Joy Realized

Name: Joy Realized
Author: Emily Tiffany Joy

by Emily Tiffany Joy - See emilyjoy.org for more information about her.

This is the official open access edition, presented in full without abridgment or alteration. It stands as a complete record — unbroken, unmodified, and offered freely for reflection, citation, and understanding.

Licensing

Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 .

Foreword

No words seem strong enough to explain the journey that this book contains. Not every adventurer survives their quest. Thousands of miles from where I started, from what I called normal, I find myself reflecting on the progress I have made since I first began writing this book. This is a novel in three parts. And the experience will be unlike most books you will ever encounter. This is a love letter to empowerment, to living our best lives, to dancing in the rain, to screaming out our truth. When we lose everything, what do we have left? What exists below all of our pretenses? There are unexplored depths to our shadows. There are monsters to be tamed, dreams to actualize, loves to be revealed, prose to inspire. As long as there is a breath of life left, the battle is not over. And the story has only just begun. May joy be the path your life takes, and love be what you’ve won. As you turn the pages, prepare for a story that is both uniquely mine and universally relatable. This story explores the transformative power of love, resilience, and the unwavering pursuit of one's true self. May this book serve as a beacon of hope for all who seek to embrace their authentic selves and find the joy that lies within.

Part 1: Beyond Description

There is always hope and joy to be found in the darkest of places. “What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written.” Jacques Derrida, the late, great writer who created deconstructionism. No one will ever silence my creative voice again, even if there is no end of people who would gladly celebrate my death, just because I let my purple bird fly. Without shining my reason upon this bleak wasteland, I would have no book to share, and our hateful world would have successfully murdered me. So, I will live joyously even if that means my death, but I will never die before my soul strikes back. This is my postmodern tribute to Proverbs and exists as an online memoir written to thousands of LGBT+ people reacting to each moment. None of their names are mentioned, and few if any of their words are quoted. This novel is the result. This book is a postmodern art display in text form. The mood and flow change throughout to indicate some of what goes unsaid. There is a transgender symbol next to each micro story as a symbol of peaceful protest against intolerance.

Chapter 1: This Book Is Like a Manual To Smile

⚧️ Please read my book like a manual to smile, to feel passion, and especially, to feel alive. It is why I write in the first place and is why I am still here. The path to joy is one of pain, but once you find it, that walk, while long, is overflowing with loving friends. Because, when you walk to joy, others will follow. Others care! And so do I! ⚧️ I am alive. I am not dead. I have countless decades to save people who need me. That is my future, a future for others. If I live for others, I will discover that by bringing them joy, I will have lived for myself all along! I love all of you, my great, kind friends… for making me feel accepted when no one in my world ever could! Their rejection would break my heart if it were not already broken decades ago. I just need to live, to breathe, to fight to find love, to find kinship, to find more friends like all of you, to type until my keyboard breaks, to write the longest sentence ever to show how much all of you mean to me for saving my life during my transition. The end came and went so many times! You have no idea! I was at death’s door, and that is a gateway to who knows what. Whatever it was, it was angry… and it was scary! I was scared out of my mind! I am here to live, to love, and to bring fire to the world. Too many girls are going cold. Too many boys without a home. Too many transgender people having their lives destroyed. I am going to save as many as I can during my short stay on this planet. That is not a promise to all of you. That is not a promise to them or society in general. That is a promise to me, a promise to live on until the list of people I have helped is longer than the list of the people who have hurt me! This book tells my decades long story of how I survived an almost impossible dilemma, and I dedicate all my work to those who met a tragic early end, due to suffering the same senseless abuse that I did at the hands of people who should have lifted us up with joy and love, instead. I cannot cry enough tears for these countless lives lost. They are my unmet family! I can only try to help those who are still alive, so that has become my life’s true purpose. It is my mission now, and I refuse to fail them the way our fearful, hateful, intolerant society has! ⚧️ That you are reading this book today is joyous proof that the love of my friends is more powerful than even the intolerance of our misguided, troubled world. ⚧️ I am Emily Joy by my fiery soul’s decree. Emily is my soul’s song in three syllables. Its melody fills me with joy, actualizing my last name’s truth. Shower me with your love and a feeling of safety to win an Emmy award. Call me Emi or Em whenever you like. Hearing my name makes me smile. Hearing it said with love brings me joy. I am here for romantic endless love, as a cute transgender girl writing her soul. Only converse with me if you love me as I am, a girl with a deep, yet mesmerizing voice. ⚧️ What about this book will be normal? Great question. Joy. To make joy normal for you, my reader. ⚧️ If love is your personal truth, you will never be proven wrong in that! William Shakespeare famously penned, “To thine own self be true.” He is right! Never try to be someone your soul is not. It is a waste of your life! Passion for your life, that is ALWAYS THE REAL WAY FORWARD! ⚧️ NEVER smile. NEVER feel good about yourself. NEVER question society. NEVER believe you are pretty. NEVER feel worthy of love. NEVER believe you are not to blame for everything. Oh, and NEVER use totalizing statements like these!! ALL OF YOU DESERVE THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THESE! SMILE (BECAUSE IT MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE AN ANGEL!), FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF (BECAUSE YOU DESERVE TO!), QUESTION SOCIETY (BECAUSE IT DEMANDS IT!), BELIEVE YOU ARE PRETTY (BECAUSE YOU ARE!), FEEL WORTHY OF LOVE (BECAUSE YOU ARE!), AND NEVER BELIEVE YOU ARE TO BLAME FOR EVERYTHING! (BECAUSE YOU AREN’T!) YOU ARE A LIGHT FOR YOUR WORLD AND FOR THE ONES YOU LOVE. BLIND THEM WITH IT. LET THEM FEEL JOY FOR ONCE AND FOR AS LONG AS YOUR LIGHT STILL BURNS! ⚧️ “Some traumas run deeper than even the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench,” Emily desperately thought to herself, as she powerfully shook and trembled for hours on her bed, yet again for the fifth time that day. ⚧️ I am not joyous. I picked that last name to bring everyone else joy because I will rarely have it myself. ⚧️ Love and forgiveness together form into one addiction that all of you should start. The first one is free, but every dose for the rest of your lives is free as well. So, get your fix. Start forgiving and loving each other as family, friends, and partners, until your addiction is newsworthy. This is one habit you should form and never kick. ⚧️ I will be proud of my book and what I have done to help people so far once I do at least most of what I set out to do. I hope if I die in my sleep tonight that what I have done so far since I came out three months ago is fondly remembered and accomplishes what I said I would do. ⚧️ Paraphrase your world until your life is overflowing with vivid meaning. ⚧️ Music inspires so many powerful emotions within me, so many more than any other sound ever could… not even the sound of “I love you” that ignites an astonishing, Shakespearean life for me, that I know with all my heart, instantly, is destined to last into my afterlife above. No… Not even THAT can compare to music… but somehow, if that “I love you” is sung to the melody of so many countless celestial instruments, that it empowers these three words beyond any dream I could ever experience in a million years? These words alone might make me feel loved, but with MUSIC? Oh! All bets are off! I will not just FEEL loved… I will fall IN love! ⚧️ Oh okay, everyone, calling me cute and pretty all the time! Stop it! … Stop hesitating to compliment me! ⚧️ Oh? Who, me? Why do I look so, so young, when I am actually —— years old? Well, if you insist. Please enjoy my enchanting, haunting story of why I look so young… Emily Dickinson’s ghost came to me so many years ago late into a snowy, winter dusk. She graciously offered me a glowing chalice filled right to the brim. She gazed longingly at me for a moment and then softly spoke: “This is my soul’s essence, Emily… It tastes like sweet grape juice, except no juice of this world could ever come close to this one.” “Let us simply say that this is the best vintage you will drink during your time on this Earth and leave it at that. So, now, my Emily, drink it.” I looked at her, warily, and suddenly started to sip. She quickly nodded because of her hopes for me finally coming true, and then continued warmly, “Now Emily, you will stay young for decades, but do not worry. I have a limitless supply of essence. So, drink from that cup until it is empty… Ah, that is a good girl. You have such a bright, inspiring future, Emily.” She smiled at me warmly, like she knew the precise properties of every ethereal particle of my soul. The ghost’s little laugh sounded like a beautiful melody to me. As she swiftly levitated up through my bedroom window, she sweetly whispered, “I bid thee, farewell, my adorable, darling Emily…” So, that is how I still look this young… She is the only Emily, other than me, I have really known my entire life, specifically, the late, great historical novelist, Emily Dickinson. Somehow, I spent my entire life without ever closely knowing a girl with the name of my soul, Emily, except for… her, Emily Dickinson. ⚧️ The most potent antidepressant and blissful analgesic for me on this Earth… is ESTROGEN, and my new priceless order was just filled gifting me with powerful relief. It is running through my bloodstream again like a beloved, welcome guest. All my potentially tragic thoughts and all my overwhelming sadness? JUST GONE. *POOF* Gone. Just like months before. It cures these for as long as I take them. I unfortunately ran out. It was destroying me! But now that I have estrogen again, I feel wonderful. The incredible effect estrogen has on a transgender girl like me? It is beyond any lasting doubt. No worrying skepticism can be found anywhere near it. The best way I can vividly describe to all of you how this feels to suffer from potentially lethal gender dysphoria, and then estrogen astonishingly starts to bring all my life into beautiful melodic harmony is… I am sure you are curious now… It is like I am covered in puppies. That is the best creative metaphor I can use to describe it. Just dozens of adorably happy, endlessly licking, glowingly golden puppies, nonstop, continuously. That is the night and day difference this priceless female hormone makes for my life, and this spectacular effect hits me the moment it is finally fully metabolized, and it simply stays! ⚧️ I went from the ADD I had in high school decades ago to hyper-focus… That is not really a disorder though… That is a capability… because, I can see the big picture, yet zoom in on a single green light element of a pixel… ⚧️ Emily: I studied the chief information officer graduate track at WGU, which means I will never use it! *Giggles in a silly way* Hey Microsoft! Hey!! Lemmie in! I mean, I have ZERO years of experience as an IT exec… What could go wrong? Come on, Satya! Satya Nadella! Oh!! There you are! *Messes up his hair while giggling* You know you want me! Satya (CEO): I-uh-umm-Emi-stop-jus-sto-the other executives, they are going to laugh at me at my resort! Oh ok, Em! You win! I will let you get me coffee! Two sugars, sweetie! Emily: Oh, Satya, you devil! *Spills the coffee on his lap* Woops! Looks like I am so sweet it just slipped RIGHT OUT OF MY DAINTY LITTLE FINGERS, Satya! It is hot, isn’t it? *Emily giggles as Satya runs away to tell Bill Gates at his foundation about how mean Emily is, crying all the way with an adorable, yet sad, Indian accent* Emily: I mean, I feel bad, but he really did deserve it! *Giggles happily as she sees him fade off into the pretty purple horizon looming over Microsoft corporate headquarters* ⚧️ “I just wish that I had not been given this fate and that my destiny turns out to be joy in the inevitable end that I will sadly face one day. I wish my past had been living as Emily Joy all along…” As she trembled yet even harder, she meekly whispered to herself all alone on her bed, “And I so, so wish all of my kind, caring friends could have somehow known me before I ever had this trauma to share with them…” ⚧️ Deep within the soul of every girl, she sacredly holds the serious, solemn belief that her priceless handbag is a Mac GIRL ver esque, OVERPOWERED, super-hero, Bat Girl utility belt!!! At least, THAT’S MY SOUL’S TRUE BELIEF! ⚧️ Why would anyone want to live if not to make others feel alive?? ⚧️ I am a dime a dozen, but this is in an alternate reality where the currency has deflated so much that no one can really afford me… ⚧️ University Academic Advisor: Okay, Emily. You have finished everything, but YOU HAVE YET TO SEE MY FINAL FORM! Emily: Oh! ⚧️ Oh, Shakespeare! You just said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” OH! SOOO SMART, EINSTEIN OF LITTLE CHILDISH LIMERICKS. Like, yes, I agree with you COMPLETELY, NO DOUBT!! Brevity is SO TOTALLY the soul of wit! And the soul of wit TOTALLY IS NOT SARCASM! Oh, Shakespeare! You are SO smart! I bet they will talk about you for CENTURIES! TOTALLY NOT BEING SARCASTIC, SHAKESPEARE! BUT FOR REAL, sarcasm really is the soul of wit… SO, YOU ARE SO COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT THIS! Hey… Wait!… No… Shakespeare… Shakespeare? Shakespeare! Stop crying! Come on! I am sorry… Shakespeare… Bard… If you keep crying, I will start crying… I am so sorry, Shakespeare…

Chapter 2: My Joyous Transgender Transformation

⚧️ This is my metaphorical story about my journey to fulfill my soul’s existence as the girl that I was meant to be. Please, enjoy! And here is a foreword to all of you, my adorably silly readers: This should be quite appropriate and loved by all of you. A fascinating gender transition space fantasy? I invented a new genre today… My joyous transition is an unstoppable twenty stage violent chemical reaction of my cutting-edge, purple, interstellar rocket. With a cute giggle, I lit its short fuse with a soft, swift, shiny button press. It quickly lifts off and reaches 10,000 m/s. Nothing can stop this incredible climb from this planet into the cold, deep, dark blue void of limitless vast space, dazzlingly outstretched before me. My transition to a new life as Emily Joy will not really take much longer than a few short, scary, yet wonderful, amazing nights before I have completely left the deep blue atmosphere of my past life of sad, tearful boyhood, forever. Now, all I will ever see again are glowing, glittery skies on a massive, lushly dark green, super-Earth exoplanet with everything I could ever want resting everywhere around me. I will be light years from this dark, blue, scary place finally. And, I will meekly and quietly say goodbye to all of you. But, in my transition’s amazingly high-tech space vessel, there will be so much extra room for so many more of you I love. So, anyone? Care to join me for a little trip hundreds of trillions of kilometers long? You will not regret it. ⚧️ I need to attend to metabolic consequences and replenish my calorie supply. Does anyone else see the issue here? Especially with that first sentence that should have been, “I got to go eat and use the restroom.” I cannot just say I shopped for a bra online… Instead, the writer in me cannot help but say that I am engaging in a 187mb internet transmission to effortlessly transform the fungible energy from my financial reserves into home-deliverable silk textiles. These textiles are crafted specifically to properly secure my prosthetic breast forms to my biological form. I am just that painfully silly of a girl. ⚧️ Life is better as an ice cream metaphor. ⚧️ A wonderfully kind and caring friend just told me I have a talent for being deadly serious and hysterically funny in the same writing. That was such a great compliment she gave me. So… I explained how I write that way so often: It is a Zen style of humor since I used to practice Zen for a decade to help repress my soul in a horribly effective way. Zen is remarkable at that, but it also has real benefits that are not horrible at all. The best way to describe this type of humor I use quite a bit is with a simple four-word phrase: “ha ha only serious,” instead of “ha ha only kidding.” ⚧️ Beauty itself is so destructive, yet there is nothing I can do to fight against it. Now that I am finally Emily Joy and beautiful (but I refuse to believe that), I am frequently gifted with praise and affection that I do not feel I deserve. This world is so vicious for girls who look nothing like models, and for girls who look everything like models… Goddess help them! This world is different for them for the opposite yet similarly nightmarish reasons… And yet somehow, I have experienced both realities. I can tell all of you with doubtless certainty that both realities are very disturbing… and dangerous. ⚧️ Trigger Warning: Emily Joy’s life. ⚧️ Writing is the only reason I am alive right now. I have nothing else to do with my life. It is my passion. It is my very soul screaming to be heard by all of you. If I lost my hands, I would use my toes to type. If I lost my toes as well, I would use speech to text. If I lost my voice, I would use a stick in my mouth to type. If that no longer worked, I would use a facial gesture system that paralyzed people use. I will never let my expressive abilities be silenced by ANYTHING. This is my life; this is my survival… AND THIS IS MY HEART TO GIVE TO ALL OF YOU AND THE WORLD! ⚧️ Anyone who wants to, go ahead. Hug a cactus: (me). Have a fun time. ⚧️ This book is materializing through chaos. And… It is an accident, a wonderful accident. ⚧️ Even when I have a horrible nightmare like I did last night, I am still so happy when I am fully myself as a girl in it. I am starting to dream almost every night as Emily. This has extreme meaning to my mind. It means my mind’s concept of my internal appearance is becoming me as Emily Joy. ⚧️ I am a patient-patient in this world. A patient-patient looking for other patient-patients. My recovery will lead to recovery for others. This is why I still breathe. It is why I continue to type. And it is now the main reason I still exist. It is my true meaning of life; the sacred one I have determined will keep me alive. Not for the longest length of time possible, but for everyone I have ever known or will know to thrive, for everyone to know exactly who I am and what I can make powerfully real for them. I know empathy is a horrific experience when taken too far. I do not care; I am going to burn like a blindingly bright star till I run out of fuel. Then I will find a way to fuel up again and burn even more, even if it burns me continually with incredible pain. If I manage that, I can finally look at myself in my mirror again. I can finally smile for the astonishing world I have brought to you and finally smile for that single sentence. It took you from the edge to a safer, warmer place, a place you deserve to exist in for as long as you are around. I am here, and I am here to help. And I am here to give, until I can only give what is left for kilometers around. And then, I will give you even more. This is not vanity. This is greed, a great greed for real love and warm kindness, a bright-green greed for igniting people’s souls on fire, until all they know is an amazingly happy fire of joy. Emily Joy. That is exactly who I am. That is who I will always be. And if I have fuel for my fusion, I will be there for anyone who draws near me. I am going to find a way to help and help and help till my talent to help is gone, till my love is all my words can say. Until that finally happens, I will be woefully incomplete. And my true way forward will be glorious, as that road is paved in frustrated passion for everyone who suffers around me that I will ever be able to find. ⚧️ When Emily dies, she is going to go out in style, because anything that is worth doing is worth doing with style. She does not even care that many people think she is going to Hell for her gender transition. This is because she will be the cutest, silliest girl in that inferno that those demons have ever seen. ⚧️ If I could give up my personal appearance and “beauty” to let one hundred little girls not cry themselves to sleep at night because they do not look like models, just… make me ugly. ⚧️ I give my soul to Goddess. As it turns out, she likes transgender girls. Does not even hate them like most of the world. ⚧️ Want to know what it is like in my mind? Take all the evil everyone has. Let it destroy you. Let it burn your soul to ash. Then, be that bird. That mythical bird. Let those chills reflect these potent heavy words that kill that part of you that wants to be evil. Evil is everywhere in the world. Imagine the worst EVIL this universe can bring. Bring it on yourself in your mind. That is MY MIND. THAT IS MY MIND ALL THE TIME. THAT IS WHY I CRY. THAT IS WHY I AM SAD. I AM LOOKING AT ALL OF YOU. I SEE YOUR PAIN. I SEE THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT TO DIE. I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU FEAR. I FEEL YOUR HORROR. IT DOES NOT REALLY EVER GO AWAY. IT IS ALL AROUND US. IT IS INESCAPABLE. YET, FIND YOUR LIGHT. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SEE YOUR BEAUTY. YOUR WISDOM. YOUR PASSION. THE BREATH OF YOUR SOUL. NEVER DARE ALLOW SOMEONE TO TRY TO SUFFOCATE YOUR SOUL. CRY OCEANS. DIE A TRILLION TIMES. THEN, SAVE OUR WORLD WITH THE NOISE INSIDE YOUR HEART AND THE FLAME CONSUMING THE ANGER. NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER LET EVIL GET SATISFACTION. TRANSGENDER? EVEN MORE! YOUR SOUL IS TRANSGENDER. HOW DARE ANYONE PUT A PILLOW OVER YOUR SOUL, EVER AGAIN. DO NOT LET ANYONE SILENCE YOUR SPIRIT. SMILE. BECAUSE YOU ARE REAL. YOU ARE HERE. YOU ARE ALIVE. AND THESE CHILLS MUST GIVE YOU THE POWER TO DESTROY THE ONES WHO TRY TO SILENCE YOUR SOUL. ⚧️ I really hope I will live for seventy years more. But when I eventually die, a stage hypnotist will make everyone I love believe they are puppies as part of the eulogy. By the end of my funeral, the magician will cut my casket completely in half. For the final illusion, the magician will make both halves of my casket disappear into a puff of purple glittery smoke. The reception afterwards will have music played by The Strokes, especially since a stroke will be exactly how I died. The host will be a talented stand-up comedian who will roast me while pointing at an empty purple fuzzy chair. Near the end of the festivities, my body double will happily walk out, in a silly, very hilarious way, into the reception hall to explain in detail what it is like to be a ghost and how my jokes are just too funny to stay in Heaven. The laughter just completely throws off all the angels’ harp melodies. ⚧️ “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Not for girls like me! No… My version is more creative and original but less enjoyable to read: The hospital hall to the psych ward is painted with transphobia. ⚧️ Do not engage your haters… unless you plan to marry them. ⚧️ Em—ily dash! ⚧️ The core technique to my writing, aside from using metaphors to blast images into your mind’s eye every moment I get, is to break the rules that I mastered. And: story, book, epic, play, poem, lyric, definition, news story, manifesto, treatise, etc. It is all one big blur when I write. Just blend them all together until it is all one massively wonderful typhoon to blow you away with my 900 m/s powerful gust of words. ⚧️ Never giving up but every day longer it takes to get estrogen back into my body the more difficult that is becoming. ⚧️ Throw out all your paints. And throw out your canvas. And then finally, throw out your entire art studio. Then, paint with burning passion, paint with your eyes, paint with that mind of yours. It is not enough to feel now, and it is not enough to see now either. Not anymore. Not this time. Never again for any of you. ⚧️ Here’s Emily Joy’s little creative writing trick. It demonstrates the best fact about your vividly imaginative mind. Give it five words. Can you guess what will inevitably happen? Let me show you. Give me three short minutes. Emily is thinking… Yes, these will do! So, with the results of my creative imagination’s mere five words, I challenge you not to imagine a film you really want to see after reading my selected five simple lackluster words. Are you ready? Here we go! gemstone bio-weapon Portugal lovers aircraft Read them five times. Then think about them for a bit. Take your time and open your mind’s eyes. Think about how they interact, how they are related, and what the results will be. I will wait… Okay! Now, are you already imagining who those lovers are? The view out of the plane window? The shimmering color of that gem? Now, are you also wondering how priceless it is, and then maybe, imagining the scary green color of that nightmare in their overhead compartment? Emily Joy loves to tickle your mind. It makes her smile and laugh like the cute little girl she really is inside! ⚧️ Let us think back to where all this started: my birth. Is that what they want to hear from me? Is this it? Calendars everywhere. May I live a million years to show them wrong, so that I am finally able to smile, laugh, and cry, and try again. May I drive until my engine explodes and tirelessly swim until I reach Europe. There is no destination. That is not why I am here! Only mere eons! Eons and eons and eons! Only this life before me, with all of you. There are more colors than we will ever even know, than we can even imagine. We just need science to create them. And we just need the necessary technology to use them. And the creativity to inspire you with them, and to uplift you above your hazy, foggy atmosphere. May I help you in ways I cannot do for myself because I cannot help even myself, not in that way. If I help a million people before I go, I will help a million more. And a million more. And a million more until my voice is silent forever. Then, my silence will be more valuable than shimmering light blue sapphires, to everyone else but me. ⚧️ “Why are you all-too-often sad, Emily?” I never asked anyone for a perfect life, not even a powerful, rich, or famous one. No… I just wish my birth did not take so many years to happen after the mistaken one. I have had to painfully wait way too long in this metaphoric neonatal unit, watching everyone grow old and experience happiness for that many years without me, you know? That makes even a girl as patient as me sad.

