Existentialism

[CJ]

Hi all,

Good points, Elizabeth! In many ways, I also admire Darlene's determination. I find it amazing that the individualism both you and she express in your lives can take you both in such different directions.

Oh, the wonder of being human.

Love,
CJ

[Loretta Ann]

CJ,

I am not so sure Elizabeth and I are all that much different.

She is coming out of circumstances that required more of her than has been required of me. And I have the highest respect for some of the choices she has had to make that seem so different than mine. Many of them parallel decisions I have made in the past. where the circumstances were different.

She is facing her mountains like I faced my mountains, her mountains are different than mine Although it is the same tools that are required for victory.

She also may need more than I do in order to feel satisfied with herself, but that is not the only element involved, in what makes us appear so different.

[Lorna]

I have my entire life, most likely because I am a crossdresser, but it seems like it started before that, felt like I was on the outside. Like I didn't fit in to a society that everyone else did not seem to have a problem with.

I felt boxed in by social rules. I didn't like that wealthy kids had more rights than me. I didn't like that certain people would be treated differently depending on what church they went to. But mainly I objected to the fact that it was not permitted to think outside the box.

I objected because I was continually outside the box. Because the social rules did not favor me, I could not see why I would want to obey them.

You and me both, sister!

For as long as I can remember I was “outside of the box” long before Lorna even existed. However I did not become openly existentialist until well into my adulthood.

As a child I was lousy at sports and small for my age. I couldn’t bench press more than 125 pounds until I was almost 17 years old. Even though I made the football team months later I knew that I was “overcompensating”, that I was just “going through the motions” somehow. I was not being entirely true to myself.

Also, growing up in the 1980s it was considered completely “abnormal” for a black child to listen to Heavy Metal or New Wave and not rap, to NOT understand ebonics, or to be attracted to girls OUTSIDE my race, for which I caught hell during my teen years.

Throughout my childhood thinking outside the box was very much frowned upon. Perhaps that was what pushed me too far as an adult, hence I had to stop and say “Wait a minute!”

• ▪ No I DON’T have to listen to this type of music!
  ▪ No I DON’T have to wear these clothes!
  ▪ No I DON’T have to drive that car!
  ▪ No I DON’T have to be a doctor just because Dad was!
  ▪ No I DON’T have to be a lawyer just like my sister & this cousin & that cousin... WHO CARES
  ▪ No I DON’T have to own a house by 30! (or at all)
  ▪ No I DON’T have to get married by 30! (or at all)
  ▪ No I DON’T have to have kids if I don't want them!

The only things that I “HAVE” to do are: work, sleep, eat, go to the bathroom, breathe, pay taxes and die.

And for me there is only one “Have to”: BE HAPPY.

And only I’LL worry about what the “formula” is for me to be happy.

"Other existentialist writers have echoed Kierkegaard's belief that one must choose one's own way without the aid of universal, objective standards. Against the traditional view that moral choice involves an objective judgment of right and wrong, existentialists have argued that no objective, rational basis can be found for moral decisions."

I think that it is precisely because I beleive these things already, that my coming out has been rather easy. I beleive that many of you may be closet Existentialists. Wanting to live your life in this manner, but are either afraid of the consequences, or beleiving it, but in a life situation where your present commitments would violate your own moral code, if you did not live up to them.

I too have believed this before Lorna came into existence. Once I became the “outcast”, I stopped fearing “consequences”. In fact, it was this very belief that facilitated the entire coming-out process for me.

[Elizabeth]

Hi girls,

Darlene wrote:

I am not so sure Elizabeth and I are all that much different.

I take that as a compliment, but I presume you meant it in the sense of how we view the world, in an existentialist way. I concur with you, I also beleive we are not so different in that regard.

Darlene wrote:

She is facing her mountains like I faced my mountains, her mountains are different than mine Although it is the same tools that are required for victory.

If you mean a head on approach, let's get this done attitude? That is how I feel. I see no point in prolonging the pain and fear of change. More than any other thing, I am really just so tired of being afraid. If society is to condem me, so be it, but I am not going to live in fear of it any more.

Fear, self condemnation, self loathing, depression? I have had enough of all of that. I have lived as a closet existentialist for all too long. Time to be counted. I do not need, nor want the approval of anyone for my personal happiness. Not that acceptance doesn't add to my happiness, but no longer will it be a condition of my happiness.

Lorna wrote:

And for me there is only one “Have to”: BE HAPPY.

And only I’LL worry about what the “formula” is for me to be happy.

Spoken like a true existentialist.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Loretta Ann]

Elisabeth wrote;
I do not need, nor want the approval of anyone for my personal happiness. Not that acceptance doesn't add to my happiness, but no longer will it be a condition of my happiness.

Right on honey, that is the ticket. That is what will give you strength. I am so happy for you.

Due to the audience you have here, I will not elaborate on the rest of what you wrote, other than to say a lot of what you are saying, you are saying, having learned it through a some what different grid than I. So although it sounds different a lot of it is saying the same thing.