Quote:
Originally Posted by EnderD_503
I actually wanted to address this before, but then I got distracted and blah blah blah. Anyways, now I address  I get what you mean about liking the word when used in a ritual sense or a sense of making a transition to different stages of life etc. I don't like the word in the way it's used in the case of my own sex. As far as myself as a person, I tend to think of myself more as a progression. Am I splitting hairs...?
As far as my sex, the idea of a transition irks me because to me it implies that I suddenly become male or that I am becoming male and will be entirely male at some given point. For me the word disregards who I've considered myself to be since I could remember my thoughts on anything. I realise that my body doesn't match my brain and that I'm trying to make it reflect my brain, but I still don't see it as a process of becoming male for me because my awareness of being male, of being myself has its source somewhere other than in the nature of my reproductive organs or my chest. The great archetypal Ender/what being male means to me is in my mind. My mind, my thoughts, my instincts then go about trying to recreate physical Ender into what he should have been, so that eventually both physical and mental Enders are inline with archetypal Ender...but archetypal Ender has always been there.
Ok, I think I stopped making sense somewhere along the road to crazyville...hopefully you get what I'm saying lol |
No I get that. I guess I was more along the lines of the transition boys had to make into men - sometimes it took up to a year of being separate from the group to think about the changes that would be expected from them, the changes their body would be going through and the changes in responsibility. Like say the Bull roarer ceremony at the end of that period. After that, they no longer lived with their mothers. They were always male. they were always who their personalities were. it's just an acknowledgement that things will change socially/recognition wise.
Or a wedding ceremony - you may have been living together for several years before the wedding. Now comes the legal commitment with all the majour differences than can entail - legally.
Of course the person and who that person is has always been there in both examples. There's just a formal recognition and the leading up period of preparation for formally acknowledged differences.
I do get what you mean though.
as much as I can, like. It's not something within my experience that particular journey. I have my own "transitions" that were always present, but nothing of that flavour so I can't pretend to "get" it in the way it's experienced by those who go through that particular kind.