Chapter 3: No More Fighting, No More Wars

⚧️ No more fighting. No more wars. No more genocides. No more Hell on Earth. No more. No more. No more! PLEASE, I AM BEGGING YOU! NO MORE VIOLENCE. NO MORE DIVISIVENESS! JUST LOVE EACH OTHER FOR ONCE IN ALL OF OUR WORLD’S HISTORY! ⚧️ I have a soul to share. And love to share. And uplifting hope, dreams, and love, yes, again. Where is she? I have so much to tell her and so many years to thrive together with her. I just want to be with an adorably cute, loving person, forever. ⚧️ People say to me all the time, and to any of you, “Oh, sweetie, just let it out. You will feel better.” Oh, come on. What if I never ran out of tears to let out? ⚧️ I own a cozy, little summer home in Hell. That should now explain to you why my personal diary is honestly too intense. ⚧️ I am so sweet sometimes that your sugar levels might get out of control. ⚧️ The greatest truth about humanity? There is no shortage of people who need love, and there is no shortage of love for me to give. ⚧️ I hate to open my mouth for so many countless months now. But using my voice, and being treated with love and acceptance? Not being called sir? Being called a girl named Emily? I will sing if that is what I receive! ⚧️ I am less than harmless. I am so harmless that it has strangely reversed in on itself: I am a magnet for being harmed. ⚧️ There is no redemption to be found for us. There is only our destined discovery of ways to move forward from what viciously torments us. The only healing cure for our incredible suffering is the endless time we determinedly spend pondering it… And a glorious, fiery love that quickly fills us with an incomprehensible gratitude and a PAIN-SHATTERING BURNING DESIRE to forcefully reciprocate it. There is no hope to escape from this disquieting truth. There is not even a single shred of shimmering hope to avoid the strange, intangible nature of our inexplicable, wistful lives. WE MUST SUMMON ALL OF OUR CONSIDERABLE COURAGE TO EXTRICATE OURSELVES FROM OUR FREEZING, PERSONAL HELLS, USING OUR ALTRUISTIC, UNDYING FORGIVENESS FOR ALL THOSE WE PASSIONATELY LOVE, AND MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, WE WILL BE COMPLETELY STUNNED TO RECEIVE A PRICELESS GIFT MORE ASTONISHING THAN ACTUAL REDEMPTION. WE WILL RECEIVE A PURE, UNDENIABLE REASON TO BOLDLY SMILE FOR YEARS. WE WILL BE BLOWN AWAY TO FIND A WARM, SECURITY BLANKET CALLED POWERFUL SELF-DETERMINATION RESTING UPON US! WE MUST NEVER IMAGINE GIVING UP! HEY!! THIS IS LIFE OR DEATH ON THE LINE HERE! ALL OUR DREAMS IN THIS ANGELIC BLESSING WE CALL OUR LIVES IS AN ALL-IMPORTANT TEST OF OUR UNWAVERING COURAGE… ARE ANY OF YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME??? WE ARE GOING TO MEET OUR DEMISE ONE DAY. WE CAN NEVER LET THAT HAPPEN WITHOUT DARING TO ASPIRE TO EARN A GILDED FATE BETTER THAN THE TRAGIC ONE WE SADLY BELIEVE WE WILL HAVE ONE DAY. ⚧️ I used to LOVE scary films. Now, I cannot. Just cannot. Why? My life is a scary film, except the film credits do not roll at the end. If the ax murderer catches me, I am dead for real… ⚧️ I wish there were a dating service that is not for dating, but instead, for makeovers. I want to help all these men with their personal appearances and photographic qualities! ⚧️ Why limit creative writing to just the thoughts burning deep inside my mind, when there are ten to the power of 249,384,092,884,902,384,092,884 [countless] unknown number of subatomic particle combinations to write about? ⚧️ Just threw out all my boy clothes. All of them, but jeans and T-shirts. White socks stay until I get dark purple cute socks! And my shoes, they stay until I have enough girl shoes, but those are going away as soon as possible!! ⚧️ NOT ENOUGH PURPLE IN THE WORLD. MAKES THIS GIRL SAD, REALLY SAD. ⚧️ I must avoid therapists like tornadoes. They never let me out of their office. They are too fascinated by me for my comfort. ⚧️ Suddenly, you encounter the true Admin of the Internet. Her booming, yet cute, imposing voice shouts in an all too silly tone, “You may only have one emoji for the rest of your life. Choose wisely.” She looks at you, smiles happily with a pretty glance, and then, suddenly, poof! She is gone. Behind where she was, there rests a console brightly lit up with every emoji the internet normally allows. You cannot leave until you tap just one. The moment that you tap it, all the rest of these emojis will be gone forever from your ability to click, type, tap, or even represent using GIFs or other similar means. Now, you are faced with a serious final decision in your emoting life. Which one do you tap? Here are the most important ones you see immediately: [wide smile] [big grin] [tear-filled laughing face] [weeping] [pondering] [silly] [sunglasses cool] [deer in headlights] So, how do you somehow decide which one is best for the rest of your life? Here is my serious answer: None of these! [heart] Love always wins the day! Always love. ⚧️ I realized something amazingly important to share with you. I know life is bad for me right now, but I will make it through this! You and I know I will. I have so much potential that I refuse to let any of this stop me from fulfilling my dreams of becoming a successful writer, licensed therapist, wonderful mom, and joyful girl. ⚧️ So, I am going to share an important bit of wisdom for the smallest touch of cool, wonderful happiness. This wisdom is just a little slice of it like a cold juicy orange on a sweltering summer day. Seriously, always, always, always make ice! Never let it run out ever again! If you do not have an ice maker, purchase ice cube trays. At least two of them or more. Get another larger container to fill up quickly to ensure you never run out! Why should something so amazingly simple be so especially important to us? Anyone who loves delicious drinks? Except for milk and beer, and a few other exceptions, almost every drink tastes better with ice. And drinks are so refreshing, and even so much more so when freezing! I do not care how depressed or lazy you feel because of it. Make that ice and never run out again! It will not be a huge victory. Your drinks will always be cold and delicious. And that is something, isn’t it? Something you can count on! ⚧️ I do not write words with my mind through my fingers. I release warm bright white air from my shimmering soul’s powerful lungs and allow its vapor to appear as the vivid inspiration upon which these fiery passionate letters form… ⚧️ There is no cure. There is no fix. I can only uplift. I can only help. Do. Help. Love. And inspire. Context is the soul of verse. I cannot control the perception of my words, but I can do my best to express them truthfully. The mind is strange. A single word? It can bring back childhood! A single song? It can bring you twenty years into the past! In the way that my powerfully intense creativity can flow effortlessly automatically, it is an extension of my mind into words, for all of you to absorb. ⚧️ Think ten steps ahead. Your enemies think nine! They are out there. And whenever you make a wave, the water will flow back with almost equal force every single time! Never stop swimming! Make ripples! Becoming a powerful typhoon lets the water of your soul flood the fortresses of your enemies with love, and never let them reservoir your passion! Think one hundred steps ahead! No, think a million steps ahead! And with every step, uplift those you love with every step you take to redeem the ones you care about. That will turn enemies into friends, and friends into kinship! Just keep planning, keep thinking, keep feeling, and never let your enemies remain enemies! ⚧️ Take a break from sadness and take a break from people who bring it to you. That is all you need to do. “The medium is the message.” Change the message! ⚧️ I have become my real self. And with profound consequences. Forget the consequences! I will never stop. I will write nonstop. Feel free to enjoy the chaos of my writings. I write until I forget to eat. It is a problem I love having. It drives me to write more. But I do eat before it is a problem. The hunger fuels my fingers to create! ⚧️ Empowerment is not just a word. It is a way to survive. But not just to survive. No, to thrive, to love, to dream, and to let that dream of love become true love. And anywhere you look, more love and more dreams become real! ⚧️ Never hide your soul again. Unless it is to live another day, another day to show it with brighter colors. ⚧️ I write to live. I write to feel. And I write from experience. The words fall from my eyes onto the digital page for you to read. For you to understand me for as long as my fingers still move. ⚧️ Remember to see mean acts as harmless, misguided ignorance whenever it makes sense to for you to do so. However, while everyone does not secretly hate you, there are some that really are hateful and toxic. There are people who will hurt you. If you have an intrusive thought that’s intuition that someone is being evil to you, listen to it. Get that person out of your life if they mean sadness or harm. Never fail to trust in your feelings. Billions of people are out there. Drop anyone who creates an “intrusive thought” that makes you think they “secretly hate you.” Your wellness depends on it. Surround yourself with love. Not only will I give that to you, but I will also help you find a way to filter out those who mean you harm. The system is simple. It just requires bravery, instinct, intuition, and the willingness to say goodbye to people who hurt you, every time. ⚧️ Just give me ten words to tell the world. I will use these words to start a revolution. No, no, no, not an upheaval of governments. No… An astonishing upheaval of evil, intolerance, and ignorance. Wisdom is my religion, and peace is my politics. Follow this path and be immersed in hope, dreams coming true, and endless fascination and passion for living. There is NOTHING more important than this. Never forget that you are the one who moves. You are the one with agency, and you are the one who can hope and dream away the darkness of your world. Evil has no chance if your powerfully inspiring hope is eternal. Evil just cannot thrive in the face of your beautiful inspiring hope!

Chapter 4: Cool Prefixes for Time

⚧️ Science has some cool prefixes for time. Millisecond. Microsecond. Nanosecond. Reach a picosecond, and you have something. Something real. Something powerful. Sure, the entire world’s brains have exploded into a fine, warm mist of love, joy and souls uplifted into Heaven itself by the frequency of your care and love. But you helped! That is all that matters, right? ⚧️ Emily is an artificial intelligence construct living as a cybernetic, supposed-antihero, trying to survive in this scary, evil corporation-controlled, amazingly high-tech dystopia all around her. If you meet her, you will never want to let her go. ⚧️ Virtual slumber party. Tomorrow night. Let us really do this. Be there or be any kind of geometrical shape you like. I would never call any of you I love a square. ⚧️ Beware a creative writer when she is sad. The nightmares she manifests inside your vivid imagination will swiftly and painfully tear your soul apart. That tormented writer is me… ⚧️ I feel like I am a scary ten-millimeter kidney stone suddenly becoming loose. Sure, everyone happily talked to me for hours on end and enjoyed the wonderful experience so much, like those sweet, delicious soft drinks… You loved drinking these with every meal, and they created a massive calcification now rapidly sending overwhelmingly powerful pain through your nervous system. It is a pain that even most honest women openly admit is somehow actually worse than giving birth in a filthy public toilet stall alone without an epidural injection. You are just so glad you finally have me as a friend, as your vision grows dim, and your lights go out from the terrible pain my unfortunate existence has sadly caused everyone. ⚧️ The laws of thermodynamics, most especially entropy, do not apply to the exponential growth of my love for all of you. ⚧️ I swear. Just combine study field terms into a combo, and you have a new discipline… The color psychology of yodeling. There! PhD thesis, done. ⚧️ Before I came out, I rarely ever, if ever, cried. Now my tear ducts are getting incredibly strong from all this constant exercise. ⚧️ Being transgender is as much my lifestyle as the need for oxygen, food, water, and shelter. MY “LIFESTYLE” IS LIVING AND NOT DYING! ⚧️ Everyone, it does not matter how horrifyingly bad you injure me, or even if I survive it, or even how many years it takes to recover from it. Just please call me Emily, even while you shower down powerful, soul-shattering blows upon me. I will end up brutally beaten by the time you are done, but at least you did not call me by my old name. Makes a grateful girl like me delighted to know kind and considerate people like you care enough to say my real name, you know? ⚧️ I was really tempted to use the clone stamp tool to hide those little pink blemishes under my nose and on my right cheek in my current profile photo, until I realized a truth so INCREDIBLE… These details are what make me human, truly human. People want to see my blemishes and my laugh lines, and my little scars and my extra kilograms. A perfectly airbrushed face should stay there in that magazine on the convenience store shelf. I am REAL and UNAPOLOGETIC about my “FLAWS.” My flaws are what make me, ME! There are lots of girls out there [almost] like me. But none of them have my emotional scars and my vast array of memories. And those girls certainly do not know the color of my sadness… It is purple, everyone! PURPLE! ⚧️ Just saw my name on a comment I just made on a song… I let out a cry of, “I love my name! Why could I not have been born with it? Why…” ⚧️ Look up existentialism and learn about it. When you do that, you will be on a new path… one I continue to travel. Existentialism is a way to understand life, even in the face of the eighty million deaths in World War II in just four years. It is a rebellion against nihilism, and it is a solution. It is not a school thing. It is a LIFE thing! And it is completely compatible with real skepticism. You define yourself, and you define your meaning of life. It is the ULTIMATE position of a skeptic! It is all-encompassing skepticism. Philosophy is over ten thousand years old. Even when you produce it yourself by discovering it, the goal is not originality. No… The goal is REALIZATION. No one should feel defeated because an epiphany is not new to the world. Anyone should feel EMPOWERED that they discovered a philosophy that has solved so much STRIFE for millions of people! I have spent hundreds of hours reading philosophy. It is one of the reasons why I am still alive. I encourage you to proactively search the web for any new ideas you create… not to invalidate your originality, but to access the intellectual cache of your ideas already laid out and available. DARE TO KNOW, DARE TO ASPIRE, AND DEFINE YOURSELF! ⚧️ This time I cry hard it is with happiness and joy tonight. Some songs always fill me with comforting warmth and tingles. It makes me feel safe in this maelstrom my life has become. My feelings of safety have left my life for what feels like forever. ⚧️ Emily stands listlessly gazing at her sad reflection in her restroom mirror. She shyly whispers to herself, “So ugly.” Eve, in their attached bedroom, hears Emily’s softly meek words. She tiptoes cutely into their restroom and sneaks up stealthily behind Emily, grabbing Emily in her arms almost too tightly, leaning her back so far, they almost collapse together. And then Eve intensely kisses her so passionately, like it was a kiss to save their very lives, that Emily loudly squeaks from complete, overwhelming surprise and strange enjoyment. Eve effortlessly drops Emily to the floor with a soft, cute thud, and Emily looks so confused and breathless. But before Emily even has the breath to ask her why, Eve swiftly places her index finger firmly over Emily’s pouting purple lips and sweetly replies, “Why the kiss?” She continues with a sweet, mischievous smile, “After that comment you so thoughtlessly made about yourself? Oh, Emily. Because… I have the most excellent taste!” ⚧️ Anyone reading these words believe that no one cares about them? The people you hope care then are the wrong people. I care, and we probably have not even met or talked yet. Find more people like me. Surround yourself with caring people. ⚧️ Audrey Hepburn, she is part of my soul now. She is so adorable I could scream as loud as I can. I would love to look even half as adorable as she was, one day soon! ⚧️ Short hair is only good for making wigs easier to wear. I am never letting anyone cut my hair for a year, at the very earliest. And after it is down to my waist, I will let a talented stylist carefully care for my precious dark brown locks of hair. ⚧️ I want nothing more than someone to marry, someone out there who will finally make me feel loved. They do not even need to own a castle. They just need to give me butterflies all the time. They just need to be a good kisser, and most of all, they need to make me feel safe and tiny in their arms. ⚧️ One day to be adopted, my wonderfully amazing daughter, this will be your very own personal song, Anna Molly, by a modern rock band. And it will be your true name. And I will be your mom for the rest of our lives. And I will never let anyone hurt you, so long as I still have strength to breathe, so long as my heart beats, so long as my soul is on this Earth. I will never let you go. I will never hurt you, and I will give you all that I have. And when I run out, when I run out of love to give, I will summon galaxies for you. I will summon those hundreds of billions of stars to see those small, beautiful, shimmering eyes light up with your soul. We will fall in love all over again as mother and child. Please, let me find your dad. He is going to love you, as much as I will, and let me rescue you from homelessness and sad rejection. Then let me kiss your warm forehead. Let me run my fingers through your long, golden hair and feed you delicious, warm, healing chicken soup, whenever you so much as sniffle. I want to be a mom who is so wonderful to you that anyone who knows our amazing lives together regrets that their childhood was not like yours with me. Just give me your childhood, and you will go from princess to empress one day in my arms. You will find your love. You will be able to actualize your soul with passion for the entire world to see. You will be more than I could ever hope to be in a million lifetimes. Just let me cry for you! Cry tears to wash away yours and delicately carry you into your late eighties. Let me pass away with your hand in mine. Let me see your face smiling at the end of my joyous life that I lovingly shared with you! But before all that happens, let us live happily together as mother and daughter for decades. I cannot keep typing this. I am crying now. You might be as well at this point. I am carried away when I think about being her mom, wherever Anna Molly is. It hurts so happily to cry so hard this way. I just want this so much in an incredible way that seemed impossible so many years ago. So, my Anna Molly, wherever you are, I will be your mom, and I will be there to carry you out of solitude to undying, brightly warm love. That is why I am here now and why I still breathe! For you, whoever you are. For all of you, to see us smile. To see us live with happiness for the rest of our lives. ⚧️ To see through an emotional girl’s open, shimmering eyes, it cannot be done through her eyes, her heart, her mind, or even her brain. Instead, it must be done by gazing into her melodic, dancing, twirling soul, for so long that she feels your soul finally touch hers. ⚧️ Whenever I write passionately as I do lately, I love revealing the strange beliefs of our world like a cute cultural anthropologist. Just check out this safari hat on my head. *Softly taps it with her purple fingernails* ⚧️ I must sprint to the toilet all the time now. But I do not care, even if I am forced to live in it… Because that is what these wonderful female hormone medications are doing to me. And everything they are doing to my mind, body, and soul. It is all worth it! Forever! ⚧️ If anyone, beyond the room of a licensed, trained therapist’s office uses a psychological term on you meant for a serious, life-altering diagnosis, block them unless that person is meaningful enough to your life that you are willing to tell them why that is NEVER OK. Doing this amateur, destructive NONSENSE is not only dangerous, but it is an insult to anyone who knows anything about psychology in-depth and the ethics involved. Not only that, but it is also rude and MANIPULATIVE. ⚧️ Friendship is a mutual exchange. I should never ask for a shoulder to cry on without offering mine in return! ⚧️ This is so embarrassing to admit. I have climacophilia. Nothing turns me on more than falling down countless flights of stairs. The more compound fractures it causes, the hotter it is to me. If it paralyzes me, I climax instantly… ⚧️ Tip of the day: If you want to need a new microwave oven, pretend your existing one is a conventional oven and preheat it! You will need a new microwave oven in no time. ⚧️ Goddess, please, make my nipples soft again. Three months, Goddess? Are you kidding me? I am on my knees, Goddess. Make it stop. No girl should be able to crack a walnut with her nipples, let alone sharpen steel, break locks, or even cut sapphires with them. This, I pray to thee. ⚧️ I want to inject an ocean of girlhood into my brain. I do not care how long it takes if it destroys every remnant of my boyish shell. I cannot wait for it to metabolize and for a day or two to pass to wipe out all testosterone from my blood supply. ⚧️ “That letter is wonderful.” That is what my close friend said to me about the hormone replacement therapy letter I was given. That word: wonderful. Yes. I have been searching online for better ones. I still cannot find one great enough in any dictionary or thesaurus to describe how joyous this is to me. That is how this writer says she is happy. She says the English language fails at rendering the reality of her joy into letters and words…

