genderjumper: cartoon giraffe, chewing greens, wearing cap & bells (Default)

A response to this assessment vis à vis leaders we have personally known.

I had three mentors when I worked in Washington, D.C. They each influenced and inspired me in distinct niches: one professionally, one personally, and one metaphysically, but they all shared similar qualities as leaders (and were, in fact, all directors at the organization). I think what first drew me to them at the time was a casual insightfulness: not only were they learned and perceptive about the shared world in ways that I could not discern at the time, but they were also each very open and diplomatic with their thought processes: you always knew where you stood with them and you always knew why you stood there. I never saw any of them angry or even particularly irritated, just shrewd and prepared. I wanted that kind of poise.

Knowing what I know now, I absolutely believe they were all participatory leaders (which was my result in the Leadership Style Survey) and what I saw then as insight was actually just a honed humility: they knew what they were capable of, they knew what partners and opposition were capable of, and they came to every conversation prepared for both the best and the worst case scenario without being attached to the outcome: they fought for what they thought was best, they listened and negotiated, and they accepted the results. There might have been some compromises along the way, but I don’t think I ever saw them “lose” in those spaces, and indeed I think another way to describe “participatory” leadership is “noncompetitive”, which is a core value we all shared with the organization that employed us. We’re not looking to “win”, we’re trying to help everyone succeed.

genderjumper: cartoon giraffe, chewing greens, wearing cap & bells (Default)
This is a good place to think out loud or get input from peers.

Topics that need messy, process-y attention soon:
  1. Navigating a squishy flexible workload so there's enough time for the concrete elements to actually get done.
  2. When and how to refer out a client whose emotional needs are more than I can handle and interfering with care support.
  3. How to seal the deal with squishes: I want these people in my life and/or work and there's no time to hold back.
  4. The Ordinal Chaos Index: some vague but ongoing measure of how chaotic things are on a personal, communal, or population scale.
  5. Time to start closing doors again on people who are not engaging me on social media despite good faith efforts.
  6. I probably also need help translating prospective clients into paychecks, colleagues into mentors/mentees.
  7. Do I bother warning my friends and communities that now is the time to invest in communal support, not to wait for their rugged individualism to catch up? If so, how? If not, how do I let go of the notion I should.
  8. Do I need to be more proactive in sharing my own foibles on social media? If so, who am I sharing them for? If not, why not?
  9. (2a?) Am I becoming a magnet for energy vampires or am I actually helping them? What are my expectations and limitations either way?
  10. My coaching work needs clearer goals, for me and for the clients.
genderjumper: cartoon giraffe, chewing greens, wearing cap & bells (Default)
I've never had a consistent best friend for more than a few years at a time.

Backstory )

So we finally talked last night, and it was interesting how many of the same words and possibilities we were considering: her therapist asked if she wanted to de-escalate and she said no, but she also acknowledged some baggage with the term "best friend" and elaborated on just how easy it is for her to receive neutral statements as pressure. I told her that the chaos in the air tells me we're only going to have a harder time connecting away from text, and that my efforts to document my mental health cycles are intended to allow people to choose their level of engagement based on predictable dynamics, but I'm not sure she groks how literal I mean these things. I fluently shift between hyper-abstract and hyper-literal communication and it never occurs to me that someone might not be keeping up.

(Echos of Foucault, who must be read slowly because he writes theory in deliberately obtuse ways to foster caution and discourage misunderstanding; my unique style of communication intimidates many because they think it's formal or hyper-cerebral, but it's when I let my guard down and attempt to be casual with people I trust that the other person gets devastated by some offhand observation delivered without tact because I constantly process heavy stuff and fail to anticipate how triggering it can be for friends.)

It was a mutual conversation, but the agenda centered her worries and needs and left little room for mine. B tapped out after 90 minutes, literally starting to lose her voice as I rushed a couple of clarifying questions. I have a few action steps to hopefully nurture things, but I'm in no hurry to lean on her or be casual with my enthusiasm (which managed to trigger this latest explosion because I wanted to say I loved a book but didn't pay attention to punctuation or tone).

My enthusiasm may be the purest and most innocent part of myself. (I credit it to my best friend from 8th-9th grade, who taught me to love learning and be shameless in doing so. I last saw him in 2015, just before he moved back to Europe and a couple of years before I closed a lot of social doors because the people on the other sides rarely checked on me.) In person or over the phone, there's never any doubt that my clumsiness comes from excitement, but its impossible to adequately convey over text. The reflexivity continues.
genderjumper: cartoon giraffe, chewing greens, wearing cap & bells (Default)
I realized tonight that the reason I feel such a strong urge to expand my expression of sexuality is not directly because of the isolation of remaining COVID-cautious, but because I was incomplete when I had the chance. I want a redo, because those days when I could be flirty and hyperverbal and got a lot of attention, most of those folks didn't actually know what to do with me. Even those partnerships that, for a time, seemed ideal were only partnered with an incomplete self, and I struggled for a long time to get people who fawned over me to see me as I really was, not just what they wanted to project on me.

