human nature to be sexist, racist, nationalist, fascist, capitalist, socialist, democratic, autocratic, plutocratic, didactic, pragmatic, enigmatic, automatic--all sorts of things. Human beings are not, basically, nice. That's because we are not angels. (We're not demons either.) We're primates. Bright primates, true, 100,000,000,000 brain cells and all, but close relatives of pan troglodytes. Part of the animal continuum.

We're nice to the friends we like; we're usually good to our children; we treat our mates reasonably well most of the time. On the other hand, given some incentive (it doesn't seem to require a lot) we will happily gang up on your crowd and just kill you, your friends, your mates, and your children. Bombs away. "Oh dear, a bomb accidentally landed on a school/terrorist hideout. What a pity."

We are not typically, as a rule -- all day long -- fair, reasonable, polite, welcoming, generous, non-discriminating, accepting, cosmopolitan, etc.

We tend to be self-centered, egotistical, protective of our turf.

An extreme view, you say?

Probably. But we are certainly not the antithesis of all that, either. We're not a happy medium, either. We're on the rough side.

Yes, I should, could, would write a book; I'm trying, but... A draft of my life's story (which was part of the book) is perhaps buried on the hard drive of a 40 year old Mac plus in the basement. There it may stay forever... Of course, It's my story, so I can always tell it again, but that first round was unusually thorough and frank.

I've done lots of research on national gay history, interviewed a batch of people, and have been interviewed myself for some other people's books on local gay history. The trouble is, a lot of my curiosity was sated in the process of doing the research. But yes, I should write the damn book.

You have suffered a lot -- particularly child abuse, PTSD, depression, attempted suicide, and losing the love of your life. I can only guess what all that was like.

But... Congratulations! You found a way back to the surface; you found a new life; you experienced a metanoia, butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. All that takes courage, to accept what is and integrate it into a positive new whole.

All to the good!

2 + 2 = 4 whether I like it or not. It isn't that I am indifferent to, or upbeat about global warming. I'm not. There are a lot of doom and gloom scenarios that I think are going to come true. I find them ranging from bad to awful to horrifying. So, how can I "feel" upbeat at the same time. Well, the same way everybody else can: The boat is slowly sinking, but in the meantime service is excellent.

I also feel like I've lived my life. I'll accept more good years, for sure, but I know that my death is not all that far away -- a lot of these things will happen after I'm dust. Were I 30 years old, everything being equal, this all would be a lot harder to maintain. There were times during the the 1980s AIDS crisis that I thought I was probably doomed to die in just a few years -- wouldn't make it to 50, maybe. Lots of guys I knew were dying. I am still surprised I didn't get AIDS.

Maybe I am sometimes confusing "relinquishment" with "optimism". I can let go of some concerns, because they are history (like bad jobs), or they are beyond my influence (like CO2 emissions). Yes, I recycle, compost, and add as little garbage to the pile as I can, like any responsible person does. But I know the major reductions have to be decided by people way above me. I've let go of that problem. I've let go of the problems of the Church, too. Capitalism? Not going away tomorrow. Socialism? Dream on. Etc.

Laugh -- but it wasn't a joke -- those two cases were actual people who were actually shafted, totally screwed, and might as well throw in the sponge.

Maybe the brain is just not producing enough good-time neurotransmitters and is instead producing too many "we're all fucked" neurotransmitters. The more technical terms are serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. Either way, we can't really measure the neurotransmitter levels in the structures of the brain where they operate.

All I know is that when I stopped feeling depressed a few years ago, I changed from reflexive pessimism ("that will never work") to a much more hopeful and positive outlook ("Hey, give it a try.") My opinions haven't changed -- I still think capitalism totally sucks, I think global warming will probably kill us off, but in the meantime, I feel great.

The DSM needs a category of people who are the recipients of very unfortunate events. Let's call this category "Shafted by Bad Luck (SBL Syndrome). Billions of people are shafted and screwed every year, and many of them never quite get back to normal.

Let's say that one loved literature, was encouraged to major in English and later got an MFA in poetry writing, but then finds that one can't make anywhere close to enough money to pay one's college loans back (and one can't declare bankruptcy to get rid of them). Our well-read poet is now working as a bartender and a waiter. He feels totally screwed. And guess what -- he is. He is suffering from SBL Syndrome. He should have majored in molecular biology or gone to trade school.

Here's another case: A couple didn't do a great job raising their children. It's hard to tell what went wrong, but they're not terribly responsible and seem to need continuing parental help, even though the children are now in their mid-30s. The parents, meantime, are getting old and feel they should retire. But they can't because they helped their children too much. They are tired, hopeless, peeved, and dissatisfied -- as well they should be. They too are victims of SBL Syndrome. Maybe they shafted themselves through the best of intentions, but they are broke now, and too old to do anything about it.

"Depression is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign one has been trying too hard for too long." — Blue Lux

This ties in with the observation that depressed people are often perfectionists. The set very high standards for themselves which they can not fulfill, and feel like failures for not achieving the undoable. I don't know why depression stimulates perfectionist tendencies, but it seems to in many people -- it certainly did for me. By nature I am a big picture person and do not like dealing with the details that are involved in perfection. "Close enough for government work" is more my approach.