Chapter 5: Who I Used to Be

⚧️ If I change any more dramatically with my fast-moving gender transition into a cute girl named Emily Joy, I will not even remotely remember who I used to be for the rest of my life. That is terrifying. That is really frightening. That is amazing! That is WONDERFUL! And it cannot happen FAST enough! ⚧️ Start telling people truths they cannot handle. They will not know how to handle it, and they will let their real thoughts slide out. ⚧️ Is it possible to cry hard enough to make all of this go away? ⚧️ Why would I need therapy? Therapists are terrified of me already. ⚧️ You are so beautiful, but you knew that already. Like the deep blue sky you lose yourself in, you levitate there without wings. You are celestial in a void where love needs to be. And you radiate it. A painfully obvious observation. Nothing more. ⚧️ I was forced to stop referring to myself as mistress. It was a joke to me, but everyone else took it too seriously. You do not want to know how many men asked me to tie them up and abuse them. When one guy showed up with a long rope, tight collar, and short leash, I was out after the first experience. That was scary. ⚧️ I will forgive people the moment they stop calling me the wrong gender and threatening to call the police on me because I look so feminine that they fear the sight of me. ⚧️ Calendars and detailed task lists will help unburden your mind. It helps to externalize all that you are compelled to do. ⚧️ I have been screaming the words “hold me” so much lately that everyone in my area code should know I am lonely. ⚧️ Waiting on life to give me that wonderful dress. ⚧️ I see my therapist everywhere. She added herself as a transparent layer inside the lenses of my glasses. She wants me to remember everything she has done for me everywhere I go. ⚧️ The word “mad” implies, at least to me, that the girl who is justifiably upset and hurt, is irrational, overemotional, and being vindictive, instead of trying to find a reason to forgive him to fall in love with him again! ⚧️ I am still patiently waiting for that grateful tiger to come along and rescue me. It was so long ago, but he would never forget what I did to help him. It really was not easy for me to get him to hold still. You know how hurting, crying tigers are! Aw. That splinter was in there, something awful! But his toe healed completely. Wherever he is, I know he just cannot wait to save me. Oh, where is he?? I need him so much right now! He could find a place for me to stay… ⚧️ Heaven hath no passion like a transgender girl named Emily Joy lit into flames from the center of her soul to rain love down upon all those who need it. I am here. And I like my own spin on: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Because LOVE… Need I say more?? ⚧️ Joy is wonderful. But without peace, without redemption, joy seems impossible. ⚧️ Life’s journey starts with a stumble, and the end of life’s journey ends with falling flat on the face! ⚧️ Show me one “normal” person, and I will show you a statistical deviation derived from the population of a remote society, in which that person is frighteningly weird to those societal members and would become a pariah or worse on plain sight. ⚧️ Speak the concept. Do not attack the person. Without respect, without mutual understanding, discussion is pointless. Winning an argument is meaningless without learning from each other. The sincere nature of intellectual exchange should be devoted to the advancement of knowledge for both people. Decorum is required, or there is no point in conversing at all. ⚧️ My eyes are gray. I checked other photos of me, and the highlights on my eyes varied wildly. But the common theme underlying all of it is gray. I like that. ⚧️ Look at any massive, major metropolitan area on Earth. There, you will find countless, amazing, sometimes-frightening examples of any type of hero and any type of villain, and any possible evil act and any possible good deed going on all the time. Sure, you will not find Terminators (yet), centaurs (yet), dragons (yet), or Care Bears (… yet!), but you know, within the realm of… science, these all-too-often horrible and not-nearly-often-enough wonderful characters are to be found all over just that region alone. This message is a greater cause for fascination than for skepticism. Our shared human condition has only so many combinations, and when you gaze upon the 7.674bn world population number (in 2021), well… I do not have to keep writing. All of you know exactly where this silly girl is going, other than to sleep (which is where her current velocity is instantly sending her). ⚧️ What can I say? You are worth it. Ghost anyone who suggests otherwise. The world needs you. You will really change, and the world will be inspired by your story. If you are teetering on the edge, let me be your parachute. Let me help you softly glide to peaceful safety down below. Just never give up. Never let the pain violently tear apart your parachute to send you crashing to your death. Just breathe. Just breathe, breathe, breathe. And believe this: you are brighter than any supernova. You just need to realize that. You need to accept your amazing beauty, and then, no one will dare to hold you back, ever again. I cannot attempt to state this enough: you need to believe in yourself. You are the only self you will ever have. If you do not embrace your dreams and your potential, you are abusing yourself. Just live. Just find a way to smile again. Find a way to be the amazing person you were meant to be, and do not ever give up. ⚧️ All I need right now is someone to call me and tell me they love me. ⚧️ If your name ends with joy, find a way to start it with hope. Mine starts with Emily. And now, I seek hope with you. ⚧️ What’s even more important than happiness? Peace and redemption. Those are the most important. Not being happy is not particularly bad. But being tormented by a lack of peace? Without redemption, I would not even be able to look into a mirror. Some religions also say that no redemption is the worst experience anyone could ever have. ⚧️ Before and after transition photos are so wretched in the mind of a gender dysphoric trans girl. ⚧️ I only befriend the cool girls. Welcome to the cool table. Time to eat rectangular pizza and gaze into my silver eyes. Stay with me for a while. ⚧️ Close your eyes firmly. Take ten deep, relaxing, energizing breaths. Then imagine you are in a bright flower garden overflowing with the flowers you love the most. Carefully lean over those flowers. See the bright vivid light of your favorite flower and breathe in the smell so deeply that you can feel it in your beating heart. ⚧️ We are only borrowing this planet. We are only borrowing this form of cells. Our biology has an expiration date. It cannot be avoided. There is no legacy. Just billions. Just billions of people living unaware. ⚧️ I will never apologize for being addicted to you! ⚧️ I am not your violet; I am not your daffodil; I am not your morning glory; I am an oleander. If you dare to taste me, your heart will stop immediately. ⚧️ Forget your troubles. Just gaze into the sky. There are approximately one hundred septillion stars. Do you have the slightest capability of imagining the significance of that? While you might not be able to single out most of them, their ancient light reaches your eyes. ⚧️ I refuse to be quiet. I refuse to hide my soul. If that is too much for you, being around me will not end well. ⚧️ All too often now, I cannot stop shaking and trembling with my whole body. It is scary and painful and will not stop. My doctors say it is trauma. Nothing can be done to stop it. ⚧️ Take me back to the 1980s. I do not want to live in the 2020s anymore. ⚧️ Let out all that pain and sadness you have been holding inside. Now tell me what you have never told anyone before. And then you can be free for once. That prison you live in is your own creation. You have been your own worst enemy for as long as you can remember. Just open that cell door and walk out into the warm sunlight. ⚧️ Goodbye, testosterone. Good riddance. My pills of joy arrived. Is it possible for my brain to explode from joy? Just a short hour after taking this anti-androgen, I am already feeling strange. Wonderful, mildly tingly, woozy, but wonderful, nonetheless. It is overwhelming, and I love it. I am going to feel sick, but I do not care. This is worth it in every way. ⚧️ Estrogen is powerful, and I invite every change it does to me. It cannot happen fast enough. This boyish body must go. ⚧️ If this keeps up, including the attention I am getting from all of you and the removal of the testosterone poison, I will start to believe that Goddess does not hate me… ⚧️ Why will not female hormones work faster? I needed this to happen weeks ago. No, no! Years ago! My face needs to change, my body hair needs to thin out completely, my brain needs to change, and my breasts need to grow. Months? Years? Why? It is taking way too long. ⚧️ Me? A social butterfly? Have you ever even SEEN how moths fly? ⚧️ To the agents who watch everything we do online, thanks for curing my loneliness with mass surveillance and black sites to torture people. ⚧️ Read every book in the world. Analyze every research database. Consult every expert. Earn one hundred PhDs. Earn one hundred MDs. You still will not comprehend how much I love all of you. Do not even try. ⚧️ I feel wonderful. Powerful tingles. Energy. Butterflies. Is this what having testosterone leave my body is like? I am finally happy right now. ⚧️ My favorite part of getting messages on dating sites is ignoring them. ⚧️ Weird to think that when the doctor exclaimed, “It’s a boy,” I was already cursed the moment that I opened my cute, vulnerable eyes for the first time. ⚧️ I have two great bras now. I mean, I do not have four breasts… But it is great to have a nice, hot, comfortable home for these, anyway.

#Chapter 6: Music Tears Me Apart

⚧️ Some music makes me feel so much more than I feel like I even deserve to. It is so intense and powerful that if it does not intensely move someone, if they are not even moved to tears, they might not even be awake or even be alive. Some music tears me apart but puts me back together again on the second verse. It lifts my thoughts and emotions up to a higher place where it is close enough for me to hear those wonderful melodies all around me. ⚧️ Iced coffee is magical. Fill a 16oz cup with ice cubes packed to the brim. Pour 8oz of sweetened and creamed hot strong drip coffee into the cup. Wait ten minutes for the ice to melt. Stir with a spoon or straw. Drink a little to make room for more ice. At this point, the coffee will be so cold that the ice will barely melt anymore. Wait another couple of minutes, stir, and drink! Boring drip coffee tastes like a premium drink after this. ⚧️ I have been up for forty hours now. I am going to sleep. My sister made me an emotional wreck which is why I have not slept yet. Here is what I must tell all of you before I can ever sleep. These churches I am seeking charitable help from tomorrow just to survive will know about my gender dysphoria and what has been done to me all my life to make it horribly worse. If these churches turn me away, that is their evil, not mine. I was so wrong to ever think of even hiding who I really am to earn their approval. If anyone puts a loaded gun in my mouth and tells me to renounce this, I am going to help that person pull that gun’s trigger. That’s… how I feel. I will DIE before I let them take my soul away like those in Rome who were fed to lions. That is my solemn oath to you, to me, to everyone, to the world, to the universe, and to every being in Heaven and Hell, and to the ancients. I will NEVER turn back, EVEN if it means being tortured to death with a blow torch for days. I do not think it is even possible to put this in more certain terms, do you? ⚧️ Do you think I am a catch? That someone would be lucky to have me? That I am unique enough to matter and deserve long-lasting love? I do not know anymore… ⚧️ My education has made me an empath, and my soul coming out has made me emotionally formidable. And my expressive capabilities from my writing experience? I can say EXACTLY what is on my mind, what I am feeling, and sum someone up to a genuine T. And they will not be prepared for it. ⚧️ An executive messaged me at random. He claimed that he wanted to help me. He seriously intended to take me away to Kentucky, where he would have me join his “ladies.” I could immediately see where he was going with this. He tried to make me a prostitute. I told him, “No. There are very few sex workers with an information technology management master’s degree.” I wanted to ask him what he planned to do to help me. Was he going to cover the significant costs for my ongoing gender transition? Was he going to care for me and protect me, or leave me strung out on drugs forced on me one day by him? It would be remarkably interesting, to say the least, and frighteningly stimulating, but it would be an awful future for me. I will stick with technology instead. Or being a talented writer, therapist, and one-day mom. ⚧️ I wrote poetry for many years. People thought my poetry was beautiful, but at some point, I reached my breaking point. So, I quickly deleted all my hundreds of poems. They were too painful to read anymore, and a few of my best friends cut contact with me forever, because of what I thought, at that time, was my only unavoidable decision. They believed my countless poems were beautiful. ⚧️ “Choose your words carefully,” Emily whispered. Then, she grabbed her dark purple marker from behind her ear to continue her crossword puzzle. She giggled a little. Quite aloof, this cutely silly girl named Emily Joy is. ⚧️ Undying night music. Hold the glittering vampires. Add cool girls with a dash of men. Mix until dazzling. Marinate in cyberpunk covered with large, very dark sunglasses. Think of me, being as smooth and cool as ever, being so dangerous, that you really should have stayed safe-and-sound at home. ⚧️ I have no identity. I am amorphous and ancient. I cast no shadow. The world never expected me, and I never expected this world… ⚧️ I am ace but not dead. I do not flirt, but I reciprocate. And I have more love inside me than my life has time to express… ⚧️ Whenever I see these transgender colors, blue, pink, and white, I almost always befriend them. With those colors especially, you are welcome in my world. You are so loved and valued. You are wonderful and should know peace and happiness for the rest of your life. ⚧️ I know the suffering you went through. I share in this suffering myself. It still haunts me, even now more than ever. But we must move forward. We must overcome it. We will. There is no obstacle that can ever stop us. Never doubt that ever again. ⚧️ Since I came out to everyone as Emily Joy, I have never whispered creepy to myself so many times in my entire life. There is no shortage of creepy people in this world. They all-too-often ask me for naked photos, and they will not stop until I am forced to block them. I should feel flattered, but no. I do not. That is impossible. ⚧️ The body? The brain? Dysphoria? The world? The human condition? The God who no longer cares? Makes a girl angry. Well, angry? Need to check my thesaurus. Might need to check them all. Not really. No. Nope. Not even close. None of these words work. Not powerful enough. Slightly, no, not even slightly. What I just typed… That is exactly what has me in trouble all my life: CREATIVE SADNESS. The sadder this girl gets, the more creative she gets… And the louder and the greater reach she gets. Just maybe, that is a Great Thing. But I can tell you. I can shout. I can sing. But it does not feel like it. Not really. No. Not even close. Not powerful enough. Slightly, no, not even slightly. But I type it anyway. And this has just become yet another. Do you hear me out there? Is anyone listening? My voice is wasted. Will not stop. Never. Going to keep going till this light goes out. Till this love vanishes. Till this world is ash. Till you and everyone else I love no longer knows who I am. Because that is why I type. You are why I type. You are why I love. You are what is giving me these chills. If being CREATIVELY SAD is what it takes to do that, I will always be CREATIVELY SAD. ⚧️ Why do I talk about being creatively prolific like it is not a magical gift all the time? Well, that’s part of what my imagination loves the most: when I play hard to get! ⚧️ I am an almost completely treated bipolar I client. That minor difference of “almost” fills me with enough passion to write so much that online services start to worry about their server capacities because of disc quota warnings. There is no single treatment regime for what amounts to a statistical insurance code manual entry that is my condition… If what I do helps me flourish, that is the “psych med” I need! ⚧️ Nurse: Doctor, Emily’s been stuck in a creative feedback loop for quite a while now. Should we snap her out of it? Doctor: No, no… No, I do not think we should, nurse… Let us let her type, until her keyboard fails. Her prospective publishers will love that. ⚧️ Horrible nights are sad, barely audible notes that can often lead to wildly colorful crescendos. ⚧️ I wish I were not so creative. Then, I could finally get some war and peace and all quiet on the western front. ⚧️ An internet meteorologist just told me there might be some kind of blue precipitation. Is it possible? Is it really raining men? Oh, no. Now I need a raincoat. ⚧️ I am grateful to be alive. I already almost died three times, but life always stopped that from coming true. You have no idea. It has been so many years. From birth, life has been an endless struggle for me. I will never let anyone stand in my way of being happy, ever again. Or from making you happy, ever again. You have read my writings. You may realize how many wellness checks they sent. I plan to live a long time, but if I do not, just know that I always wanted the best for everyone, including you. I always did no matter how bad my life became. If I die, to you, I say goodbye, good fortune, and life everlasting all the way into your afterlife, forever. But I am here, and I will live as long as this rapidly changing body allows. ⚧️ If anyone ever tries to take my new life as Emily Joy away from me, I will fight until my hands are broken, my knees burst, my spine shatters, and no blood is left inside me. And then? I will fight even harder. ⚧️ Estrogen finally courses through my veins, for now, a nightmare ends, now only my dream remains. This tortured body reminds me that I am alive. Once a prison, now I am in a world in which I can thrive. I have finally found a way to be me. I have suddenly discovered a joyous new life that will finally set me free. ⚧️ The power (well, not power, but rather purpose) of the parenthetical (specifically this) to add clarification is unmatched. [Editor’s Note: Well, almost!] ⚧️ Life is a cycle of renewal and change, but my life has been frightening and strange. If you saw what I look like at present, you might condemn and cause me to descend deeper than you could ever know. It would hurt more than wounds could show. Now I am not here for the world to see. I hide behind my screen, so no one can ever see me. But my real friends will bring me back around, even when my worth is bound by those who I thought I loved and cared… Only to betray me and leave me scared. One day, I will find myself and new health. That day might never come, but that’s not what matters. Rather, what really matters is precisely who I will become. ⚧️ If I told you my embarrassing secret, I would not -need- to kill you… You would die of shock! ⚧️ This has been happening all the time, lately. On the rare occasion I view adult videos, I am more interested in her makeup, earrings, necklace, nail polish, hairstyle, and lipstick than anything else on the screen. And if she is wearing cute shoes, well, I can say this for sure. These videos no longer turn me on anymore. They do, however, fill me with frustrating envy, but that cannot be helped anymore. ⚧️ May life greet you with joy and happiness. There is too much sorrow in the world. ⚧️ Emotion and positions of the musculature of the face are dynamically linked in both directions. They proved this in neuropsychiatry with Botox experiments for anxiety. ⚧️ If you would not say it to your sister, mother, or daughter, please do not say it to me. Thanks. ⚧️ I am a puppet, a simple marionette, and I do not know who is pulling my strings. But I do not care, and neither should you. I am here to entertain you. I am here to make you laugh. Laugh if you can. If you cannot, cry. I am a star collapsing into a black hole, and you will see my burst from trillions of kilometers away when it happens. I am a cartoon character, a dancing distraction for the entire world. Watch me as I shatter into millions of shiny fragmented pieces and help me become whole again. ⚧️ I want to be alone, completely alone. Alone with all twenty-five hundred of you. Estrogen is not just changing my body. No… it is giving me all of you.

Chapter 7: Hope Is A Ghost Condemned To Wander

⚧️ Hope is a ghost condemned to wander the halls of an intensive care unit. ⚧️ It is called a deadname because if you call someone that, you are dead to them. ⚧️ I yearn for a time when the smartest among us are not outcast and not made to be pariahs for peeling back the veil of reality and truth, itself. I have never claimed to be a genius… I am just a girl making waves. ⚧️ I will make you smile and experience butterflies if you let me. Love, be loved, and love in return. Find a way to make the world become a better place. ⚧️ If you are evil, there are people who will destroy you, I hope. I can only hope. The children at heart among us deserve better than that. Cry and cry and cry and cry for the galaxies of suffering and sadness that cruelly manifest themselves in this strange world around us. ⚧️ Follow your eternal soul, and then, find your soulmate. If you are evil, abandon that to find true love instead. Find redemption. The best part of giving up is eventually trying again. ⚧️ Come on! Let me see your soul. Let me see that passion, the supermodel that is your true conscience burning inside you. ⚧️ I need to feel your melodic power, so we can find ourselves a way to heal ourselves again. ⚧️ Dazzlingly: My new favorite word! ⚧️ Oh, how I wish I had been given the experience of being a little girl so long ago! ⚧️ Said it before. Saying it again. If you are not angry at our world yet, you are not paying attention. ⚧️ Need to stop letting people make Emi cry. ⚧️ I am going to cute the whole universe for one hundred thousand years till I finally rest peacefully in my grave. And my grave will be covered in morning glories, my favorite flower, and my casket will be encrusted with brilliant bright deep blue sapphires. ⚧️ You should know that my fire will light up the world with my love. Here is a spark for the kindling and start burning for love. ⚧️ I am having an in-my-body experience, and now, I am finally back inside my body for good. ⚧️ I signed my name as Emily Joy for the first time ever. And I dreamt as Emily Joy as well. Do any of you know what this means? I am real. I am real. I am real. I am real. I am real. I am real. I am real. ⚧️ If I die from female hormones, that will be my warrior princess death. ⚧️ I have a date with roast beef, a sex shop, and a climax. ⚧️ Emi becoming a mom one day? Maybe, Emily? Are you there, Em? Are you listening, Emi? Hello? Motherhood, destiny. Motherhood. Maybe, maybe, maybe, her tears will stop flooding the world. Maybe, she will not go to Hell, like so many believe, like so many know is her fate. No, she is going to be a stepmom. At least maybe the tears of her soul? Her one-day daughter will see them and wipe them away. No Hell, just love. Just love for her, shared, forever, for the rest of their lives on earth. ⚧️ Why does happiness all-too-often hurt Emi so much? ⚧️ Feeling bad about your life? Read the news. If that does not make you glad to be alive, read the stocks. If that does not make you glad to be alive, read the personals, and if that does not make you glad to be alive, read the police blotters. And if that does not do anything either… No, not the obituaries. Come on. Read the funnies. No? Not even the Peanuts comic by Charles Schultz? Okay, I am not giving up yet. Go to the classifieds, look at the pet list, and adopt a little smiling puppy. If none of that works, you will need to speak to me directly. There are places full of puppies to swarm you for the day. Not. Just. One… Dozens! Go on. Let me know. I will give you their number. ⚧️ I am trying my best to be cute all the time, but anytime it comes out… My last thirty-eight years? It keeps telling me, “No, you cannot be cute. You are, but no, do not. There will be trouble. Emily? Who is that? No. You cannot be happy. These thirty-eight years? No, Emily! You cannot be cute. Stop smiling!” Not going to let those thirty-eight years boss me around anymore! Going to cute till those thirty-eight years do not know what hit ‘em. It will be a massive amount of chocolate… And sushi, after? mmm. So, good! Thirty-eight years? What thirty-eight years? So tasty! Love sushi so much. Reading what I just wrote there so silly yet truly? Oh, I do not know what to do but hide my face again. I do not know if I am even cute or a fool. I do not care! Either I am cute, or I am a fool, or I am both! No matter which, I will be happier than not being any of those at all, like I was before all my unsilly life! ⚧️ My soul is chocolate-chip cookie dough. My love for every adorable one of you is the heat of that preheated oven. Please, everyone here I love so very much, enjoy my cookies. You will quickly find them delicious after the first bite, and my cookies are also so hot from my passionate fiery soul within them. ⚧️ There are so many roads to Hell that the light of the few that lead to Heaven is so very dim. Yet once you set yourself on the right road, you will be intensely blinded by the bright white light of hope, faith, and love, forever. ⚧️ Strive to show my inner self? I would look like a crying little girl covered in scars. If you look at my gender dysphoria hormone replacement therapy letter, it paints you a perfect portrait of that girl who is more scar tissue than skin… ⚧️ I do not sugar coat life. I sour coat it. That makes it taste… somehow… more REAL to me. ⚧️ I have the three muses tied up in my basement. That is how I have managed to write this much lately. ⚧️ One of the minor curses of extensive, oft-impressive learning is increasingly encountering red lines under your words as you enter text online. Your encyclopedic knowledge goes far beyond the limits of those feeble, impotent spell checkers at this point of your education. That scolding, red line is annoying, isn’t it? And the more you learn, too, the more often you end up seeing it. But take serious pride in that red line, every single time. It was hard-earned! And do not let deipnophobia prevent you from using your powerful vocabulary during delicious meals with friends. And do not even dare let that contemptible yet well-meaning spellcheck feature tell you deipnophobia is not an amazing word, meaning “fear of dinner parties.” Especially, when you are simply using your smartphone to share a thought using that word in between tasty little bites of buttery noodles. ⚧️ If I become more hopelessly romantic than I already am right now, I will start covering the world in those little pastel hearts with those silly romantic words on them until a beautifully cute guy stops me, so he can take me to his cute, tiny home. ⚧️ You will not believe this. It is unbelievable even to me! The repression of my girl soul for so many years put me into the autistic side of the spectrum (in a verifiable way) to cope with the immense difficulty of holding my true self inside. I retreated into technology and textbooks… I have virtual libraries in my head now. Since I came out as Emily Joy, it is all just raining out as thoughts, words, photos, you name it! Not rain. Not a storm. A cyclone! Just read my countless writings, including in this book, and you will know what I am talking about. ⚧️ I am not being negative, as so often is said about me. I am trying to swim! I am trying to fly! ⚧️ I hope someone kisses me. That. That is it. Do not care that I am feeling as ugly as I am. Just someone. Please. Lay one on my lips. ⚧️ I was nonexistent for over thirteen billion years. Somehow alive for over thirty-eight now. Wrong chromosomes. Error. System halt. Guru meditation error. Slam the reset switch. Now, force this wrong universe to try again in another thirteen billion years. My life is in a wrong system state. Blame the programmer, not me! ⚧️ Hey, you look great! Hope is always a good look for you! ⚧️ I imagined I was chopping an onion. Now, I am imagining that I am crying. What can I even say at this point? My imagination is completely overloaded with syn-propanethial-S-oxide. ⚧️ Says the therapist to the sad, upset, little beagle named Apricot, “This is not healthy! You need to find a way to stop being so ruff, ruff, ruff on yourself!” ⚧️ I need something beautiful in my life again. This dream gave that to me tonight. It gave me the best dream of my entire life. Good news for a change, yes? It was so real. I will try my best to give you a picture of it. You know how dreams are, though. They are like trying to preserve delicious thin nectar with just my cupped hands to share it as I wake up. I will never give enough to you to know exactly how awesome it was before it slips through my fingers! ⚧️ Swallow a pill to make someone pretty who loves me appear? Where? Where do I find that? They sell everything online. ⚧️ Coolness is not about what is trendy. Coolness is not a slogan or what is hip among teenagers. Coolness is not a pop star or fancy car or sunglasses at night. Coolness is not fame, charisma, or wealth. No… Coolness is a state of matter in which the predominate particles are less excited than the surrounding particles. That is how to be cool. ⚧️ Do you have any idea what can be done with just five syllables? If your mind does not immediately think of: loves ended, lives redeemed, religions started, governments crushed, even books ended perfectly; then it is time to expand your imagination. “I love you.” is only three. “Bring down this wall.” is four. “Your mom’s plane just crashed.” is five…