Which, yeah, being dehumanized sucks, even if it's in a positive light, but I don't really take it personally now. I just miss the timing of it all. I'm not lonely because I'm getting older and less attractive, I'm lonely because this is the most me I've ever been and people are really fucking missing out.

I suppose it's a cliché of aging that we never know what we could do with a playground until we've already outgrown it, but in my case I can also lob blame on the capitalization of the Internet. Yeah, sure, if there weren't an ongoing pandemic there could be hookups or sex parties or whatever, but if it weren't for monopolizing sites like Facebook and FetLife, there could still be confessional blogging and erotica-swapping; if it weren't for photo-centric dating apps, I could write and browse intricate profiles and bask in the humanity and reflexivity of it all like I used to; if the community I tried to build all those years ago had half taken hold, we could hole up in a little corner of the internet and continue building those beautiful spaces as we once did... But none of these things are true.

And while I did alright with my partially formed self (most importantly, I managed to avoid regrets and protect others' feelings in most circumstances), I just wish something equivalent existed now that I understand my intuitions, my privileges, and why so many relationships rub against my sense of justice. And maybe we could have fun.
genderjumper: cartoon giraffe, chewing greens, wearing cap & bells (Default)
( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )
genderjumper: cartoon giraffe, chewing greens, wearing cap & bells (Default)
On Journaling... ) The vast majority of the social sciences as we know them are so steeped in "Western" hegemony that studies will be impossible to replicate under other economic, cultural, and technological circumstances. Seeing the present moment, vis à vis pandemic(s), war(s), and corruptions(sss), as roughly an apex or precipice culminated on everything that came before (and with very little room to go anywhere but down), we have a unique birds eye view if we take the time to appreciate it. We have way more information about humans than has ever before been accessible, and we are at the peak of human understanding before it either crashes back down or is handed over to computers to process on our behalf (or hell, maybe both). Why not try to use this purview to leave something behind that is beyond ourselves?

Something that might help the next great society avoid some of our hubris and failings... )... but there's no academic hub I can find that pulls it altogether and says, "This is how human relationships and cultures reflect their material relationship with time." I don't think it could help being metaphysical (even spiritual), but then the emergence of sciences are rarely the cold, calculating laboratories we bias today.

Anyway, if you know any good books on sociotemporality (whatever its authors call it), let me know?
genderjumper: cartoon giraffe, chewing greens, wearing cap & bells (Default)
My directions are all my own, but I depend on others for my momentum.

We think a lot about who is introverted or extroverted, but we don't often discuss HOW...
genderjumper: cartoon giraffe, chewing greens, wearing cap & bells (Default)
From late 2016 through the end of graduate school, I was low-key fixated on grief. I had lost my grandfather, two very important relationships, and enough of my sense of self that I committed to being reborn. Sometimes it's just easier to start from scratch than to sort through so much. But even then, I think there was a part of Free (that is, the person I was before, his name was Free) that tried to endure. And although my family is doing better than we have any right to 21 months into the global pandemic and the ongoing frisson of capitalism making its (last?) stand, I'm having a really hard time seeing any future that isn't still hindered by the flotsam of Free's dreams, expectations, and idealistic trust. All year I've been wrestling with whether to sit still where it's safe or dart forward into risk, and to my detriment I have had this conversation mostly internally. Moreover, because I have spent about two years utterly unable to see the future -- I mean, not like I'm psychic, but I am used to having some "sense" of what is possible, where to direct my energy -- I have also walled off the past. What is happening now is about the present, therefore I should live in the present -- right?

But I'm not. I'm still building intentions around the future Free saw for himself and his (my) family. Many times this year, I was tempted to give up on taking the pandemic this seriously and just make a go of that future anyway. But something would hold me back, and sure enough a new variant wave would appear shortly thereafter. Guess I'm not completely out of touch with the future, after all -- maybe it's me, my perception/read. So before I start a deeper thinky on where I need to direct my focus in 2022, I think I need to do what I never did when I had my heart set on it: I need to write out the intention, the plan, the expectation. I'm not sure I will be able to exorcise the whole thing unless I actually see it lain out before me.

Flashback to March 1, 2020... )
genderjumper: cartoon giraffe, chewing greens, wearing cap & bells (Default)

With the caveat that my peak era of self-articulation is a near 100% overlap with my peak era on OKCupid, and therefore I do these little exercises in my head way more often than I'm actually on dating apps/actively looking to date, and therefore this probably won't be the last time I drop something like this off here and forget about it.

I am a person whose life is very intentional, analytic, and process-oriented (by choice). What I seek most from dating (and perhaps socializing in general) is spontaneity. I love it, I can build on it, but I cannot seem to produce it alone. I relish the mystery and wonder of getting to know new people, I savor the improvisation of sex, and I am recharged by hours that are set aside on the calendar but are left blank.

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