blue eyed snake

very well put

for @Maddie

_/|\_

oh, excuse me, i did not make myself clear. he told me : i have this bunch of young and often quite aggressive guys and I teach them to be more dangerous then they already are. So I need to instill some responsibility in them. That's much harder then teaching them the physical things.

never thought of it in those terms, i mean I am just stumbling through life. but most people are just living, unaware and uninterested in spiritual ways of looking at life. My guess is most trans people do surgery to reduce their suffering and to be more compatible to both their own sense of self and society. as for me, it slowly grew as a youngster a NDE, so the identifications with body was never strong and the identification with sex specific characteristics just never was. I am not woman and societal rules made me believe that I then had to be a man. But I am not a man either so I am something inbetween, the younger generation came up with the term non-binary, for a while that fitted me but now, I am just BES as a weird cloud hanging around a physical body a luminous blob

thank you for this concise formulation _/|\_

the harrowing stories were on top, yesterday remembrance day was. today was freedomday for the first time in my life I did not attend, I am not able to go out but I did not look at the telly either. I do not want to see someone from a party that fulfills almost all the characteristics of fascism to lay a wreath for the fallen. I do fear for my country, for Europe and I would like to hear your musings. so maybe @steve can snip this off starting with my long post and title it: WW2, what it means for us and how to proceed.

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this is Rotterdam in 1930, the city were my dad grew up, he was 10 in 1930. He walked those street, probably doing the things that boys do at that age, hanging out at the kays, looking at the ships. start at 4.30 the first part is panoramic. this is what happened when he was 20, when I saw ( and see) ruined cities in Ukraine or gaza I always see the pain in my dads eyes. My mom was at home with her mom and her younger sister in a town close by Rotterdam, they could see and hear the bombs falling and my gran had to grab my mom preventing her running towards the city that held her lover. Gramp had died shortly before, much too young from a nasty illness. "Whether he lives or is dead, I will not let you run into an untimely death, you stay here" dad came out of it, physically unscarred but it kept living on in him, in his soul. That is why all the current wars hurt me so, so many people will be maimed and dead and their homes destroyed and for generations the trauma will carry on. They will carry the pain in their souls for generations. and then the last winter, the Germans were inevitably losing but they kept up in the western half of the netherlands, traditionally the richest part of my country, Rotterdam was and is a big harbor which is teeming with activity. My mom, then 22 arranged for her younger sister ( around 15 i think) to be brought to family in a rural part and although granny opposed it, it happened as she said and my aunt went to a farm were there was food. that winter was very cold and there was hardly anything to make fire and there was no food, people went out to farms to beg for food, or to barter for jewelry, anything. Flowerbulbs were eaten my mom never really wanted to tell things from the war but this she told me: one day we had a slice of bread, one slice for several people so we carefully divided that slice in as many parts as there were people ( 8 i think) and we were all slowly chewing and savoring the taste of real bread. Then someone knocked on the door and came in. We all felt guilty because he could not share in the bread anymore. one bite of bread ... the dutch winter of hunger - 1944-1945 when I see pictures of Gazan children, i see this too later, much later I did talk a bit about it with my mom, she told me of 1962, the year of the Cuba crisis. That she was so scared, what possessed me she told me, to intentionally become pregnant again, how will we take care of 5 children and a new baby when war rolls over us again. We hardly survived when there was only the 2 of us. that way war trauma flips over to the next generation, we did not live through it, but we were reared with parents who did and we came off lightly I guess. The babysit of my son had no family except for her parents, all family of the parents had been killed in concentration-camps, i shudder to think about it, what imprint that leaves.

yes regarding the depiction of Russians in books and films But remember my parents lived during German occupation, my dad lived in Rotterdam and was there while it was flattened by bombs, half of the war he spend hidden between floors and such. His cousin was caught, the last winter all of western netherlands was hungry and many died because there was no food and no ways to heat the houses. I do not know how many friends they lost during those years, they never told me. But for them remembrance day was definitely very personal losses. Also the germans had stolen everything they could during the occupation so it was years of work and hardship to put the country back on its feet. So there was a good and personal reason to be very critical on the Germans and I remember that from my early years. "lets not sit there" ( in a restaurant) those are Germans. still these perpetrators were slowly getting back in a groove called friendly neighbors

My teacher also taught Karate, he was at a high level in Karate. Once he told us that the important thing teaching those lads was to instill a sense of care in them. To make them act responsible.

I caught myself "yes but-ting" You're right. were does it come from? I am from Europe, my parents lived through WW2 as young adults, I know their fear for Russia(ns) never faded but in the last part of their life the emotions towards Germans seem to have disappeared.

interesting read, thank you for posting

No need to be sorry I have thought so much about these things, when I was young the possibility to take hormones and/or surgery simply was nonexistent. I know that those days I would have jumped at the change to take testosterone and have double mastectomy. To become more male, to better reflect my inner being into the physical body But now I am glad the temptation was not there for me, as it has taught me how to live with the body I was born in. It brings its own set of lessons which weren't funny to live through but now I see their worth. I hd to connect with both the maculine and later in life the feminine part of me to find balance, to find I am just human and gender has become negligible ( for me). There has been a time where I thought that the modern term nonbinary is a good fit for me but atm it feels as if its all just past me, that these were all phases to arrive at: BES is a genderless human. But in the current society it's less hard to live as a very masculine woman then as a very feminine man and I keep thinking that it is society at large that has to change, so that feminine men and masculine women can easier find their place in society, without getting pushed in the duality male/female. That we all have to learn that male/female is not a dichotomy but a continuum. Just as not everybody can see colors, accommodate these people, or left-handedness, many things really. although were all human there are big differences between how our bodies and minds function. should we do away with very smart people because they do not conform to the median? how about people with very low IQ and if you say yes to one of those, why is that, and why not the other and who are you to judge? also, i deem the early interventions dangerous. When someone has reached adult age it's their choice as in modern society it is totally normalized to shape the body as you want it. I come from a time were surgery on a classmate of mine with very floppy ears was deemed over the top by many parents. My thinking mind is formed and shaped in those days, I shy away from surgery when the body is healthy.