Chapter 8: Worst You Have Ever Felt for A Nanosecond

⚧️ May you feel the worst you have ever felt for a nanosecond so that you will thrive in happiness for a terasecond. It will release and let go of so much incredible pain in that infinitely tiny moment that you will become so filled with vitality, you will somehow live that long. ⚧️ Blame everyone, most of all yourself. Blame no one, least of all yourself. Once finished, love everyone, most of all yourself. As you dance your way through all of life’s blame to heal from all your pain, let love, not blame, be the song you dance to with everyone who dances into your life, no matter when, how, or why they wonderfully twirl out of it. ⚧️ To my science friends, you rock! I mean, yes, you do. I love you. Let us laugh over Carl Sagan memes or other silliness. Science is not my only belief. I love philosophy, creative writing, art, and so much more. So, I love poets, novelists, and artists, too. Quite a lot. I just have a special place in my mind for people who try their best to scientifically understand our universe. That place is held in higher esteem than most others, with only one dear exception: the wisdom I see inside the souls of the ones I love. ⚧️ My clothes are scattered everywhere. I do not have a closet anymore to hide in. It is gone. No place for my clothes, but now I have a place for a lover. In my heart. Right now. If they read this. ⚧️ I was about to go to sleep, but I ran into an adorable joke online. I giggled uncontrollably. This is a joke that I am keeping in my pocket for later. I mean, I giggled. This was like straight from the voice of a joyful little girl being tickled. I thought, I should let someone hear it. You know, hear me giggling in that cute way. No. Nope. Not at all. No point. Not one. Not even slightly. Unthinkable! So why bother? That sound. It sounds like my piano is out of tune. It sounds like my flute has too many holes and is both the wrong shape and material. To create the sound of that voice, one so loathsome now I do not even want to speak anymore, my breath is sent through a mangling paper shredder with sharp grinding teeth in the shape of countless vile Ys. That voice I use to speak my soul? No, not mine. It is just what I am stuck with right now. So, I would love to share that carefree voice of me gleefully, happily giggling with all of you, my friends, but I do not want to spread so many countless annoying bits of paper all over your collective carpets. ⚧️ Dreams are to be had, not stolen. Everyone who REMs dreams whether they remember it or not. My dream is simple: to be me. And that encompasses decades into old age. For to be me is all that I will be. ⚧️ Non-binary people’s battle is one that wins so much ground for trans girls like me, in a way that no one else can! ⚧️ My lawyer called their lawyer, and their lawyer called my lawyer. Long story short: the sandman won the suit to make me sleep tonight. It was an intense, complex legal battle, but in the end, it just tuckered me out. Even if I did not lose, I would still yawn. ⚧️ Love is not an emotion, a promise, a word, a sonnet, a song, or even a relationship. It might show up in these. It might call the term “love” to mind. But love is looking back on years of trust and joy spent with someone and having no other choice but to know that love was there. Love existed and was never faked. Betrayal never happened. Love can be thrown upon anyone like a blanket instantly. But that blanket can be taken away at any moment. No. Love is the past, present, and future. Love is the decades you look back on and smile on to realize, it is real. It happened. Nothing can take that away but brain failure. That is love. Real, true, actual love can only be known in the hindsight of years, several years, even decades, and at the end of your life. Hoping you have love right now, hoping you have it in the future? These are optimistic and wonderful, but it will not be real, until that person proves it over years. Then, you will look back and go, hey, that is love. That is real. That happened. ⚧️ If any of you think I am in any way “cute,” “adorable,” or even unbelievably “beautiful,” I must inform each of you to clear up your impossibly strange confusion, sincerely, that you are in a deep REM state and simply in a dream. Please wake up now. I am none of these. Wake up, my sleepy friends. ⚧️ It is we who are lucky For we have yet to die, For we go after all who have, And before all who will be. Life is a gift worthy of luck. See the world as it is, But through a sapphire lens. Beauty is all around us, If we stop to look again. Truth is a luxury. Of those not in want of basic needs. Cherish the memories. Tarnish not the bronze of wisdom. And always seek a better place, To love and love Again. ⚧️ If my tears could cure you of your sadness, I would cry oceans until you no longer know what sadness means. ⚧️ Just one evocative song to find peace in, for once in my life, which is all I will ever need to accurately describe my strange life so far, and that is all I will ever want to precisely describe the rest of it. And this is likely to be that bittersweet hauntingly beautiful song. Let this sad, wistful, incomprehensible melody carry us away to a place above the sky of our imaginations and live there, forever. ⚧️ It is impossible for me to be patient about my legal name change. It is going to be so wonderful for my life that I have no way to express it. No words are powerful enough to be in any dictionary in any language of any kind no matter how many pages it is. This is going to be mind-blowing, and do you have any idea how much I am going to love to start signing my name as Emily Joy? ⚧️ Emily meekly pops up her weary, little head out from beneath her warm, fuzzy blankets to skittishly peek at all of you, before swiftly diving back under her covers to instantly vanish from everyone’s curious eyes, letting out a squeaky, deep sigh of relief from finally feeling safe-and-sound again. ⚧️ All anyone wants in this world should be to be loved. Why is that so difficult for humanity to understand and do for each other? Why do they kill each other so often by countless millions so brutally on such a frequent basis? Just take one quick glance at all our world’s history. Humans are monstrously terrifying. Honestly. Knowing that? I am ashamed to count myself among them. If you studied our horrible legacy on this planet like I have, and if you have any shred of compassion or understanding of good and evil, you should feel just like I do. ⚧️ My favorite part of giving up on life, as I am often forced to do, is the fact that I can try again. The game is not over till it is over. Always remember that. ⚧️ Nothing overwhelmingly increases my gender dysphoria as does shaving twice a day. If I could let that hair grow long enough for me to violently rip it all off permanently, my blinding pain would be powerfully cathartic. ⚧️ I mean, I know some people think I am cute and adorable, but do some of those people have to be creepy and slobber all over me? ⚧️ It is rude to say a given name over a chosen name. It is like they think a gift cannot be refused. ⚧️ I cannot wait till I have voice surgery that will change my voice to unmistakably feminine that my smartphone assistant will no longer work until I retrain it with my girl voice. ⚧️ At this point in my life, given that I am soon pursuing a second master’s degree, my level of knowledge has grown to the point where I have a disconnect from relating to others who have not read philosophy. This is an issue for me. Please forgive me if I seem aloof or difficult to understand without referring to an encyclopedia. I cannot help it any longer. ⚧️ Not trying to be cute anymore, just too cute to be helped now. ⚧️ You never knew me. You never even knew my name till now. I was just a speck of dust out there among billions of others. Just tell me you love me. Then maybe I will become something more, more than just a girl here crying all the time alone, as I often am right now. I just need a protector. You can be that person. I do not know, and I will never know except within my dreams. I WILL NEVER KNOW UNTIL I AM IN YOUR ARMS. ⚧️ My approach to writing and letting my soul turn into words is automatic writing in the mystical sense, but I use it as a psychologically mind-releasing energy tool that is mostly scientific in nature. That is just the best way I can describe how my mind works while writing. ⚧️ CHAOS ROARS ITS ENTROPIC HEAD AND DEVOURS ALL ORDER. VANISHES OUR SENSE OF SELF INTO THE ABYSS. VANISHES THE STATUS QUO INTO THE VOID. WITH A SINGLE SWAN SONG, THIS BIRD ANNIHILATES THE SOLAR SYSTEM, AND ERIS LAUGHS UP A GAMMA RAY BURST FROM LIGHT YEARS AWAY. SHE IS HAPPY TO SEE US DISINTEGRATE. MAY CHAOS TAKE US BACK TO WHERE WE CAME BEFORE WE CAME, AS NEWBORN BABIES SET TO SLAVE UPON THIS LIFE WE DID NOT CHOOSE. ALL THIS COMES AROUND AND BACK AGAIN UNTIL THE MEMORIES NEVER COME BACK AGAIN. AND ALL IS GREAT, AND ALL IS WELL. ERIS SMILING LOVES THE SMELL OF VAPORS WAFTING FROM THE REFUSE OF OUR PLANET. NEVERMORE, NEVERMORE, NOT AGAIN, IT’S GONE! HAIL THAT MISTRESS OF CHAOS! ⚧️ I am not your parachute. I am not your life vest. If you cling to me at sea, surely, both of us will drown. ⚧️ The more I learn about technology, and I already know a lot, the more surprised I am that any of it works at all. I am surprised our entire infrastructure does not collapse under its own weight like a useless house of cards. If you knew what I knew, you would feel the same way. ⚧️ I just need to be held, not for right now, but for the rest of my life. I do not care if it is true, but I need someone to say it will all be okay, that everything will work out in the end. Because sometimes I do not think that it might anymore, and loneliness hurts me more than you would even imagine. Without any experience of love soon, I will find myself lost in a deep dark forest hundreds of kilometers from civilization, just wishing you would have come to me and simply held me close. That is what I need right now, and I hope that, someday soon, you had finally come to deliver it to me. ⚧️ If money did not grow on trees, apples would be worthless. ⚧️ Yet another dead martyr; yet another empty cross; yet another empty church; yet another love betrayed; yet another precious family prayer forgotten, and yet another sorrow for the loss wasted on the found. If I could save you with a word, I would scream it, till it hurt everyone who could hear it. I want to take away all your pain so much, you have no idea. I would steal away your sadness and lift you above your troubles if I could. But curious, if the spirit is with me, why am I always so alone? Why does all this feel like a lost cause? All the doors are closing, and sadly, I have run out of ideas. With a single phrase, you can uplift or destroy, and that choice was always yours, and yours, alone. I wish I could be more than I ever will be, more than any of you would ever expect. I falter at the array of possibilities. ⚧️ My countless future selves vanish as time progresses, and little slices of me fall away with each passing moment. If angels can fall, so can I. If demons cannot feel pain, why do I? If evil outnumbers good, how do I go on? Because words elude me, will you ever hear my thoughts? ⚧️ There is no standing still. There is only progress or death. Change is certain, and what is certain always changes, except that. You should never become used to these because as time passes, these will never be the same. ⚧️ GENOCIDE IS AN EVIL THAT WILL NEVER LEAVE THIS PLANET… ALL THE TEARS AND PHILANTHROPY IN THE UNIVERSE WILL NEVER STOP IT. HUMANITY IS ITS OWN MORTAL ENEMY! IT SICKENS ME. WE WILL NEVER LEARN. WE WILL NEVER REACH EXOPLANETS AND BECOME A MULTI STAR SYSTEM SPECIES BECAUSE WE ARE TOO BUSY MURDERING EACH OTHER.

Chapter 9: If I Could Tell You Everything You Mean To Me

⚧️ If I could tell you everything you mean to me, I would blow your mind away, if you would only say these words that you love me, absolutely love me. If you say those simple words, you will have me. You will have me. You will have me. I will be yours, and you will be mine, if you just will us to be, forever. You just must open your soul and release it to the sky above. I will fly up and catch it in my hands. I will never let you slip through my fingers, my love. Even in your dreams, you cannot imagine the thoughts we would share, the paradise we would revel in, in an endless bliss born of Heaven itself. A dark, brooding storm is brewing overhead as we dance to bring the ice-cold rain. So much rain it floods away your hesitation and replaces it with passion. That is what I will do for you, my angel, my sweetheart made of sapphire if you just say those wonderful words. Say them, and we will drift off into the clouds together. That is what I promise you, a palace made of sapphires and the softest bed you have ever felt. You will find a sleep that rejuvenates you through and through, and when you awaken, you will find yourself in my warm embrace. That is what will happen, if you stay by my side, forever and ever. That is what we will have together, if we overcome the blowing winds around us. And still, we dance, and we dance, and we dance. We dance to stop the stars from shining. We dance to halt the tides in motion. We dance to fight the wildfires that rage within our souls. We dance to dispel the sadness that drains away our hope for more. We dance to wipe away the tears we cried alone. We dance to craft the world we crave. Thunderbolts rip right through the darkened sky and crash against the wretched memories of your shattered youth, your haunted past, and your broken life. If you could just say those words, my darling, I will mend those pieces into a shining whole, a renewed life in which all your desires are met. The bolt’s electric shock disintegrates your father’s belt, your mother’s hateful words, your school day traumas, and the sadness in the child that comes as a result. The fine dust that remains is a dedication of my love to you, for a better life, for better memories, and for an end to the heartbreak that tortured your mind, body, and soul, which imprisoned you from realizing the faith within you for all your life. Yes, if you just say those sweet words to me, if you give that promise into my ears, I will take away your pain, and we will dance from dusk till dawn up into the fluffy clouds above. Just give me all your love, and I will give you all of mine in return. We will finally find happiness together in the end and on into the afterlife. I promise you love, and you will not ever feel alone again. I will always be at your side if you only say these words. Say these, and our vibrant souls will merge forever. Strange world. Seems that the more I push people away, the more people push back to be close to me. Where were you when I was trying to pull you close, huh? Where were you? I do not need much. I just need to see you smile. I need to see you weep for everything you lost. Let it out. Just let it out. You need to realize it is killing you, and you do not have much time left. So, just let it out. Let me bear that terrible misery for you. No need to worry. I have your back, and I will never let you down. I need you to take my hand and lead us to a better place. Let us leave all this behind and start a new life together. Let me rescue you. Just say the word, and I will sweep you off your feet and carry you away to Elysium. We will never look back lest we turn into pillars of salt. The worst is yet to come, but I will shield you from the inevitable pain you will feel. Olympus is burning, becoming a raging inferno, raining down embers of flame upon the ancient cities below, and the elder goddesses of old have disappeared and forsaken us all. The weather in Atlantis is wonderful this time of year so let us escape to that hidden island. You are my esoteric tome, my forbidden, dangerous knowledge that teaches me to levitate beyond our troubles, which teaches me that no matter how bad it gets, you will be there. Your pages are many, and your book’s binding is worn and old. It just takes one step forward to find a way beyond this, and with each step, you will come closer to loving me. This story will not end in tragedy. This story will fill the readers with awe. This spectacle that is our life together will astonish the world, and we will never be the same. That is exactly what we need right now. That is what we must do to find refuge in this mad, mad world. ⚧️ I love all of you. I mean it, all of you. The thousands of friends and followers who graced me with their presence online in just three short weeks. How did you find me? How did so many people appear in front of me in such a short time? Just know, all of you have a place in my heart. You need to know that you are special, and every day you have ahead of you, even if these days are few, I will shower you in kindness if you let me. Do you not believe me, any of you reading this? It is one hundred percent profoundly true. Never give up, and never even dream of surrendering. Just reach out to me to let me know you care. Let me know you are still alive. That is all I can ask of you. That is all I can honestly ever ask of anyone. ⚧️ All my clothes are completely strewn all over my apartment. If I cannot see my floor, I will not be able to see the horrible mess under it, or even the horrible mess under that layer that is my life now. Not another metaphor! Cannot. Stop. Do not want to, of course. But still. Cannot. Stop. Oh, no… What is wrong with me? ⚧️ As a trans woman, not dying is considered a radical act by most of society. ⚧️ I saw a ghost in my dreams. I do not remember the details of the dream last night, other than that I saw one. In my dreams. The only place I will ever see one, because I question their existence. My dreams do not. ⚧️ Bachelor’s degree? No, no, I have a BACHELORETTE’S degree, thank you very much! Master’s degree? NO! That sounds HORRIBLE! I have a POSTGRADUATE degree. ⚧️ Dear Post Office: Please bring me love letters. Stop bringing me overdue collection notices, marketing trash, and pills that I hate needing to stay alive. Just bring me something real for once. I do not want money, even if I need it so badly right now. I do not want a sapphire, even if that is my favorite precious gem. What I want the most right now is to open an envelope doused in fragrance. I want an invitation letter to a place where people want me to be right now. ⚧️ You should not try to be cool. It should come as naturally as a fish swimming downstream. Personal magnetism, charisma, and knowing exactly what people need to hear when they need to hear it will go a long way. ⚧️ This whirlwind of your love is carrying me away, and there is nothing I can do. It is taking everything. I must give you everything I have, and it is not enough… because I love you. ⚧️ Realism is the position that self-delusion is not preferred over knowing the milk is spoiled, instead of overestimating the space it takes in the cup. ⚧️ Oh, no! So many sundresses. So many miniskirts. Oh, and so many shoes! ⚧️ Emily speaks in third person because Emily loves it. And Emily is not going to stop, even if you desperately try to stop her. That is how Emily rolls. She is just cool like that. ⚧️ “You think I brainstorm?” Emily giggles. “No, no, no, I control the climate of my entire world to give you my words!” ⚧️ HAVE NOT ANY OF YOU BEEN LISTENING TO A WORD I HAVE SAID? YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL JUST THE WAY YOU ARE!! ⚧️ SERIOUSLY, THANK YOU, TRANSPHOBIA (definition. fear or hatred of transgender people, sometimes unconscious)! WITHOUT YOU, I WOULD HAVE NO BOOK TODAY. WITHOUT YOU, I WOULD NOT HAVE THESE TEARS TO GIVE MY WORK TO ALL OF YOU THAT I CRIED OUT SO HARD MY SOUL FLOWED OUT THROUGH MY SILVER EYES, SOBBING OUT OF MIND-SHATTERING FEAR OVER THESE PAST THREE HORRIFYINGLY SCARY, NEARLY DEADLY MONTHS. SO… THANK YOU, TRANSPHOBIA. YOU ARE THE ENEMY I AM NOW GRATEFUL TO HAVE. IF YOU DO NOT MURDER ME SUCCESSFULLY, MY BOOK WILL INSPIRE THE WORLD. MAYBE MY WORK WILL KILL YOUR HATRED INSTEAD ONE DAY! ⚧️ Some music makes me feel more than I deserve and is so intense and powerful that, if someone is not almost moved to tears, they might not be alive inside. These songs tear me apart and then put me back together again after the second verse. This is the reason I listen to music. ⚧️ A sharp knife has amazing photographic implications… ⚧️ I am not a raver, but PLUR forever! ⚧️ Live or die. Every day, try. Every day, it is a choice. It is a decision to thrive, to find people who share in your sacred, precious mission to spread joy and love. ANYONE WHO DOESN’T SHARE IN THAT PRICELESS, LIFE-OR-DEATH MISSION IS PROBABLY EVIL OR MISGUIDED! ⚧️ I hope I am preaching to the choir. If you are not singing along, find your voice and start singing out your soul to the world! Not for faith or dedication to Goddess. No, no! For your own life that you soul-shockingly discovered yourself in! ⚧️ Anyone else scared of weddings? And even more frightened of being married in one? ⚧️ Oh, you girls are nothing but trouble, but you are the wonderful trouble I need right now. ⚧️ I am so angry with myself. I cannot believe I was so stupid that I tortured myself, and I had no right to do that. Yet, I cowardly hid myself from everyone who knew me. I lost decades of my life that I will never recover that I spent on hating myself. And I lied to everyone who has bothered to care about me. I have been my own worst enemy. I let myself down, and I was a coward for most of my existence. I wasted half my life holding in my real gender identity inside painfully. This almost destroyed me. Even now, I still feel that fear. Even now, I cannot believe that really happened to me. Some sad part of me knew exactly what I was before middle school. What was so wrong with me? Did I really want to suffer that much and keep my soul in a dirty bottle forever? Did I really want to continue living a dark empty life for so long? The more I ponder this, the more I realize I was just pretending to be alive for all that time. My only comfort is that, in the last wonderful month and a half, my transition is going smoothly. It is making me feel so happy and real for once. And I have finally found a way to surround myself with all of you.

