29 Oct 2017 So one wakes out of a fever and looks around. Where am I, what am I doing here, what is the situation? Evidently I am a man named Mark. OK, and it looks like we’re in some kind of a blog. That’s nice. Looks a bit hastily constructed. But friendly enough. Has a tagline “Uprooting internalized patriarchy since 2017.” Seems a little ambitious, though, I don’t know, “internalized” at least delimits the problem. Seems like the author just threw in the first thing he thought of to have a tagline at all. Saying the first thing that comes to mind is an excellent skill to have, so we’ll let the tagline stay for now at least. Also, doesn’t it seem a bit like what Tiffany H called “trying so hard to be seen as feminist that it seems like they’re trying to worm their way up from the friend zone!” One of Tom Cruise’s character’s “Search and Destroy” techniques in Magnolia! To which one can only reply, that, if so, it will eventually amount to one of the most elaborate and cost/benefit negative applications of the technique devised. Anyway, people can think what they want, doesn’t matter.

But…ambitious, yeah. Patriarchy is pretty big thing, yeah. Anybody who doesn’t see how it’s directly involved in the current mess of a world isn’t looking very hard. And the current mess is a crisis, a do-or-die moment. So, big yes. And as an approach to a big thing, tracing out connections from one little life to and then back from the big thing seems viable. Ok, we keep the tagline then.

Me these days. Picture a little yacht, started out fine, then got loaded down with a few tons of worthless dross—what *is* dross, exactly? Which pushes it down under the waterline, leaving just a bit of cockpit above the surface, sails working more or less, rudder completely submerged. Fortunately the yacht’s skipper is still formative, able to learn and adapt, manages to figure out the appropriate amount of over-steering to navigate in various directions. But the performance of the vessel is of course far out-of-spec, it was never built to be a semi-submarine, handles clumsily, could capsize any minute who knows. Then, one day, a hurricane comes along and blows all the dross off the deck. The boat shoots to the surface, WAY too fast. It then bobs around for a bit, trying to stabilize, to get some bearings. All of those over-controlled surfaces, mechanisms are now racing, swinging around wildly without any governor. (The last day I was in class I had my course notes in front of me and my #metoo folder off to the left and my writing hand was going back and forth like some demented robot.) After a few days, and only after actually creating the blog and getting one real post up, the boat settles down enough to rest. Now the skipper just needs to re-learn each and every control, that might take a while. But god damn does it move well! I love this boat!

So I’m doing a lot of backfilling gaps in my understanding of just about everything. Jung and anima seems an excellent point of departure. Also have to get up to speed on recent related developments in India. Lots of reading, but that has always been a pleasure. OK be back later (great, that’s one-half sheet of paper out of…)