<p>During my time at university, I studied Philosophy. Oftentimes, I wished that language were more precise, so that greater understanding could be imparted through dialogue alone. It was a tall order, and I don't imagine that any philosophical language (like the conlang <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban">Lojban</a>, for example) shall ever enjoy widespread adoption. While that may have frustrated me at the time, I came to accept that likelihood—and, as you will see, even celebrate it.</p>
<p>It was also during my time at university—the first year of my undergraduate degree, in fact, so the best part of a decade ago now—that I stumbled across <i><a href="https://www.benjaminhoffauthor.com/">The Tao of Pooh</a></i>, shortly followed by the <i><a href="https://terebess.hu/english/tao/mitchell.html">Tao Te Ching</a></i> itself, which of course led to my embrace of Taoism as an overall worldview. In all probability, the groundwork had already been laid by my first brush with Alan Watts in this excellent, very accessible video.</p>
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<p>I won't pretend that my outlook on the world is entirely in keeping with what Lao-tse might have had in mind, but I certainly think there are a number of aspects of Taoism that would ease the troubles of many in the world today.</p>
<p>In particular, what I want to talk about today is the way that, right from the very first chapter of the <i>Tao Te Ching</i>, Taoism avoids conflating the terms we use to talk about things with the things themselves. As it appears in Stephen Mitchell's translation, the first half of Chapter 1 reads as follows:</p>
<blockquote cite="https://terebess.hu/english/tao/mitchell.html#Kap01">
The tao that can be told<br>
is not the eternal Tao<br>
The name that can be named<br>
is not the eternal Name.<br>
<br>
The unnamable is the eternally real.<br>
Naming is the origin<br>
of all particular things.
</blockquote>
<p>Fans of surrealism might here be reminded of René Magritte, who famously painted <i>The Treachery of Images</i>. Just as the pipe that we see in his painting is a mere <i>depiction</i> of a pipe as opposed to actually <i>being</i> one, the Tao we talk about in everyday language is not the same as Tao as it truly exists, because—as we spoke about above—our language is a crude instrument, and makes for an inadequate attempt to truly capture the nuances of Tao.</p>
<img src="https://seryndelle.neocities.org/images/The%20Treachery%20of%20Images.jpg" alt="René Magritte's painting 'The Treachery of Images', which depicts a pipe above the caption 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe.'" class="center" height="388px">
<p>The argument I'm making here is that gender is like Tao.</p>
<p>I used to stress over nailing down what exactly my gender was, and I felt like I couldn’t start my journey until I knew my destination. Then I realised that all I had to do was step towards something that looked pleasant, or away from something that looked unappealing. As Alan Watts mentioned in the video above, there is no “destination” we're aiming for. Tao certainly doesn't have a goal: it just is.</p>
<p>Why would gender need a goal? I don't even label my sexuality, and yet for years I struggled with trying to find a specific box to fit my gender identity into. Why? I sincerely believe that trying to do so was a mistake; a mistake that wasted precious time that could have been spent living authentically from the get-go rather than waiting and planning interminably.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to impart a moral message, and I'm not even necessarily trying to give advice, because even if you're wondering whether you're transgender, your particular experience of your gender will not me the same as my particular experience of my own gender. After all, there's no way to know that your red is the same as my red. We can't communicate our experience of <i>any</i> qualia to one another.</p>
<p>But if, by astounding coincidence, my words here <i>do</i> ring true for you, then I would urge you to get out of your head—something it took me a long time to do—and just start making the changes to your life that you want to see. It doesn't matter if you know where you're going. Heck, it's better if you don't, some would say. You just need to make sure that where you are at the end of the day is better than where you were at the start.</p>
<hr>
<h3>Postscript</h3>
<p>By the way, this isn't the first time I've talked about gender on this blog, or even the first time I've talked circuitously about it by way of comparison to other stuff! Check out my <a href="being-yourself.html">short note on being yourself</a> from last year if you're a Linux fan or a fellow gender voyager. Or both! <small>There seems to be a lot of crossover... :-)</small></p>
https://seryndelle.neocities.org/thoughts/my-gender-is-like-the-tao