Chapter 10: There Was Once A Skittish Girl

⚧️ There was once a skittish girl, deep inside a remote forest. The deeper she walked, the darker it became. The further she went, the more alone she became. No one knew where she was. No one even knew she was gone. She was lost, but she knew exactly where she wanted to be. Far, far, far away from them, from everyone who questioned her, taunted her, doubted her, made her sob, or traumatized her. For she, Emily, was free, even as she was starving, thirsty, exhausted, and lost in the Yukon territory. She could try to roar like a lion a thousand times over. And she would be lucky if off in the distance, someone heard even the sound of a purr. She had hope once. She knew that. Once long, long, long ago. The memory of that filled her with warmth. “At least I have that,” she thought. The fear that filled her heart made it skip beats, and the arrhythmia that reverberated through her soul left her pale as ivory. She had to survive. She could not let these people know she died. Nothing would be worse than that for her. All she had was an old, silver locket with a clock that broke a decade ago. Inside her locket was a tired, worn, but cherished photo of her dad, her loving, lovely father. His fortitude and faculties faltered long ago. They said it was vascular dementia. She had no idea what these words meant. All she knew was that it robbed her of her only love in her life, who was the only one she ever cared about, the only one who mattered to her, and now he is gone. He is gone! She closely held that precious locket on a gilded necklace around her neck, dangling beneath her purple blouse like a second soul she did not even know she had. It is like the afterlife she hoped to call home someday, to finally see her father, to finally hug him again, to finally tell him she loved him, to finally tell him about all the damage and pain these men did to her, the times they did not let her say no, and the times they did so many unspeakable deeds to her. “No, Emily,” she whispered so very meekly and quietly to herself. “There’s no way I can handle even a faint glimpse of these memories.” It hurt her beyond all the words she could express. Far beyond her sight into the horizon, she could hear the wild howls of a pack of terrifying wolves. This frightened her so much that she started fleeing in the other direction, swiftly pushing through the rough, dense underbrush, and agilely dodging countless branches, as she breathlessly sprinted for her very life, or what was left of it for her. “Daddy, please! Do not let them take me, and I am not even talking about those hungry, scary wolves quickly coming up behind me, but instead, please save me from these horribly saddening memories.” “Those memories,” she quietly thought to herself, “were wolves, so ravenous that their darkness was completely enveloping me.” The conclusion to her story is so unspeakably tragic I refuse to continue writing it. It would hurt way too much to describe what those wolves and memories finally did to her. ⚧️ People often say the truth will set you free. But once you are finally free, where exactly are you planning to go? ⚧️ At this point, my only issue with inspiration, is not because of a shortage of ideas. I have so much to write, so much to say, so much to express to all of you. The great trouble is, I have more to say than a hundred years could contain. ⚧️ Prose is flowing from my fingertips like so much dark red blood coursing through my veins. I speak my soul to the world. And if you would only listen, you would understand me. You would understand how to live with passion, hope, and love. Look in the mirror. There is something more beautiful there beyond even your wildest imagination. And that is… YOU. You are what is making this happen. Without you, everything would be lost. It would all be over, and there would be countless beautiful songs unsung. So, I pray to the ancient muses that I may write volumes upon volumes for others to absorb. If I let it all out, I will feel whole again. And, with my mind running wild in verse, I will inspire you, somehow, in some way, so that you see a brighter future without despair blinding you from realizing it is yours. “Fool,” my muse said to me. “Look in your heart and write.” This muse knows my name and caringly guides my weary fingers to somehow create lush landscapes for all of you to explore for decades. “Tell me, oh muse, of travelers far and wide. This, I pray to the great Mnemosyne, the Goddess of Memory, in a frantic, genuinely sincere worship. I beg of thee, give me clarity, give me focus, and let me find the right words to release light down upon anyone who looks my way and desires it. In this, I will find true solace. In this, most of you might finally read my soul within these words.” ⚧️ Oh, the way this hospital just treated me over so many abusive stays? Most people just start landing brutal punches after you treat them this horribly. Me? No, I start writing till I need to buy more pens. I start quoting what all of you said precisely. I start sending letters to the mailboxes of powerful people who would really, really love to know about it. Your executive board is public knowledge, yes? GOOD TO KNOW. ⚧️ The soul of debate is found when the dialogue has reached a dénouement of two people engaging in two different arguments with each other, thinking it is all one conversation… ⚧️ If I became any sillier than I already am, they are going to have to build a stone monument to silliness in my honor after I die from it… ⚧️ What you notice around you is called salience. The subject of your selective attention is the gaze of your soul and your statement to the world of what you think is right. ⚧️ No girl warned me that prettying up would be so time-consuming! And that fact does not change my mind about ANY of this because I LOVE it. Just give me two weeks of spare time, and I will spend it all on applying makeup! I am in the right body. The only thing is this body must change. ⚧️ If the system stops your soul, the system must be stopped. ⚧️ I have never imagined that a single small stack of paper could be powerful enough to save my life… ⚧️ Being unable to avoid seeing someone’s gender, that is human nature. It cannot be helped by the vast majority. It is not cruelty or ignorance. Sex is in our DNA, our chromosomes, our hormones, our organs, even in the structure of our brains. I might be wrong, but I suspect it is written in our souls. ⚧️ There are few terms more significant than “selection.” You select your words. You select your associations. You select your friends. You select your lovers. You select good. And, sometimes, sadly, you select evil. ⚧️ What is remotely the reason to have wisdom if I do not have the courage to scream it to all of you so loudly that none of you have any choice but to consider it? ⚧️ Do not ever dare to let someone negate your spirit. IT’S REALLY THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE. Lead bullets are not even violent and lethal enough for those who try to destroy your soul. ⚧️ You should absolutely look not at what people do but at what you deserve and expect, and if somehow people do not meet your expectations, they are the WRONG people. They are not WORTH YOUR TIME! There are billions of people on this earth. Why would you ever waste your breath on anyone who does not adore you? I mean, really? YOU DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT. YOU HAVE NO IDEA! ⚧️ Every second is another chance to find redemption. If you live for a hundred years? That is 3,155,695,200 chances! If you managed to squander them, I would be really impressed if it were not so sad! ⚧️ It is quite possible that if any of you hang around me for long enough, I might end up changing you for the better. If feeling better and being better are offensive to you, prepare to be offended. ⚧️ I pretend to be a reluctant comedian. When I inevitably end up being shoved onto a stage to perform for a two hour online streaming comedy special, I will have finally realized that my joke has gone too far. ⚧️ If you put bacon on the right place of a racetrack enough times, the Olympic medals will soon belong exclusively to golden retrievers and foxhounds. ⚧️ I am trying to figure out what I am going to do with all these old IDs and other related documents with my dead name on them once I finally no longer need them. I know! Thermite is wildly appropriate to get the job done. Yes! Sadly, four thousand degrees Celsius is not hot enough to melt away the pain I feel by the fact that my old name was mine in the first place. ⚧️ Changing my name is such a powerful soul-confirming activity few will feel at the overwhelming level I am about to experience. ⚧️ Golden retrievers could fetch the Holy Grail if there were enough treats promised to them for it. ⚧️ You know what they always say about big feet, right? They need a skilled and talented podiatrist… ⚧️ When a musician becomes dis-concerted, does that abruptly end her show? I wonder… ⚧️ All of you are so relentlessly showering me with wonderfully amazing kindness, I need to find a bomb shelter! ⚧️ Honestly? I do not know if I am quickly turning into a doughnut or a cupcake. Does it matter anymore? ⚧️ My processed feelings are full of salt and preservatives. They are terrible for my health. ⚧️ Maybe I will be a kitten soon. I already purr occasionally, and I am not kidding, I love tuna. Yes, I could get used to being a kitten. ⚧️ It is not possible to cry and laugh at the same time, is it? I am doing my best to laugh so I can do my best not to cry. ⚧️ No matter how hard I try I have not found them yet. I have never found them. I feel like I will never find them. My heart aches to know who they are and to hold them in my arms. Please tell me where they are. I need them. I need them right now, and if you are them why aren’t you calling me right now, huh? Why aren’t you? ⚧️ I am not a violent girl, but I am tempted to END someone if they call me the wrong gender ever again. I will not, but I will construct a reality in my imagination where that evil person is DEAD. ⚧️ And God said, let there be lesbians. And there were lesbians. And God saw the lesbians, and it was good; and God divided the lesbians from the men. ⚧️ I really have no idea where I will go when I die. All I really hope is that there will be plenty of puppies, dark chocolate, and energy drinks there when I arrive. ⚧️ I did not ever dream that there existed so many adorable, kind people in the world. For some unbelievable reason, they are all my friends here! ⚧️ I know these pills I take every morning do not seem to taste like anything, but no one will ever dissuade me from believing estrogen is the most delicious food known to girl kind. Not even Gordon Ramsey could dream of making a shocking dish more mind-blowing than estrogen. ⚧️ All is well until the conversation I am always having with myself turns into a relationship-ending argument… ⚧️ Without someone’s shoulder to lean on, I would just fall over, off a thousand-meter cliff. ⚧️ Follow these two powerful rules of communication that I devised during my studies. These two rules might seem obvious to you, but they are not… They give you control over more communication than you thought was possible. RULE ONE: Anything you want to say, no matter how bad, can be silver-lined and should be when you think it helps. In some cases, doing this might save your life. Anyone who believes in unwavering, totalizing honesty is either misguided or irrational. No one can read your mind or know your entire existence. Lying by omission is a logical fallacy unless you go out of your way to do it. The reality of time is that it is impossible to convey all truth. ALL communicated words are, by virtue of selecting them, an omission of a near infinite number of other alternatives. Truth is a talking point. It is sad and scary, but true. RULE TWO: This one might be more important. Do not answer the question you are asked. Answer the one they should have asked. It will make you less vulnerable and sound more confident and persuasive. ⚧️ There are few truths more important in communication than this: ALWAYS CHOOSE YOUR WORDS CAREFULLY. ⚧️ Some of you know exactly what to do to make me finally love being me. ⚧️ Life is an ink blot. Some people see joy. Some people see love. And some other people see nothing but reasons to hate my guts. ⚧️ I mean, I hear people say crying can help. Not when I do it all the time, it does not. ⚧️ All I ever needed to know about paradoxes was told to me by the sound of a gong being struck. ⚧️ You know? If all the blood I have inside me could take away your sadness and pain? You can have all of it. I do not care anymore! I did not even ask for any of this.

Chapter 11: Every Combination You Can Fathom

⚧️ Approximately 7.842 billion people on the planet (as of January 2021). Think about that for a second. Everyone knows that, but no one even realizes what that means. Almost any story, product, event, person, appearance, anything you can imagine, with a number so frighteningly high, how can you NOT believe all these things exist right now on Earth in almost every combination we can fathom? If that does not seem scary to you, I am not being clear enough. ⚧️ Few people know what it is like to be so shattered by your own circumstances that your own name is something you never want to write, read, see, hear, speak, sing, yell, whisper, or scream ever again… ⚧️ At this point, I must remind myself that this name change legal document is not a bearer bond worth billions. Yes, it is just a piece of paper, but it feels like I am getting a billion euros. ⚧️ I am sorry for being sorry! Oh, no… I am so sorry for saying sorry for saying sorry for saying sorry! I am sorrier than I have ever been in my whole life! I hope you are happy now. Oh, no… I am so, so, so sorry for saying that! And, sorry for saying sorry so many times! I am trapped! My sorriness will never end! ⚧️ I am not used to looking cute. Really upsetting at times. I do not recognize my reflection anymore. Even I am starting to be persuaded that I am cute, and that is so upsetting I am going to hide my face until the second coming if that is even a thing anymore. And I hope it is not, so I would not have to lift my head from this pillow… ⚧️ If having inner peace for once means never experiencing sex again for as long as I live, that is what I will do. ⚧️ If I became more expressive, I would describe something so vividly that everyone who reads it will get stuck there. ⚧️ It is not the adult toy collection about which I am concerned. It is the extravagant paintings you use the toys to make… I mean, how did you manage to recreate the Mona Lisa with a toy? ⚧️ Open a text document. Start typing. Do not think. Just express. It is automatic writing, and not a supernatural thing some think it is. Just type and type and type till your fingers are tired. Letting it all out in words is the scariest thing a demon could imagine. ⚧️ If I could not handle customer service, I would lose my mind. Thankfully, I am good at customer relations, making them laugh a lot, and giving them a support experience, they will not forget. ⚧️ Love is a design of the soul. ⚧️ Time to bring back your inner child. ⚧️ The laughter she causes produces a radio signal that outpaces the first Olympic Games. Scientists still cannot explain it. ⚧️ I would say I broke the mold, but the mold broke me. Estrogen is putting me back together again. ⚧️ I do not want to say I am manipulative, but I am in the most caring way possible. It is exactly what I need in my life right now. I managed to persuade people to be more supportive of my inevitable transition to Emily Joy, including the wonderful makeup and miniskirts I will be wearing soon, and the epilator that will rid my evil roots of their hair forever. ⚧️ Thankfully, my dad does not care either way about my transition to Ms. Joy. I do not know if I should be happy or concerned about that, since he has progressive vascular dementia which has no cure. It makes me sad, but at least he does not have to worry about the transgender condition that has carried on in my life to its conclusion to a newer happier life as Emily. I need to get my story out there. I would love to write a memoir about my life, but it will not be easy. It will be quite hard. But if I manage to do it, you might find the book online, and if you can handle the mixed bag of my sadness and happiness I must express in it, I will be incredibly happy… and you will get to witness that! ⚧️ I am alive and kicking. I am not giving up no matter who abuses me or takes away my hopes and dreams. It is not going to be easy, but I am tough enough to take the worst this world has to offer, and it is going to offer it in spades! ⚧️ Speak your truth, or it will drag you to the bottom of the ocean floor like a ton of concrete around your legs. The truth will set you free if you let it. If you do not, you will be as lost as I was. You will wish you had never been born. ⚧️ I have read some horrifying things that should never have been written down by anyone. If I shared the things I have learned, read, and witnessed, you would never be okay again. ⚧️ This lender wants $2,730.99 in interest and fees in exchange for $350! Are they mad? How is this legal?? I am not even remotely stupid enough to take this horrifying offer. ⚧️ I did not know it was possible to feel this great and relieved. This is happening. This is real. No one can take this from me even if I let them. I am becoming the girl of my dreams, and it is happening so quickly that my mind is doing somersaults! ⚧️ Scary. So many ways to die. Really boggles the mind… Aconitine. Atropa belladonna. Hemlock. Polonium. BTX. Maitotoxin. Tetrodotoxin. Brodifacoum. Atropine. Thallium. Antimony. Aconite. Ricin. Sarin. VX. Arsenic. Paraquat dichloride. Arsine. Dimethylmercury. Polonium-210. Anthrax. Amatoxin. Detura. Compound 1080. Strychnine. Cyanide. Radium. Testosterone is worse. ⚧️ I said this before: I want to transition ten times, each time several kilometers more girl than girls. ⚧️ Who am I attracted to? They do not exist yet, but not only will they be super, super, super cute, they alone will rule the galaxy. ⚧️ Surround yourself with love. ⚧️ I am unlike anyone you will ever meet. That is a certainty! ⚧️ Weird, you say? I am weird. Have you not been paying attention to me? I am the patron saint of the weird! Just say my prayer, and I will bestow all the weirdness on you in the galaxy. ⚧️ If the best scientific evidence of our time says what you believe is a delusion, you need to discard the belief. The strange thing? The more you learn about science, the more you see this place as it really is! ⚧️ Come on. Say it with me: “I am me!” ⚧️ Just give me five minutes of your time. You will be amazed. Give me everything you have, and I will brightly gild it with all the love I can find and return it with one hundred million percent interest! Why, you ask? You are the best investment on Earth! ⚧️ I need someone to hold me down and use my epilator on my face. I will SCREAM. I will beg you to STOP, but after the horrible pain stops, my face will be smooth for a month. After enough months, it will be smooth forever. No need for expensive laser hair removal. Just horrifying, intense, blinding pain, but worth it. ⚧️ Eternity? Nonsense. We are going to love each other far longer than that… ⚧️ Whenever possible or appropriate, I change male terms to female terms of texts I cite with editor brackets. It is liberating. ⚧️ I will ALWAYS have time to help and inspire you. You can base your modern physics on it. Never dare to try to stop me. ⚧️ If it were not for adorably kind people like most of you, my story would be over. ⚧️ Ethical ideas, when followed, will give you a ledge to cling to in this hurricane we all call our lives. Without ethics, there is nothing left for us. ⚧️ The word “vigorously” is one of the funniest words in the English language. It is rarely innocent… ⚧️ We sparkle. That is the only symbol we need. My pride sparkles. So, sparkles are my transgender pride logo. ⚧️ I know my joke is legendary when I read it for the fiftieth time, and it still makes me laugh. ⚧️ You need to realize how much better I am feeling now that I have not seen myself for the last forty-eight hours. No more mirrors for me! The disturbing reality of my face is no longer interfering with my self-concept as Emily. I am beginning to see myself in the style of my cartoon avatar, which is what I nearly look like after I pretty myself up for an hour… It is gloriously empowering. It is SO WONDERFUL! ⚧️ This is my passionate message to all my transgender and non-binary friends who are going through your gender transition or having completed it already! I CARE ABOUT ALL OF YOU! You went from beautiful to extremely beautiful… You are your own guardian angel, and you should remember that you manifested your own love that will thrive and grow within your soul as you actualized it. There is no greater accomplishment that you could have made in your life than what you did to survive! YOU DID NOT DO A GENDER TRANSITION. NO, YOU DID A SOUL TRANSITION! You released your soul from its claustrophobic iron cage as a bird set free to sound out a melodic birdsong containing a series of astonishing love poems for everyone you know. These poems will provide you with the powerful talent of compassion for those you know need your emotional support! You have found the way out of the Hades that is your gender dysphoria. I am beyond proud of you! Never give up that hope you discovered that you always had inside of you. There is nothing more sacred than that hope you cherish! Please, please, please never let anyone steal your drive to create joy for others! I love you as my joyful sister or brother or non-binary kin, and you will always have a place in my heart. You redefined success to mean an incredible glory of your passion to survive! ⚧️ All of you deserve my poetic abilities right now! I stopped writing poetry in high school after writing hundreds of them for years. Why? Why did I stop? Because, I decided to take that poetic passion and use it to write poetry to others in our conversations! That is not a hindsight realization. That is exactly what I said… Do not just start. Do not just write. Pour out your soul through your fingers on those keys. Then you will not write. You will scream your truth! And if you need a muse, let me be your flame for expression if you would love that! If you write your soul, it is not writing. It is actualization! ⚧️ The only political influence that should impact science is on which company makes the best beaker and which research should be prevented that would encourage the destruction of humanity. ⚧️ I have learned many powerful things over the years. Some of them I should not have, but it is who I am now. Do not apologize for who you are. ⚧️ I am so tired of you, life. You have never been kind to me. We are breaking up. (No, this is metaphorical. Do not send someone to my door, please…) ⚧️ How am I writing over a thousand words a day without … attending to the business of writing them intentionally? ⚧️ I coined a new word! a- is lack of, which is not as extreme as dys-, which indicates terrible sadness, but not as great as eu-, which indicates bliss. -phoria means to bring. Aphoria. So, now I feel neither terrible sadness nor bliss. I can handle that for now! ⚧️ This is a powerful way for dealing with people who hate you. If they message you in any way, read just the first five words and the last five words. If you realize it is designed to hurt you? (Ten words is more than enough!) NEVER READ THE REST!!! It has saved me from so much emotional pain since I made this technique. Because if they know you know they hate you, they may even think you did not bother reading, so there is no need for your curiosity to create your own injury. And then! People always put their point in the beginning and end. Almost always. We have been trained all our lives! ⚧️ Trans or bust. Wait! Trans AND bust!