Another problem with "depression" (Freud, Jung, and World Congress of Psychoanalysts not withstanding) is that a lot of things get labeled as "depression" which are not. For instance, many people are...

intensely frustrated by their circumstances
very angry
over-worked
lonely
terminally bored
deeply in debt
drink too much
use too many drugs
grew up or are living in chaotic families and do not know what "normal" looks like
very angry
unemployed
socially marginalized and excluded

and so on and so forth. Various combinations of these conditions can look like vague mental illness or "depression". Medication isn't going to help much. Xanax may calm you down; Prozac may or may not make you feel better. In general, one won't feel better until one does something about the problems in ones life that are unsatisfactory.

These people aren't sick -- they are more likely just screwed, or are very unlucky and unfortunate.

Years ago, I would have agreed with you. It was used far to often on far too many people with no observable benefit, other than that it may have made patients more manageable because they were in a daze afterwards. However, after ECT became anathema and was seldom performed, it was found that severely to terminally depressed patients didn't respond to medication, did respond to ECT.

ECT is more complicated than it looks. For instance, most patients are properly sedated before they receive ECT. However, it was found that severely depressed patients with certain kinds of neurological disorders responded much better to ECT if they received a small dose of caffeine first. I don't know why the caffeine helped, but it did.

Still, most people who are depressed, or have other mental illnesses, are NOT candidates for ECT.

I fail to see the benefits of depresson — Aleksander Kvam

I've been depressed for a long time and I haven't seen one single benefit from it. Disease is not beneficial. Disease is harmful. We don't have to find some hidden silver lining under the shit pile.

What on earth is keeping you from disclosing your experiences? You are posting behind an opaque screen.

I personally, in my depression, have found myself wallowing in it — Blue Lux

We are sorry to inform you that Mr. Posty McPostface has established a firm claim to the unique characteristic of "Wallowing". "Wallowing -- it's what I do." That was in his pig avatar phase. Perhaps he has relinquished the claim, but probably not.

Depression is willed because one does not want to free that emotion. — Blue Lux

I'm not buying this theory.

I thought depression was remedied by realizing those feelings, and not suppressing them? — Posty McPostface

"realizing those feelings" (whatever they are) makes them available for evaluation and intervention. Just realizing them doesn't make them go away.

The reason they call it "depression" and not something else is that "depression" is a dysfunctional, lowering of mental/emotional functioning. Depression can be mild (feeling sort of blue these days); moderate (I can't sleep, can't get my work done, i feel awful); severe (Maybe I should kill myself; I have a gun and nobody cares, anyway); and terminal (catetonia -- one is emotionally, cognitively, physically unresponsive, and if this goes on long enough, one will die.

Many people with depression actually exhibit quite a bit of will power. They do not feel like it, but they make themselves get out of bed, take care of the children, do their work, take the dog for a walk (the dog isn't depressed, after all and insists on it), and so forth. One can not will one's self out of depression -- I don't care how much of an übermensch/Superman one thinks one is. What one can will are decisions: changes in life that will perhaps make one feel better. Quitting a bad job, moving into a better neighborhood with less dirt, noise, disorder; quitting a bad relationship; and so on. None of these sorts of changes are guaranteed to make one less depressed, but wallowing (sorry Posty) in the same shithole month after month is certainly not going to result in progress.

Some people seem to have depression which is moderate to severe, is not caused by circumstances, and will not improve with a change in circumstances. They may have to receive extra care, and these days, medication and/or electroshock therapy (which seems to help severe and terminal depression).

everything — Posty McPostface

Accept "everything" was a joke. Sorry. Didn't think anybody would take it too seriously. Acceptance doesn't mean one likes it. One doesn't have to like/approve of/admire/believe/ whacko post-modernists or far-right Republicans. but one has to "accept" that they exist. Accepting that they exist enables one to know who to waylay in a dark alley and pound sense into their heads.

So, maybe your depression is not at all circumstantial, but is rather endemic. If it is endemic, then there is probably nothing you can do in terms of change that will make a difference. Many people have mental illnesses that are not a result of lifestyle or life-decisions. Schizophrenics aren't schizophrenic because they didn't eat their green leafy vegetables or didn't exercise regularly or didn't got to bed at 10:30 p.m.

We do get stuck with bad deals. I was born with really poor vision which has always been a disadvantage which I have felt and still feel (bad vision limits one's options). What could be done about it was done, but only some improvement was possible. My tough luck. I developed depression; more bad luck. Maybe I made some bad career decisions which left me cornered in unrewarding work. Anyway, I'm stuck with it.

You are depressed. Apparently you've been depressed for quite some time. Bad luck.

Some people seem to be born with zero problems and live lives of pretty much continual improvement---damn their hides. Most of us get stuck with manure piles of various sizes.

Don't ask me, I never figured out the secret to popping depression's black lead balloon. After 30+ years, I'm still taking an antidepressant.

That said, I'll fall back on the motto of the Radical Therapists: "Therapy means change." If one is depressed, one may be able to change the circumstances of their life. This may involve changes that seem unthinkably risky, ill-advised, reckless, etc. But the truth is, we usually have to make significant changes to our lives.

In my case, life made the changes for me. I could not have made them. The end of work (I realized the last job I had was really the last job I was going to have) and the death of my partner from cancer ended one stage of my life and ushered in another -- much less stressful -- one. I would not have voluntarily quit, and would not have left Bob. But as I said, life intervened.

There were earlier times in my life when I should have executed decisions that would have improved my mental health, but I didn't. Didn't have the insight for that at the time.