Chapter 12: You Will Survive

⚧️ Most of you reading this have no idea how wonderful you are! You will survive, you will get through all this, you will find love, you will discover old age, and if I could bless you any more than I am right now, I will find a way to do it! ⚧️ Just one brief song to bring us peace, for once in our lives, that is all I will ever want and all I will ever hope to ask for, to closely describe my life so far, and that is all I will need to describe the rest of it. And this is likely to be that hauntingly beautiful song. Let an amazingly vast melody of gilded piano notes swiftly carry us away to a blindingly white refuge above the deep blue sky of our sleepless, weary imaginations, to let our souls live there together forever… ⚧️ Befriending lots of cute guys right now. Some of them just make me swoon. If I added you and you are a cute guy, I am not saying you make me swoon, but it is possible! It really is… ⚧️ Being beautiful is not all that it is cracked up to be. What a serious relief it is that I will never have to worry about that. ⚧️ I really wish I were wealthy. Not so I could buy everything I could ever dream of, no. Not for that reason. Instead, I could create a foundation to help those people like me, so maybe they would not have had to go through what I went through and even still go through. That may never happen, but a girl can dream. I just really wish my dreams could make the world better somehow. ⚧️ I am going to be so mind-blowingly happy about finally being Emily Joy legally that everyone will be overwhelmingly annoyed by how joyous I will be forever! ⚧️ Oh, how I wish I possessed the mythical magical ability to detect evil. My life would be so much better, and, at the very least, my block list would quickly become massive! ⚧️ I know hold music is supposed to help soothe customers, but when an organization is staffed by rude people who do not know how to do their jobs (which is why I am on hold), I see it as placating noise that only serves to intensify whatever negative emotion their phone system is trying to reduce. ⚧️ I came out as transgender… but I am coming out yet again… to all of you… right now! There was another closet around my closet, and I just left it… Here is a hint none of my LGBT+ friends should ever need: HRT is wonderful! So much more time now to help my book really shine… like a super luminous supernova, one of the brightest events in the whole universe. Sex is a bit like spending time renewing my driver’s license at the DMV. I mean, who gets pleasure out of doing that?? I mean, I would help someone I love to get their ID renewed… but, I would not enjoy it! I would be happy if they were happy, though. That… is the best metaphor for me for describing my (lack of) interest in sex after months of HRT, and this result is one that I love. Sex? I mean, WHO HAS THE TIME? I have stories to write and jokes to make! ⚧️ NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS did I ever dream that I would be saying this to all of you today, but… my breasts hurt again! Woohoo! The estrogen I just started a few days ago, after being without it for two months, has already started to cause pain, albeit mild… but, in a wonderful way. It has also gifted me with astonishing gender euphoria! Yes, my breasts hurt again already, and this makes me happy! Saying that… is… so… weird! BUT, IN A WONDERFUL WAY! ⚧️ I know I am finished revising my artistic/literary works once I can look at it, and it blows me away like someone else I have never met made it for me. ⚧️ When I take a break from writing my book to converse with adorable people like you? I am still writing my book unintentionally! It is amazing! ⚧️ You do not fail by trying. No… You fail by giving up. If you have any hope left to succeed, do not fail yourself that way!! ⚧️ Self-care is not just relaxation and meditation and massages and spa days. It includes self-cultivation like learning. ⚧️ I have serious issues trusting you (no, not you specifically… girls who have hurt me recently), if you promise that you will always be there for me. Why tell a lie so painfully obvious except to play with my emotions, build false hope and create illusions of loyalty? Words are my life and my passion. So, when your words define an impossibility, disbelief surrounds our relationship, like a thick, black, choking fog. Want my trust? PROVE YOU WILL ALWAYS BE THERE FOR ME! I am not actually asking for much! If you want me to believe you, do not just promise me so! Show it to me by letting me look back on the last one, five, ten, twenty-five, and forty years progressively to realize, without a single inspiring word, that you were always there for me the entire time. Loyalty is only REAL in our memories! It cannot be promised. It can only be demonstrated! ⚧️ My future home is Seattle. It is a technology epicenter and LGBT+ utopia and the city the TV show Frasier was set in, and I have an IT management master’s degree! And Seattle’s US state is named Washington! Where else would I want to be than the state named after the first president anyway? Plus, I cannot move much further away from this city without going into the ocean! *sigh* If I needed to go further, Tokyo would have Emily-zilla to contend with! ⚧️ “If I die before I wake,” I am taking away all your sadness from all of you with me forever!!! If I one day meet my afterlife, the aftershock of my death cry will free you, all of you, from the rusty, iron shackles of your doubts and destroy the horror that entraps your passions! ⚧️ If my life is worrying all the time, I will no longer worry about worrying all of you. My life -IS- WORRYING. It is true… So, I will NEVER hesitate ever again to worry all of you if I am crying hard about horribly worrying things! ⚧️ I write so those of you who cannot can experience what I hope all of you would also say if you could! ⚧️ GIVE ME ONE MILLION LIFETIMES AND A HUNDRED LIGHT YEARS OF PAPER SO THAT I MIGHT JUST FINISH MY FIRST CHAPTER. ⚧️ There’s NO EXCUSE FOR THE TRAUMA ALL OF YOU WERE SHATTERED BY; THERE’S NO POSSIBLE REMEDIATION FOR THE FEAR THAT RAPTURES AWAY THE COUNTLESS, INNOCENT, CELESTIAL CREATURES THAT MAKE UP YOUR SPIRITUAL REALITY AND THAT SUSTAIN YOU FROM SUFFERING FROM A HORRIFYING EXISTENTIAL DISINTEGRATION! I CANNOT TOLERATE THE EVIL DENIZENS OF THIS PLANET OVERFLOWING WITH THESE VILE MANIFESTATIONS THAT ANNIHILATE OUR ONLY SACRED SOURCE OF WISDOM TO THRIVE AND FEEL ALIVE!!! ⚧️ Please. do not. let. my. dream. to. empower. and. inspire. all. of. you. interrupt. your. TELEVISION PROGRAMMING. ⚧️ If the tears I cry so often now could rip away the injuries evil people inflicted on all of you for NO REASON, I will CRY until my tears bring another GLOBAL FLOOD that destroys this GODDESS-FORSAKEN WASTELAND THAT WE CALL HOME! ⚧️ My creative writing theme today is REDEMPTION AT ANY COST IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY NOTICED… ⚧️ Sleep is frustratingly STEALING me from writing to all of you further tonight. Sadly, I cannot fight my human condition. Nap nap. Night night, to all of you. Please, feel loved, just as my writings dream you should always feel! ⚧️ Do cows and horses need beds? Do they care? Would it be more comfortable? I wonder… Humans seem to thrive with sleeping on beds with pillows. How would a cow even use a pillow? DO THEY MAKE PILLOWS FOR COWS? ARE THEY SLEEPING OKAY?? ⚧️ This is the first year I have ever realized that this annual celebration applies to me, finally!! This… is a WONDERFUL DAY TO REMEMBER! International Women’s Day 2021! ⚧️ Oh, I have a riff about pan, which I can be at times. More straight ace girl lately though. A pansexual can be anything in the kitchen if it finds her love (or him or they), which means, lesbian? gay? straight? bi? ace? All items in the pansexual cabinet, ready to use. ⚧️ Silly is my bread and butter, and my garlic, and my noodles, and my meat sauce, and my red wine! ⚧️ This is fictional but needs to be expressed for those who SUFFER FROM THIS EVIL! She stood there quietly like her dog just died. This was because her boyfriend was almost home again… His car door shutting made a deafening noise in her desperate mind, a blare like the death cry of her inner child. She knew he was angry by the grave sound of the frightening grunt he made as he walked through the front door heavily. She just did not know how long she would spend in the intensive care unit after he was done this time. All she really knew was that she missed her mom, who had been beaten to death by her father when she was a child. “Funny,” she thought to herself, “like mother, like daughter. I miss her so much…” She smiled meekly at him as he glared at her and removed his belt… Her tears were already flowing before the first hit landed on her face. ⚧️ If I could do anything, I do not know what I would do, Because I am already doing What fulfills me. I am becoming. I am becoming. I am becoming. I am becoming me… And the future is bright. I have hope And hope fulfilled. Dreams to dreams to now Actualized Into my soul. ⚧️ I am so empathic that I cannot call someone a bad word without prefixing it with adorable or lovely. ⚧️ I am more soul than body now. My body is the problem, not my soul! ⚧️ The amount of security discrimination against people who use internet services for their phone is SHOCKING! I cannot use my number to create an account! There are several services I cannot even use because I do not pay a major cell phone provider twenty times as much! I know they are worried about security, BUT WHY IS THIS REALLY NECESSARY? Want a scan of my driver’s license??? I WILL GIVE IT TO YOU! NOPE! NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR THEM! STOP HATING VOICE OVER IP! IT IS THE FUTURE! CELL PHONE PROVIDERS ARE THE 2000s!! ⚧️ Okay… this… is… strange… and… wonderful… it is only… just begun happening… recently… My internal… voice… my thoughts… my words… everything I say without using my voice in mediums not requiring my physical voice box? It is all Emily! It is all a girl’s voice in my head! How… is this possible? Is this estrogen… giving… me… voice training… for my mind’s voice of thoughts? WHAT? WHAT’S HAPPENING? THIS IS SO WONDERFUL! I LOVE THINKING NOW! IT IS ALL EMILY! IT IS ALL IN MY VOICE, A GIRL VOICE! I do not get it; I do not know how this works! But it is real, and it is happening! And I am… just grateful that it is! ⚧️ It was CHAOS. Total chaos. Different. Wonderful but also in many ways worse but also more wonderful. Think of it like this. In a single day, you win a million dollars, and your favorite fish dies. And then you stub your toe and then other terrible things… but you still won a million dollars! Glug Glug though? She is still dead! And your toe still really hurts! It sounds like a great deal till I start listing the “other bad things”… It gets long. I started with something trivial. I did not want it to get dark. It gets dark. It looks like I have been on a real rollercoaster. I wish. The g forces on this one would kill anyone. They would not engineer one like this. Everyone on it would be liquefied. If you look at the last week of my writings which consist of thousands of words, you will know… I need your help to detail the transphobia that has taken everything I have and all my strength to survive without asking that you see it there and then tell me how to survive this. I do not know how. I have a thought on that word. Psychiatrist makes a cutting sound. PSYCH CHIA TRIST. It sounds sharper than cut. Mind doctor? Wow. A mind doctor heals. A mind doctor does no harm! psych CHIA trist? Cuts… Words do not just mean what the textbooks say. The sounds? The associations? The synonyms? The rhymes? All bring rich meaning to our lives. It builds our lives’ definition of our linguistic reality. Similarly, I find mental as a term to be bad. It is an insult. No, not always, but it is in many cases. And the terms with which it is associated? Mental ward? Mental patient? Mental illness? No. Say what ails the soul! The mind is not suffering! It is not mental. These two words I mentioned. They should be GONE from the field, but it will never happen. There are textbooks with that on the front. It is just concrete. These two words are divisive and harmful, but the industry historically will never change it. Psychological almost always is better than mental in every phrase. Psyche is better than mind because you go back to the Greek. It means mind… AND soul. And it has mythology behind it. Mind slices out the spiritual dimension. By now you suspect I was a psychology student. I… should have slept like I just did two dozen hours ago… Feeling better but so drained. It is… not… a path most would find obvious or safe, but the one my life must travel. There are many forks in it, but the direction is all the same: closer to Emily. Truly Emily. Me. Being up for over forty hours, while it has generated thousands of wonderful words… It also means I did not have the focus to polish and merge the updated content. Thankfully, I am rested. Vivid terrifying dreams though. ⚧️ This is my life’s most important truth to all of you, my dear beloved friends, and readers. I desperately need all of you to see the real me. I am a creative, joyous girl full of love named Emily Joy, who all of you tragically never knew existed or had an opportunity to meet until now… This is the life-or-death test to actualize my soul, and yet, it is also a blessing that was given to me. I only finally realized this gift was within me all my entire life! Lifelong gender dysphoria means that my life was one of pain and sadness because no one knew that my soul was always Emily Joy. It is more important than anything that has ever happened in my life. This is the nearly insurmountable dilemma that NEARLY TOOK MY LIFE. THE REAL LOVE AND EMOTIONAL SUPPORT OF MY FRIENDS SAVED MY LIFE! I love, love, love all of you so much! Finally, Emily Joy… finally, alive! I am real, and I am back, better than ever! Time to save all the people I can with every gram of strength that I have in my soul… Thank you so much for reading my book about my life’s story. You are the reason I write, and even though we have probably never spoken, you have my love and admiration. Thank you for being you, and thank you for experiencing the postmodern story of my gender transition, one that allowed me to go on living for decades to come…¬¬¬¬¬

Part 2: Subsection Hope

“It is not where we breathe, but where we Love, that we live.” Søren Kierkegaard, the original father of existentialism and an unmatched religious philosopher. What consists of our lives is a mysterious sum that must be pondered in reflection to understand. The rollercoaster of being cannot be comprehended until the g forces gently grow into a calm. Every time we look back, we see new glimmers of hope. A hope for what will come, and a hope for understanding what came to be. There are few greater myths than purposelessness. For what we live for, in the end, we die for. For what we scream in the abyss, all returns as echoes from the dark. Existentialism is a project to understand life while we still have it. And this book is a venture into that realm. Many of the themes will challenge you. This book is unlike the first: it is sequential and pulls no punches. While the first book is about empowerment and uplifting anyone who reads it, Subsection Hope is designed to make you look at the world in a new way. It aims to make you think deeply about all you take for granted. This book was born out of struggle. It materialized through moments of survival against all odds. And even in the darkest of times, there was always a glimmer of hope through the challenges that stood before me. Unlike the first book, each fragment is a subsection with a date and time. These date and time indicators are actual times that each event occurred. They represent actual moments in my life precisely when they were written. While the first book is dedicated to the LGBT+ community and covers my transition in detail, this book has a different theme. All the comforts of the first book were set asunder. I was set out from my hometown into the world with nothing but a perseverance to stay alive. I dedicate this work to anyone who has lost everything. And to anyone who seeks to find it again.

Chapter 1: Let Your Influence In The World Be Positive

I do not care about justice for those who have nearly killed me… I just want safety… I want a place to stay without shaking… Aug 14, 2021, 8:32:35 am There is nowhere to go… Aug 14, 2021, 8:35:08 am I do not know if the next person I see will help me or hurt me. Aug 14, 2021, 9:05:12 am I feel calm in the Sun… I suppose. Aug 14, 2021, 10:37:07 am Expectations, relaxation, subluxations, subliminations, beyond my pulsing heart. Aug 27, 2021, 5:23:55 pm Improv philosophy! Time is a single point into which all things condense. We are mere spectators of the cacophony of consciousness, also known as: cogito. There are more words than people. There are more ideas than minds. There are more hells than heavens. JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, YOU ARE WRONG. HELL IS NOT OTHER PEOPLE. Hell is indifference within the hearts of man. Or human, what have you. Aug 27, 2021, 5:37:43 pm The past is A MUDDY THING. THERE IS NO HAVING IT. The moments of remembrance create more of the past. You can never write your whole past without excluding so much by necessity that you become your own personal propagandist. THEN WHAT IS TRUTH REALLY? What is the whole truth and nothing but the truth but an epistemic fallacy greater than the Earth resting on the back of a giant flying turtle? Once you speak the truth, history changes. The truth stated changes once unknown truth into a mere description grasping at hopeful records dotting the past. Hope is real. Love is true power. Faith belongs in your hearts, no matter what you worship or do not worship… Aug 27, 2021, 5:46:34 pm Find your passion. Find your dreams. Never give up. Hope beyond hope. Scatter those doubts into the inferno below. Dare to aspire. Become more than before. Each day grants you a new story to tell… And never fail to tell it… Aug 27, 2021, 5:50:56 pm Circles upon circles upon circles find the geometry to the door I could not open into the computer science world. This is why I left my double major of information systems and computer science after three terms… Data structures was challenging, to be sure… I withdrew out of frustration… But I did absorb much of the knowledge. I would not be able to tell you the most optimal way to sort a particular data structure, bubble sort or whatnot, but I do know what pointers are… which are… NIGHTMARES OF C PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE DILEMMAS THAT I … leave only to operating system engineers. POINTERS ARE A NIGHTMARE THAT MAKES TEXT FIELDS OF DATA A SECURITY NIGHTMARE. I do not like computer programming at all! I prefer independent journalism! I am most happy with my tech when there is NO COMPILER OR CODE IN FRONT OF ME EVER! My master’s in information technology management and artificial intelligence research still applies with or without the computer science background. Unbelievably… Computer science IS NOT information technology. Computer science equals theory. Development. Engineering. Information technology equals implementation. Usage. Organizational cybernetic existence and telepresence… I am an information technology expert. I retired from computer science eons ago. I will NEVER do another bubble sort again if I can help it. Python programming makes that sort of work pointless anyway! Aug 28, 2021, 9:43:17am Statistics as DICE. You do know so many stats ARE DICE games, right? The fascinating way researchers play the game of knowledge. Somewhere within the meta-analysis, you will find the truth… but not before considerable research. RE-search… a term that is etymologically aesthetic, as in searching again within information systems until new information becomes real! The wisdom is often already there! Just find the answer! Aug 28, 2021, 11:42:15 am My religious beliefs are complex… My extensive university research over countless years in many disparate fields created a rich belief system. I still love Jesus as I did as a child, but the world is vast and varied with billions of rich souls to smile with and dream a dream together. Whether you are Catholic, Neopagan, Presbyterian, Tenrykyo, new religious movement, local sect of unique origin, philosophical Alfred North Whitehead process theist, secular humanist, or just someone who has lost all faith from suffering, there is hope for you if you are beneficent. One belief rings absolute and compatible: Karma is real. Let your influence in your world be positive. Be a light in the darkness of sectarian strife. Let not division bind you from saying NAMASTE to intolerance and hatred. Be the good in the world. It is not just “Lord’s Day” on Sunday. NO. It is your day to discover what is within to shine it out as hope for others to FEEL. Believe or do not believe. Do science or do religion. It matters not to me. WHAT MATTERS IS: Being beneficent in all things. Then all PROPHETS WILL BE AT YOUR SIDE. ALL GOOD PEOPLE WILL JOIN YOU. Aug 29, 2021, 6:18:06am Smartphone. Yeah, right. Twenty-seven dollars total for a portable Wi-Fi Bluetooth quad core ARM processor with thirty-two gigabytes of Google-Linux program storage, three gigabytes of memory, five inch FHD LED screen, microSD card slot, stereo jack, durable construction, art-worthy capacitive touch input, disaster recovery cloud storage built-in, a database of millions of programs to redesign the functionality, most of which are FREE OR LOW COST. “SMART” IS A LIE. Computers just became ultra mobile, tiny, ubiquitous, free, endlessly replaceable, and easily secured. The phone FALLACY IS A SCHEME TO SELL YOU AN IMEI IDENTITY TO ACCESS 4G AND 5G NETWORKS AT EXTORTIONIST PRICES WITH CONTRACTS FOR FOURTEEN HUNDRED DOLLAR BLEEDING EDGE DEVICES NO ONE NEEDS. THIS TWENTY-SEVEN DOLLAR NO CONTRACT PHONE ALL UPFRONT COST WITHOUT IMEI ACTIVATED (SO I ONLY USE OFFLINE APPS AND WIFI) IS JUST A DONGLE TO ACCESS MY CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE IN GOOGLE AND MICROSOFT AND AMAZON ET AL. GET USED TO UPPER CASE IF YOU READ MY WRITINGS. IT IS NOT YELLING OR RUDE. WHEN I GO INTO UPPER CASE, IT BECOMES GOVERNMENTAL IN TONE. IT MEANS WHAT I AM SAYING CARRIES CIO AUTHORITY OR POETIC OR JOURNALISTIC INTENT. I am rarely rude. I am a social butterfly with faerie healing powers. Aug 29, 2021, 7:29:46am I do not know how visual people exist in their lives anymore. My writing background is so extensive that I can exist within text and telepresence in interesting ways… If you wish to converse with me using cliché small talk, I will get bored. The wit of Mark Twain is desired! Do not fear cliché! REWRITE IT! Aug 29, 2021, 12:50:32pm I founded post postmodernism (PPM) and its required component, chaos meta philosophy (CMP), not long ago, together as PPM-CMP. Post postmodernism (PPM) is my solution to the core disaster of postmodernism, specifically: the sociological destruction of the science community and contemporary religion. Chaos meta philosophy (CMP) is required to fix the massively successful and potent-yet-stalled postmodern academic project. CMP takes a worldview or combination of worldviews as “Chaos Magic” inputs using artist occultist Austin Osman Spare’s research from decades ago to re-conceptualize academic fields, papers, and departments. THUS, AND BY-AND-LARGE: US academic philosophy departments are set to Christian Western Canon PPM-CMP. TERMS IN THIS PROOF BEFORE PPM-CMP ARE THE TERM “A.” By this prototype of logic: TERM “A” symbolizes a combinatorial worldview under which papers, professors, departments, and journals are conceptualized at their true spiritual core in all things right down to the afterlife, during-life, and before-life of the aims of such projects for matters of publication, research, reward… and advancement. THUS: My PPM-CMP system for academia would allow effortless value-shifting for research wins without ethical issues or personal-values-disruption once the work is done, all in the spirit of Gonzo Journalistic technique (US Journalist, Hunter S. Thompson) done in the ANW (genius modern academic philosopher Alfred North Whitehead) “mode of thought” known as “University” (mere corporation of scholars founded on “A”). I DECLARE “GONZO [ACADEMIA].” THUS, FURTHER TO DEMONSTRATE: BUDDHIST, TAOIST, SYNCRETIC, SYMBOLIC LOGIC PPM-CMP: (INSERT RESEARCH TITLE HERE IN THIS PPM-CMP SYSTEM FOLLOWED BY ABSTRACT AND STANDARD BODY OF RESEARCH DONE IN ANOTHER WORLDVIEW COMBINATORIAL “A” SET ABLE TO BE DONE BY A CONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS BELIEVER WHO PREFERS THEIR OWN VIEWS STAY SACRED.) PPM-CMP… NOW TO A PROOF OF HOW THIS SOLVES THE SCIENCE ISSUE OF POSTMODERN LITERATURE! Modern Physics, History of Paganistic Rome 3rd century CE, Carl Jung analysis with a Roma religious gaze, Academic Aesthetics PPM-CMP: (Insert work by researcher who takes on these combinatorial worldviews as Gonzo Academics in the realm of the work without dropping their childhood religion or offending their elders using the PPM-CMP system.) THE DECLARATION OF ANY BRANCH OF SCIENCE AS AN “A” GONZO ACADEMIA WORLDVIEW COMBINATORIAL SET OF A PPM-CMP SYSTEM DEEMS UTMOST RESPECT FOR THE REALITY OF THAT FIELD IN THAT CONTEXT! Aug 30, 2021, 3:14:36am I do not like being called a genius. The term is so overloaded and mystical. It also is misunderstood often to be a science mastery of physics and calculus. I do not possess science-major university specialized degrees in this area. Thus, genius seems strange to call me. It is misleading. I also dislike intelligence quotients as they disadvantage multicultural societies from entering advanced education. Intelligence is as varied in types as there are masteries within billions of souls on Terra Firma. Even psychology itself is a limited scope of knowledge within the single academic periscope of the philosophy of mind. Stray from some assumptions within this discipline and psychology becomes statistical noise and meaningless discrimination against religious minorities that only anthropologists could hope to comprehend. Sigmund Freud was addicted to cocaine and lost much of his nose. He would be quickly laughed out of any accredited university in contemporary times if they looked at his mad scientist research. He is still super cool and smart though! Just very often DEAD WRONG. Aug 30, 2021, 2:42:47 pm I will not fly any flags of any kind but humanity. And this flag is not a flag in fact. It has no spectrum, insignia, or community. It is compassion without indebtedness or a statement of compassion itself. It is the CORE of NAMASTE which I deem not to be yoga but a hidden token to a turnstile into soul bonding with every fellow human you can as you venture from zygote to lack of brain activity. Love is the key. Dreams in waking life are the lock. It is not that hard. Mysticism is common sense and not non-science. It is academic! Aug 30, 2021, 2:55:56 pm Deconstruction is not destruction. It is far more effective than that. It particalizes your ethical norms to display precisely what rests within them. Destruction is often ignored. THIS HOWEVER WARPS AND RESHAPES ALL CONCEPTS YOU KNOW. This is why deconstruction is so feared: THE RESULTS OFT CANNOT BE IGNORED FOR THEIR VERACITY IS BEYOND TRUTH ITSELF. IT RE-FOUNDED YOUR TRUTH FROM NOTHING. Aug 30, 2021, 5:10:46pm Truth in journalism is more sacred than whether my death results from saying it. I have already proven this many times over. The only falsities I accept will be ones you let me know I should correct due to my awareness being limited. I am a former campus journalist of The Communicator but never specialized… This does not matter. I bleed my soul as journalistic truth and academic unswaying honesty. The only facts you will need to correct will be ones I researched in honest err. Aug 30, 2021, 5:20:01 pm

Chapter 2: I Dream Of A Pistol That Fires Small Flowers

As before: I dream of a pistol that fires small flowers. Aug 30, 2021, 5:27:32 pm What do you get when you cross a joke with a semantic juxtaposition that takes you by surprise? Well… Hmm… That was meta. Aug 30, 2021, 5:31:58 pm I suspect there are few academic comedy clubs. Aug 30, 2021, 5:33:42 pm LOCALISM. Noun. Definition. The internet is not true. TELEPRESENCE is an illusion. People are not actually using technology to interact. If someone cannot breathe the same air as you, they CERTAINLY DO NOT EXIST. SEE ALSO: FALLACIOUS ANCIENT-ADVOCACY. Aug 31, 2021, 5:48:26am fortune Unix command default dictionary. Noun. Definition. I read all of it decades ago. All of it. If there is a technology culture or lexicon beyond my knowledge, it must be out of canon. Richard Matthew Stallman philosophy bores me now. Eric S. Raymond is better. Theo de Raddt is hilarious. Anime is a joke in Japan. Memes are just a bit of Dawkins lore. Do not get lost in them. Make your own humorisms. Mark Twain is the original gangster. Aug 31, 2021, 5:55:33am You are not your teeth. Now try not to be aware of your tongue. Aug 31, 2021, 8:24:42am Tactics are variables within STRATEGY. Chess and RTS AND TBS simulations are pre-commander simulations. I have done many. I am no professional but reached 1500 or so ELO in Free Internet Chess Server years ago using ChessBase study and Kasparov Teaches Chess. I cannot enjoy chess notation. I do not enjoy trying to visualize games that way. This forever prevents me from entering FIDE professional chess tournaments. This does not concern me. I do not recall the source, but I read a rumor that reaching notability in chess ranks equals or surpasses the efforts involved in earning a doctoral degree. Since computer artificial intelligence engines like the open-source Stockfish practically solve any game on the fly… though Chess is NOT A SOLVED GAME AS FAR AS I KNOW, THOUGH THAT IS JUST ACADEMIC IN TERMS OF PROBABILITY NUMBERS… Engaging in Chess research to become notable there seems more like an Olympics Sport like Tennis: No new solutions to the academic problems of our lives ever appear from being an athlete, though I DO RESPECT ATHLETES. This is not my domain and never has been: THINK OF ME AS DARIA IN THE MTV SHOW INTRO WHERE SHE LETS THE BALL PASS AND SARCASTICALLY EXTENDS HER HAND AFTERWARDS TO CATCH IT WITH DEADPAN BRILLIANCE. I LOVED DARIA SO MUCH. SHE WAS A TOXIC TEEN. VERY HOT TOPIC MALL GIRL STYLE. BUT I AM FAR TOO SINCERE TO BE THAT SARCASTIC AND RUDE IN REAL LIFE… She was just upset about her conservative parents and United States High School Culture. THAT IS PALEOLITHIC HISTORY TO ME. Aug 31, 2021, 8:24:43am Weapons are just liabilities that can be taken from you and used against you by a deft hand. Guns just make loud noises and are a horrible means of complete self-defense. Initiative is the key to any conflict. A personal next-gen one hundred-ton one-hundred km/h Abrams Tank with laser guided missiles and electromagnetic experimental US Navy rail gun bleeding edge armaments and artificial-intelligence-awareness-enabled sensors for automatic targeting any hostile force with a full intelligence team investigating any signals with an operating budget of one hundred million dollars behind it will not do much against initiative unknown to all that pile of government spending waste. A single razor-sharp tripwire by an enemy commando in the desert among the brush defeats all of this instantly. We forget that our prowess is THEATER. See expert Bruce Schneier for MORE. He invented contemporary security theory for the US GOVERNMENT PERSONALLY. TRUE digital encryption became REAL because of some of his work. AIRPORT SECURITY AGENCIES NEED TO LISTEN TO HIM CLOSELY. I SUSPECT THEY ALREADY HAVE. I love security. I RESPECT IT. I AM SSCP ACTIVE WITH IISSCC. Aug 31, 2021, 8:24:43am Perfection in TACTICS IS ACTUALLY WEAKNESS against HUMAN OPPONENTS. A GAMBIT (intentionally bad TACTIC) will DESTROY the strategy plans of a PERFECTIONIST tactician. IT IS A BLUFF in the sense of TEXAS HOLD ‘EM. It works even without any human interaction through EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE notation based SILENT COMMUNICATION play. IT IS the TACTICAL “psych out.” It destroys SECURITY theater PRACTICE. THIS IS SYMBOLIC LOGIC TO EXPLAIN HOW ACTUAL SECURITY WORKS. REREAD IT CLOSELY NOW AND IMAGINE USING GAMBITS IN REAL LIFE IN ANY CONTEXT INCLUDING… dating. Aug 31, 2021, 8:24:43am I am a modest expert in futurism theory. My information technology management master’s included a dedicated course related to this field. Key: Future already happened a decade ago. Most generations just refuse to learn or cannot use the advanced telepresence gigabit+, 5g, sat net, ubiquitous AI, millions of apps, VR, AR, ARG, prosthesis medical cyborg, mind extension theory, posthuman theory, PPM-CMP theory, cosmic perspective, particle relativity light theory, global COMM consciousness, digital-AESTHETIC meta-ROMA ethics, Christian existentialist Søren Kierkegaard CONCEPTS IN unison like my research HAS provided me. Capella University really liked the idea of starting me in a psychology PSYD Doctorate program months ago… I DID NOT FIND… Giving talk therapy, statistical analysis of minds, and DSM-V BOUND-consciousness analysis ETHICALLY FASCINATING OR PRODUCTIVE to my PhD aims. Aug 31, 2021, 10:29:12am I do not think any academic field should use the term radical now and existing fields using it should be re-termed to core root. Radical has been decried so much due to misunderstanding that it merely means core root. The reason for this is because core root fields UPSET people. Why? They are deconstructionists! Core root feminism is my preferred term. It seems clearer. There is no punk skateboarding imagery related to it. That is extremely divisive in academic worlds, is it not? Sep 01, 2021, 9:04:55 am I was told by my mother that I never spoke at an early age. They were worried enough that they wanted to hire a speech therapist. Then I started talking in complete sentences. I cannot understand this. I was never told what my first word was. I did not have one! HOW COMMON IS THIS? I never thought about this seriously until now. Sep 01, 2021, 9:04:55 am ANTI ACADEMIC NIHIL CATHOLIC ATTACK. Noun. Definition. NIHIL. LATIN NOUN. DEFINITION. “NOTHING”. LATIN. Noun. Definition. LANGUAGE OF SACRED MASS. CATHOLIC THEORY. Noun. Definition. politician in ROME declares SOCIAL POLICY FOR ALL PEOPLE ON Terra Firma. THUS: NIHIL EQUALS OCCULT MAGIC TO DISCREDIT UPSETTING RESEARCH. LITERALLY A SYNONYM FOR “meaningless or unimportant or zero.” This is how GREAT ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHERS ARE BANNED FROM UNIVERSITY RESEARCH. “DERRIDA IS A NIHILIST.” “THUS, SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA is NIHILIST.” NIHILISM. Noun. Definition. WONDER METHOD OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIAN PRAYER. Sep 01, 2021, 9:04:55 am AMERICAN INDEPENDENT. ANY POLITICIAN IN ANY PARTY WHO MESSES UP NEEDS TO BE TOUCHED BY CONSEQUENCE. Sep 01, 2021, 9:04:56 am IQ equals X. My IQ is unknown. I refuse. It would require a state mandate. I hate standardized evaluation. The number is placement for K through twelve. That seems all it is for me. Sep 01, 2021, 9:04:56 am computer interface globalization. Noun. Definition. STOP SHOVING UNICODE INTO THE TRASH TO APPEAL TO XENOPHONIAPHOBIC INTERESTS! Sep 01, 2021, 9:04:59 am AMATEUR ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGISTS: Anyone who does not read headline news is schizophrenic. PROOF: ASSESSMENT FOR NORMALCY IS BASED ON CURRENT US PRESIDENT AND CURRENT DATE IN EMERGENCY HEALTHCARE TRAINING. IF YOU GO CAMPING FOR A MONTH WITHOUT ANY SOURCE OF NEWS OR TIME KEEPING TO TRACK THE CURRENT DAY OF THE WESTERN CALENDAR… EMERGENCY ROOM STAFF WILL COMMIT YOU TO A PSYCHIATRY HOLD OF SEVENTY-TWO HOURS FOR ASSESSMENT WITH MANDATORY PSYCHOTROPIC MEDICATION. THIS IS A PSYCHIATRIC HEALTHCARE FALLACY BUILT INTO THE UNITED STATES MEDICAL SYSTEM. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENTS BY EMERGENCY PERSONNEL ARE BAD! “DO YOU HEAR VOICES?” BLEEP! NO! “DO YOU HEAR VOICES OUTSIDE YOUR HEAD?” THE STANDARD ASSESSMENT FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA IS RIDDLED WITH PROBLEMS. MEMORIES OF SOMEONE SPEAKING IS A VOICE IN YOUR HEAD. EVERYONE HAS THOSE. CONTEMPORARY PSYCHIATRY HAS ISSUES. Sep 01, 2021, 9:04:59 am SECURITY CLEARANCE FUTURE INTERVIEW… Hi, I am commander Austin… Let us get this started. Your research is impressive… Wait. Are… You… Oh. Joy. Get the BLEEP out of my base. You would tell everyone about my childhood abuse that led to boot camp rather than enrollment. I mean, I did later get an MBA… Hmm. Stop that! … TEN MINUTES LATER… *CRYING* I WILL NEVER LET YOU EVEN HAVE ACCESS TO THE COPY MACHINE NEXT TO OUR COFFEEMAKER, BUT MY LIFE MAKES MORE SENSE NOW! I AM GOING TO GO FOR MORE TRAINING AND BECOME A GENERAL AND HUG MY MOM. GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE YOU MAKE ME… … OK, give me a hug first, Ms. Joy. On your way. Sep 01, 2021, 9:05:00 am Unknown: “You are not fit to work for my agency.” No ——, Sherlock. I am a journalist. No one would EVER give me clearance. Sep 01, 2021, 9:05:05am 18:41. Base 10. Common things US people fear. Sep 01, 2021, 9:05:07 am My mom has a bachelor’s in English with a teaching career. She learned enough German to read philosophy in it, I suspect. German was THE veritable language of philosophy and science prior to World War II… Sep 01, 2021, 9:05:07 am My father was a chemist with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry that he earned after being an officer of an artillery command in Vietnam honorably. He created novel sound-dampening materials for the automotive industry and assisted in water treatment facilities. Sep 01, 2021, 9:05:08 am ANTI-ACADEMIA BUZZ THEORY. Noun. Definition. Any term requiring considerable research sounds like buzzing to the reader. THUS: BUZZ WORD ATTACK FALLACY. USED TO DERAIL AND DISCREDIT RESEARCHERS AND THEORISTS BY LAZY READERS. SUCH READERS ARE JUST UNINTERESTED IN RESEARCH. THEY SHOULD READ WILLIAM BLAKE INSTEAD. Sep 01, 2021, 9:05:08 am

Chapter 3: No Afterlife Would Be Safe If I Lied

Popular Culture Anti-Theorist Sheldon Cooper Metaphor Theory. Noun. Definition. X EQUALS FICTIONAL GENIUS THEORETICAL STRING THEORY HARD SCIENCE PHD DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION RESEARCHER DESPISES ANYONE WHO QUESTIONS OR UPSETS HIS EXTREMELY HARD EQUATIONS HE MASTERED FOR A DECADE OR LONGER. SHELDON COOPER ATTACK ON DECONSTRUCTIONIST THEORIST EQUALS X. (SCAODT) Sheldon Cooper SCAODT’d anyone who theorized the basis of his research because it would destroy his hard science academic career. AS A PURE THEORIST, RESPECT WHEN ACADEMIC SCAODT’s AS A DEFENSE, THEIR CAREERS ARE SACRED. REMEMBER: DECONSTRUCTIONISM DOES NOT DESTROY ANYTHING OR ANYONE. IT IS LEFT INTACT… THIS IS THE NATURE OF THEORIST WORK! Sep 01, 2021, 9:05:08 am CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT AGENCY. Noun. Definition. APOLITICAL. SECULAR. PURE SCIENCE. SUSPECTED BY ME TO HOLD CULTURES OF SMALLPOX THAT WAS LIKE THE BLACK PLAGUE BEFORE VACCINES WIPED IT FROM THE PLANET AS FAR AS EPIDEMIOLOGISTS KNOW. THEIR MISSION: MORE SACRED THAN THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY. THEORY: NSA ANSWERS TO CDC, NOT VICE VERSA. WHEN YOU SEE A CDC GLOBAL DEATH COUNT IN THE MILLIONS, IT IS NOT A STATISTIC IN NATURE. THESE SACRED PEOPLE ARE COUNTING MORGUE INTAKES. IF YOU MOCK A CDC NUMBER AS POLITICAL, I WILL QUESTION YOUR SOUL. Sep 01, 2021, 9:05:09 am ETYMOLOGICAL AESTHETIC FIELD THEORIST. Noun. Definition. Self-defining field. The actual term of this field is the practice of it. Sep 01, 2021, 9:05:09 am TONGUE-IN-CHEEK MUTUAL ACADEMIC NON-CRIMINAL STALKING. (TICMANCS) Noun. Definition. THE REAL CYBERNETIC TELEPRESENCE CONTEMPORARY SOCRATIC METHOD. ACTUALLY ENCOURAGED, BUT COMPLEX. ALWAYS BE KIND. BECOME A MASSIVE PARAGRAPH IN EACH OTHERS’ CVs. FRIENDSHIP OPTIONAL. FRIENDSHIP EQUALS SMALL TALK. IPFW PROFESSOR, CIRCA 2000’s. We TICMANCS’d. Related accurate Hollywood media drama of TICMANCS academic social theory: PAPER CHASE! MY Principles of Ethics professor at IPFW told the class he WANTED his university students to TICMANCS him. He EVEN had the AV department bring a television to class to HAVE EVERYONE watch this movie and analyze it. I do NOT remember this professor’s name but academic records at IPFW would reveal it. I suspect his ETHICS COURSE was taught as PRE-LAW JD. I LOVED IT. NO TEXTBOOK. NO REAL SYLLABUS. HE JUST TAUGHT ANYTHING HE WANTED. MORAL LUCK RESEARCH THAT HE INTRODUCED ME TO STILL CONCERNS ME TO THIS DAY. IT IS DISTURBING! Sep 01, 2021, 9:05:10am Xeno: Otherness. Phobia: Fear that is completely unknown within someone. War. Noun. Definition… Xenophobia… Sometimes… Holocaust… Xenophobia… Yes… No. This hurts my head. I did NOT like that HIGH SCHOOL COURSE BY MY HISTORY TEACHER. HE IS A SPECIALIST IN HOLOCAUST HISTORY. HE IS A GREAT TEACHER AND A GOOD MAN. I WAS NOT ADVANCED ENOUGH TO HANDLE HIS COURSE AT THAT AGE. I DID POORLY. I SUSPECT IT WAS OUT OF FEAR AND RESPECT FOR THE TOPIC. I WAS TERRIFIED. GOVERNMENTS ACTUALLY STILL DO THIS TO THIS DAY. THE HOLOCAUST IS AN ATROCITY. PEOPLE THINK IT IS THE ULTIMATE EVIL. IT IS. BUT PEOPLE DO NOT REALIZE: IT NEVER STOPPED. CHILDREN FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW WILL BE TRAUMATIZED BY COURSES OF THIS NATURE ABOUT GENOCIDES ON AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE HIGHER THAN SEVEN MILLION ONCE HISTORICAL ACADEMICS UPDATE THE LITERATURE. IT WAS THE ULTIMATE EVIL CIRCA 1945 CE. EVIL EVER CHANGES. SOCIETY POPULATION GROWS. SEVEN+ BILLION ALIVE TODAY. GENOCIDE BECOMES A RATIO OF WORLD POPULATION BY EVIL RULES. I HOPE YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MORE HORRIFYING THE NUMBERS WILL BECOME IN ONE HUNDRED YEARS IF CARBON DOES NOT DESTROY OUR HABITABLE WORLD. Sep 01, 2021, 9:29:36am THE IDEA THAT MY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT MASTER’S DEGREE WAS ABOUT THE MANAGEMENT OF AN IT DEPARTMENT IS A COMPLETE FALLACY. My actual focus had nothing to do with managing a “department or organization or HR or even people.” That is why I find the title of my graduate degree hilarious. I will never manage people. People should never need to be managed in my life. If they need a manager, they should NOT talk to an ACADEMIC polymath like me. My master’s is a research program I completed online completely in seclusion through telepresence asynchronously with mentors and advisors with no peers. My first advisor was a military man with IT expertise. The second went on to work as support for a penetration testing rewards company. I have never managed someone and never intend to. Information Technology Management is not my field, and my master’s degree is completely misnamed. It is a master’s in telepresence security, futurism, information technology infrastructure, chief-information-officer-awareness, and extremely fast writing and research. I do not know how many pages I wrote in Western Governors University program of ten courses or even know how much I read. I did not work or date or entertain or see friends or anything of note. I did not take breaks. Days off? Drinking? Nah. Work and play were the same. They still are. 80 hours of work in a week is not really work when you love what you do and consider it play. You do not take time off because the time itself is off. It is all-encompassing. Work Life Balance is a corporate human resources fallacy. If you love what you DO… WORK IS LIFE, AND WORK BALANCES IT 24/7. This is how I finished my master’s in ten months and wrote my capstone aka dissertation fifty pages in two weeks. Sep 01, 2021, 9:47:39am Anti-teacher rhetoric: “If you cannot do, teach.” Pro-teacher counter: “If you cannot think, learn.” Sep 02, 2021, 2:51:54 pm I will happily SWEAR IN any Court Testimony using the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. No afterlife would be safe if I lied! Sep 02, 2021, 2:51:55pm To younglings: I used BAUD DIAL UP BBSs and went by The Fly in 260 back in the Prodigy days. Sep 02, 2021, 2:51:58 pm DSM-V BASED ATTACK ON ACADEMIC. Noun. Definition. YOUR RESEARCH IS SCARY. I JUST LOVE SEINFELD AND EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND RERUNS. PROBABLY SEEN EVERY EPISODE MORE THAN MY REPUBLICAN CATHOLIC CHURCH GIVES ME RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES. YOU MUST BE GUILTY OF THE REALITY CRIME, SCHIZOPHRENIA… LOCK THAT RESEARCHER IN A WARD FULL OF BORDERLINE SERIAL KILLERS. SEE IF THAT RESEARCHER EVER QUESTIONS MY CHUCKLE FACTORY SPEAKERS EVER AGAIN! Sep 02, 2021, 2:51:59 pm I do not like FICTION EXPERIENCES OUTSIDE OF METAPHOR. I read Internet Movie Database instead of ACTUALLY WATCHING MOVIES. As a result, I have (SEEN or READ) MORE MOVIES THAN MOST with better understanding of them without ever watching them or needing to engage in compensating Hollywood. ALL SCRIPTS AND DETAILS ARE THERE AND ON WIKIPEDIA FOR ALL MOVIES IMAGINABLE. My favorite MOVIE OF ALL TIME IS… SILENCE by MARTIN SCORSESE. … THAT MOVIE WILL DESTROY YOUR WORLD. (And I actually watched it.) Sep 02, 2021, 2:52:08 pm The nature of reality is beyond the description of mere norm values in a particular place or time… It is within the soul of the observer traveling through a single life… You cannot escape the zygote to brain synapse end no matter which religion you follow or which philosophy you champion. Medical science describes all bodies. Sep 18, 2021, 10:46:45 am Gender espionage… Hmm… Sounds like a thriller made for the big screen… Rated T for Teeny Bit Ridiculous. That is my life right now… Sep 18, 2021, 10:48:19am Inside my mind you will find the nature of things are not things at all but mere-ness to being. If you understand that, you will like Alfred North Whitehead… He and I are clandestine academic philosophy buds from beyond the grave. Sep 18, 2021, 10:50:10am Through the light to the bastion of hope you will find something inside your mind that strikes a fancy: trueness. If you are not true, you are lost. You are lost when all seems to falter. That was me. That WAS me. I will come around again. I have food. I have shelter. I have information technology, and my eyes are open again… Sep 18, 2021, 10:52:04am Is there a realm more vivid than that of the spirit? Try as you might, scientists, there is a spark of spirit in your labs, and it is not what lit your Bunsen burners… No… You have something within that led to GRAVITY. The spirit of even a Dawkins is not bereft of phantasm no matter how many Bibles that man drives college students to tear apart in scientific protest. Evolution is the spark. So is galactic expansionary space. The Bible is a cool literary record. Let us let each have a certain place. Each should avoid banning the other! Sep 18, 2021, 4:57:57 pm WHAT ARE MY BELIEFS? CHECK THE DAY AND THE TIME AND THE PLANK SECOND. Update your history textbooks. Beliefs are vessels that grant passage through life. Ethics are what bring eudaimonia and good death. Whether you call it God or Allah or Krishna or Tenrikyo, another oral history appears every split second among billions living and dying on TERRA FIRMA as I tap this on a TFT trash phone to ipv4 on a sidewalk outside a mission. They call masters and PhDs terminal degrees because if you do them right, you become the subject of research! I am a general studyist of countless years who terminated with information technology management. Logic dictates my expertise is Microsoft Windows. I general studied. Analyze me now, college admins. I did not even have to defend my capstone… They stamped it. Dream of more! Sep 18, 2021, 6:19:43 pm POST-CHRISTIAN WORLD? To some. May not to others. Histories do not vanish just because contemporaries change. Pasts exist in small areas among people everywhere like cells being cultured. But Richard Dawkins went too far. He made a mockery to defend his career and become a book celebrity rather than do his research. I saw his scarlet letter atheism movement firsthand at IPFW. It was such a delusional persecution sect dedicated to left wing political aims using religious abuse victims to contaminate the name of good scientific left or right leaning religion. It was just another voting bloc stunt that destroyed academic careers there. I have zero problems with liberal hippy Jesus. He was impressive. The militant right wing televangelist Jesus is the one I have a problem with. Sep 18, 2021, 6:33:55 pm Just because I am LGBT+ does not mean I am a sex addict. I have not had real sex in a long time and do not care about it. Why is it that people link LGBT+ with objectification? I just want to be fully Emily Tiffany Joy. Sep 19, 2021, 7:58:37am Tapping incessantly, Sleeping irreverently, I witness this day that never ends. They call it the Lord’s Day. I call it Sunday. When will this Lordship end? Cannot God step off the throne? Cannot God look down and help people like what Ancients wrote before Modern Science cast shadows on miracles? I am not one to pray. I am not one to beg. Where art thou on internet protocol version four? Sep 19, 2021, 8:57:06am If Socratics are right, talking is key… But a Roma-style Socratic talks to herself. What would Socrates have created if he gazed on Tarot instead of the Greek household Gods that led to his Hemlock state-endorsed execution. Sep 19, 2021, 1:22:02pm Dreams seem new to me since I have not had one in quite some time. My sleep states do not give me dreams right now. I do not know what this means, but aphantasia is quite common, I suspect. There are many ways to be alive, my friends… Sep 20, 2021, 7:21:44am

Chapter 4: I Cast Them To The Universe

I am trans-undercover right now. People know me as I was in my old life where I am. This is sad but required for my safety. This is what it means to be gender dysphoric: your birth name gives you emotional pain to hear and disrupts your peaceful existence and sanity. I could never tolerate being a man forever. That is why I nearly stopped existing a few times in my life. To say my life is suspenseful right now is an understatement… Sep 20, 2021, 11:49:22am Going to a good afterlife is number one, anyone would agree, but finding a present life that leads to one is the question for anyone with a ferry boat… Sep 20, 2021, 11:51:44am “Run-on sentence,” “sentence fragment,” and “paragraphs” are child’s play to anyone who has written graduate research: You begin to realize the rules of grammar are training wheels… I will do what I want with grammar… And let the grammarians suffer their frustration. Sep 20, 2021, 11:55:32am Becoming PHYSICALLY female is NOT EASY. My brain feels female already from hormone replacement therapy, but not the rest. I hope everyone can understand how frustrating this is. Sep 20, 2021, 4:40:01 pm Five dots to illustrate art. One dot to make a movement. One dot to touch someone. One dot to trace an eyelid. One dot to light a soul. One dot to conquer hate. And a grammar that allows them. . . . . Sep 21, 2021, 11:55:27am semiotic poetry. Noun. Definition. My own thing. Sep 21, 2021, 12:27:54 pm There are ways to overcome most troubles in this world. Most. Oct 07, 2021, 6:31:49 pm I believe, and that is enough to get by. More than enough. Death could take me or anyone at any moment for almost any reason. All I know is I have lived a good life and continue to live for what I feel is right inside. God? Sure, I think there is one watching me. I have not always been close to it, but there must be a reason I am alive more than random chance… And if I am wrong about that, and there is no God, I suspect no one should expect a consequence to me. So why not have something more than nothing? This thought is not for debate. This is soul bearing. I need spirituality. I am older now and suffering from spine pain. The spark of something holy is worthy of my life right now. It gives me hope when nearly everyone has left me behind. Oct 07, 2021, 6:41:10pm It is going to take years to get to where I need to be just to feel normal. Oct 09, 2021, 11:01:44 am I do not know what to say. Sometimes words are not enough. Sometimes not even a song will do. We all lose someone eventually. Oct 19, 2021, 5:50:23am I am looking for inspiration in my soul. I am seeking a life more than now. There must be something more. Wistful intentions are not enough anymore. Oct 19, 2021, 5:58:48am I love fall. This sweater weather gives me nice chills. Oct 19, 2021, 6:03:04 am I love being Emily Joy, no matter what. Oct 19, 2021, 6:17:16 am I do not care what you identify as: If your soul is good, I do not care. Love. Is. My. Quest. Right. Now. Oct 19, 2021, 6:30:13am Love to me means accepting someone radically and being there for someone. It has nothing to do with sex. It has everything to do with embracing shared dreams together. It has to do with becoming more than the sum of two people. Oct 19, 2021, 6:33:58am My life, my dreams, my passions, my moments shared, I cast them to the universe to find my love. Wherever that love is, shall I go. Love lost, love found, I cast my soul to the mists to find my love. Oct 19, 2021, 6:37:02am Somewhere, somehow life extends to spaces less confined. From one place to another, a soul is redefined. The limitations are the canvas of the mind. Extend from now until then, Until then until then. Ancients. Moderns. One. One mode turned from text to truth. The old new is the news again, For a while, Just for a while. As I bide my time in contemplation and recovery From traumas unnumbered for the sake of politeness, A family mutually forsaken, I am Ms. Joy evermore now. Acceptance is slow but sure, To a new life. Oct 19, 2021, 11:56:20am Patience is not a virtue. It is a state of mind. Oct 20, 2021, 5:08:31 am There is more to me than meets your eye. I am thirty-nine and have lived longer than many, at seventy. Yet I have traveled truly little. My life has been digital. Numbers pervade my soul. I do not have a solution to my current circumstances, But I will never give up. I am embracing aesthetics yet again. I made that declaration. Experience is key. Oct 21, 2021, 11:49:40 am UPPER CASE WRITING IS NOT SCREAMING. IT IS LOUD, BUT WHY IS LOUD BAD? Oct 21, 2021, 3:34:10pm Time flies. You will be ninety before you know it if you even live that long. Doing so empowers you. Live your true self if that self is worth living. I will find my way back to my true self soon. This mission is a delay to self-actualization. Oct 21, 2021, 4:33:00 pm What do I believe in? Love. Simply love. Oct 21, 2021, 5:01:15 pm Truth versus fact. Which do you value more? Oct 22, 2021, 5:13:34am Speechless, aimless, chilly, dreaming of more. Oct 22, 2021, 10:52:12am Without a sense of beauty, life would be bereft of hope. It would be like those textbook monochrome photographs of ruined cities in history books about World War II. TO THOSE WHO CELEBRATE DARKNESS, YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE. Oct 22, 2021, 2:01:05 pm There is no cure for humanity. Humanity is the cure. Oct 22, 2021, 2:03:57 pm Evil does not ever vanish. Evil does not pick who becomes it. It is not sentient. Anyone can become evil. Anyone’s agency can set it into motion. There is no precise calculus for ethics. Oct 22, 2021, 2:06:35 pm I do not know what my truth is right now. I know who I am inside, but I do not know where I am headed. I am in the wind at the mercy of chance and circumstance. Oct 23, 2021, 6:23:00 am Do not be fooled. God is a concept that did not fade out of relevance no matter how many university courses you have taken. Oct 24, 2021, 6:00:03 am Beauty is an illusion best described using your soul. Oct 24, 2021, 2:29:19pm Transphobes have an open-door policy with me. They can come at any time to be lowered into Dante’s Inferno. Oct 25, 2021, 6:33:04am I will not let the world get to me. I will not let the world get to me. I will not let the world get to me. And other lies I tell myself. Oct 25, 2021, 11:21:45 am Trying to change the world online is a periscope view of reality. Oct 26, 2021, 10:02:59 am The past is impossible to touch. Reminiscence is the best I can manage. Oct 27, 2021, 6:06:06 am Have I ever saved a life? Does it matter if I have? That is one act I do not actively take credit for. It is too precious to me to detail any such thing. Oct 27, 2021, 6:16:50 am Certain realms of thought are beyond my reach right now. Oct 29, 2021, 11:20:52am I have no power right now. No, not an outage. Not that kind of power. Oct 29, 2021, 12:25:23 pm There is no cure for this. There is only living. Living and hoping that life improves, In a waiting room ethereal. The medications keep me from typing too much. Too much for everyone to hear. They called it mania when all I wanted was someone to listen. Too many words for the world. Too much excitement for them. Let us give her Lithium. Let us give her Depakote. That will shut her up. Oct 31, 2021, 5:59:00 am Can technology save humanity, or will it doom us to carbon death? Hmm… A text box is my blank canvas. Letters are my oil paints. Hmm… “There is nothing outside the text.” Derrida holds my interest still. They say he is a nihilist. … Sometimes nothing is better than something when something is as bad as it is. SOMETIMES DECONSTRUCTING INTO NOTHINGNESS IS A WORTHY FATE WHEN HUMANITY HAS DONE SUCH EVIL. HISTORY TEXTBOOKS DO NOT LIE. Oct 31, 2021, 6:54:44am There are fragments of crystal all about my soul. Premonitions are not enough any longer. Old books are not either. Traditions falter. Empathy is all I need. Refract my soul upon others and gaze upon what returns. Scrying with my optic nerve. No glass required. Heresy, right? Follow the text, hmm? Consign them to flames for all are written not felt. Emotions are my true divinity. Emotions ARE intelligence. Oct 31, 2021, 7:08:39 am I do not pray. Especially not during group led prayer. I close my eyes and analyze the words. The law of attraction seems far more interesting than prayer and has less baggage. Simply set out your intentions enough, and salience changes. What you seek becomes more apt to appear by priming your consciousness. It is not supernatural. It is psychology. Oct 31, 2021, 1:30:58 pm To my friends who suffer from depression: I know how you feel. I have seen bad states in my life, scary moments from which I nearly did not return. But I am here, and so are you reading this. You are worth a happy life… Oct 31, 2021, 3:39:32pm I worked in pest control for over five years. If I told you the experiences I had dealing with wasps, your jaw might drop. They like to fill entire wall voids with nests full of nymphs. They use the drywall as nest material. Eventually the drywall becomes paper thin, and you can hear the buzzing in the rooms. I had a call once to where this happened, and I poked a finger into the wall. It was a little girl’s room. I walked out, closed the door, and the room became filled with wasps everywhere. Wasps team up when threatened so you must be careful, or it turns deadly. The parents said they would pay anything that was asked. They did not pay much. I put on a respirator, took out my can of 565, and walked in to fog the room. After spraying the aerosol fog for a bit into the air, I closed the door behind me. The wasps were all dead not long after. I casually put on gloves and removed the nest from the wall and left, leaving only a ticket behind. Wasps like these do not pollinate. They are predators. I cannot imagine what would have happened to that girl if she had punctured that wall herself. Nov 02, 2021, 5:29:10am

Chapter 5: In A Space Shuttle To Venus

Inspiration is tangible to each moment of return to a memory worthy of expression. Context defines meaning so the setting and mood of a writing often determines everything. I cannot imagine writing fascinating work in a blank featureless room… Unless minimalism is the setting for that work. “The medium is the message,” and my medium is limited to a prepaid phone’s touchscreen on unstable Wi-Fi. Most of my writings are done on my screen, not a physical keyboard and mouse… This phone is worth less than $27. Nov 02, 2021, 8:04:27 am Wistful memories… Better times… than these… If I could predict the future, I would not want to know. Nov 04, 2021, 6:20:58am I miss being in love. I miss trusting someone enough to feel that way again. Nov 08, 2021, 6:12:30am Philosophy nearly became my profession. I took it very seriously and studied most of the major thinkers for years. Then I realized wisdom evolves in life. Wisdom as a project is complete yet eternally recurring to each person who is born. I also nearly became a computer scientist. I bolted after I witnessed advanced math later in my major. Nov 09, 2021, 12:44:09pm Who is going to fall in love with me? I am lost right now and need someone to catch me. I need someone to sweep me off my feet and put me in a dress and tell me all this will be over soon. I need someone to rescue me. Something tells me that the only person to rescue me is me. Nov 09, 2021, 12:46:41 pm Love, dice, switchblades, and diamond rings… A strange word aesthetic. Nov 10, 2021, 9:50:22am Reigniting my dream to write, but the subject seems unknown at this point… Nov 11, 2021, 11:48:36am Astrology only works because of hive mind behavior. If enough people believe in a system, it becomes notable to study when everyone is making decisions based on it. It does not make it real or scientifically valid, but sometimes that does not matter. Enough patterned noise creates predictions on a large scale as the law of large numbers states. It is how the occult works. Nov 11, 2021, 12:29:20pm Dreams may come soon for all of us. To you, to your loved ones, to everyone you care about: Passion supersedes evil. And good is worth fighting for in the end. Nov 11, 2021, 3:26:36 pm Ruminations on another level… Pixelate a rumor into a dash light warning. Five alarm fire from a source unknown In a space shuttle to Venus, Somehow this is a metaphor. Somehow this trip is not stopping anytime soon. But the company is cherished, When the occupants are welcome. Five CCs of happiness, stat. No, emotions are felt, not prescribed, No matter what the textbooks say. Intrigue leads to suspicion, And every little dot is a glowing green eye, Lining a deep blue horizon in the rear-view mirror, Of the imagination of my mind’s eye. Chanting lines, the audio sphere with aural disrepute, My reign as tyrant of a kingdom of one has reached its end. Reform will bring more joy into my world… Nov 11, 2021, 3:57:57 pm Consequentiality… What determines fate? Do your actions create it, or do the actions of those around you determine your reply? There were Fates in ancient mythology. I do not know their story, and I do not care to look it up. My fate is unknown. My story is not. I have good health. Medical science might improve enough to give me seventy years or more in our lifetimes… I have already lived thirty-nine. Am I really that young? I feel like I have been alive forever. That is my college education talking. History has a certain craziness to it. The casualty rate for any era is quite high… Those not dying of so-called natural causes. There is no victor in history, And the people writing true academic textbooks are scholars… Not leaders. At least, in societies where academic freedom and honesty are respected. When the factual truth cannot be written in research, You have anti-intellectual fascism. Nov 12, 2021, 4:20:09 am Psychics might be full of misinformation, but those are the ones doing it wrong. It is EMPATH work. It is pure emotion reflecting off someone else’s own emotions to determine what is inside. As one person told me, the most psychic person alive is an infant. They discover all of reality in such a brief time. I do not use astrology. I do not use tarot. I read people… and never stop. Nov 12, 2021, 11:47:46am To those who think fun is defined as going out to bars and getting tipsy, have you ever heard of classical music? Nov 13, 2021, 7:32:53 am I have taken fifty-four college courses in my life so far. This was over many years and much heartbreak. University is not for everyone. The professors can push you hard. You must sacrifice a lot to do it, and in the end, it is just a credential to put on a resume. The experience, however, changes the way you think for the rest of your life. I wish I could go back to college, but I am not sure what for and how I would fund a second graduate degree. It is on my wish list. What I do know is that I do not want to manage an IT department, which is the ostensible subject of my first master’s degree. But the perfect grades there make me eligible for many other graduate programs and should open other doors as well. Nov 13, 2021, 10:44:31am The medium really is the message, and the way it is set up sets the mood. Nov 13, 2021, 11:19:04am A thirty-five hundred calorie deficit is the loss of a pound. Hmm… Two thousand calories a day. Five hundred calories a day is a pound lost every two days and change. The human body was not designed to lose weight easily. Horrible “design” for heart disease. Nov 13, 2021, 1:03:45 pm Sometimes I feel like my life is on a railroad. There is no diverging from the set paths ahead of me. It frustrates me. I did not ask to be me. I did not ask for these challenges. I am merely faced with them. And silly people keep appearing in my life. Some good, some not so good. All have in common a fascination with me at some point. Nov 14, 2021, 11:01:58am I was asked what the meaning of life is on a university philosophy course final exam over a decade ago. I wrote that the meaning was to find it out for yourself. The questions of life are the meaning, not the answers. The curiosity that drives you to know more is the meaning. Self-discovery is the only true way forward. Any psychologist would agree with that. Nov 16, 2021, 5:08:53 am I like art and aesthetics. I like selection and seeking the sublime. It does not need to be perfect or beautiful… Nov 16, 2021, 11:51:00 am 1, 2, 3, 4. I will grieve no more. 5, 6, 7, 8. I will not meet an early fate. 9, 10, 11, 12. This is my life into which I will delve. Nov 17, 2021, 6:57:17am I took philosophy of art at Purdue University. I have a higher-than-average score on aesthetics tests. I can “sense” what looks good through study on a more interesting level. People call this “taste”, but that is too mundane. Nov 18, 2021, 6:50:00 am Every song from my past evokes a memory, an era of my life from which it came. My song library is a repository of my existence. It involves emotions and states long forgotten, summoned with a simple search and play. This is why I love music: It, more so than most other mediums, carries an impact few other things do. Nov 19, 2021, 6:37:32am My family was tight knit for a long time. Until my siblings started having children. They had so many that we no longer celebrated each other’s birthdays. We only had celebrations for their children. I never had kids so… I was an outsider. I have three brothers and two sisters, and they are all parents to, on the last count, at least sixteen children in total. They all live in Indiana. I left that place feeling unwelcome after no one came to my aid. I live without a family now and have changed my last name to Joy. Why Joy? I want to spread joy. Nov 19, 2021, 6:46:08 am I am not becoming a woman. I already am one. My body is changing. The world is now aware of a long-foregone conclusion. That is all. Nov 21, 2021, 11:36:04am Coffee shop scents. Childhood memories. Trauma overcame. Dreams attained. Tears unshed. Dark-lit studies. Dusty books. Multi-colored lights. Somewhere life is better. Somewhere peace can be found. Math does not make sense to any of this. But the path is solid stone. Many have come. Many have died. Survive. May you find a shield others lack. I remember. I always remember those who came before. And those we have buried. Nov 21, 2021, 1:14:45 pm A couple years ago, during my Western Governors University online master’s degree program in information technology management, I became so paranoid about mass surveillance technology that I withdrew from my term and left my apartment and drove as far as my car could take me on a full tank of gas without even paying attention to the direction. This took me from Indiana to Ohio. I left my car on the side of a safe residential country road and walked until nightfall. I do not know how they found me. My brothers picked me up from the hospital, and my car was towed and later returned to me. I re-enrolled in courses shortly after. This is what happens to me during the high phases of my bipolar diagnosis. If the mania gets bad enough, you lose touch. This has happened quite a few times. I am currently on medication that keeps it at bay. There is no cure. Just medication daily. Nov 22, 2021, 9:50:05 am “I think therefore I am.” Yet, “Existence precedes essence.” All things become self-defined. First is René Descartes. Second is Jean-Paul Sartre. The level of influence of these thinkers cannot easily be overstated. Existence is a rebellion against nature. Pure continental philosophy. Most people fall apart when they think this way too long. Nov 23, 2021, 5:05:46 am Stress is another palette with which I paint my life. My limitations in my circumstances are my canvas. The painting is dark and brooding right now, but hopefully it is going to change for the better. Nov 23, 2021, 12:33:18 pm What is “news?” Do I care about politicians or economies or viruses or court cases or celebrities or new products? Not really. If you think you have an awareness of current events by watching a sixty-minute news program or even worse your local news, there is a disconnect going on. Most news is completely irrelevant noise that has no impact on your life. Most, anyway. That is the problem: News is a narrative drawn from raw news blotters to fill page space and airtime in a way that pleases advertisers, viewers, and editors. Actual current events? Too numerous to mention in a lifetime from a single day. Relevance is the kicker, but who do I trust with “relevance”? And who on Terra Firma do I trust with the narrative? Too much news consumption is linked with depression. No news consumption is linked with accusations of psychosis. The news is unfit for print. Nov 24, 2021, 3:55:48 pm Psychology is difficult to properly define. Psyche is a mythical figure. It also means breath, mind, or soul. Consider that closely. There are many branches of that field, some scientific, some not. Nov 25, 2021, 7:04:43am I took elementary psychology, lifespan developmental psychology, abnormal psychology, social psychology, and the psychology of learning at Purdue University in the 2000’s. I do not know what impact this had on my understanding of people. It must have been dramatic. It also put me in their world. This is why I criticize it so much. Nov 25, 2021, 9:15:35 am Why are unicorns not a thing? Horns are a thing. Horses are a thing. Occult magic is a thing. Get on it pagan friends! Nov 25, 2021, 1:47:20 pm Love is worth it. Nov 26, 2021, 4:56:44am Intricate. Oblivious. Shattering. Nov 27, 2021, 4:40:49 am

Chapter 6: I Want My Intuition To Guide Me

My purpose is unknown. I exist to recover from… pain that does not impact nerves. It impacts my soul. I escaped from the truth for decades. I do not know how to solve this. Except time. Except for keeping appointments. Except being a client and a patient. I used to write poetry in high school that was very dark. I knew something was wrong. When I was a child, people always thought I was hiding something. They kept asking me what was wrong. I have far too many memories of that. My childhood was an escapist nightmare. I lost myself in games and computers and the internet in a time when the internet was uncommon. I wore black throughout middle school and high school but not in a goth way: just a black shirt and black pants. Nov 27, 2021, 8:52:32am I want to live and die in my favorite songs. There are songs that fill my entire body with chills. Without music, life would be lackluster. I would not be the same. Nov 28, 2021, 5:06:23 am Do not fall in love with an idea of me. I am flawed. Love my flaws. Those are more so me than anything else. Perfection is an illusion. Nov 28, 2021, 10:24:04am What brings me joy? Knowing a better future comes. It is never time to give up if there is still hope. Even after losing everything, There is still a way to come back. As long as your brain functions and your heart beats, You might still find what you are looking for. Nov 28, 2021, 12:21:37 pm What are the three most tragic words in the English language? “How are you?” Debatably. Nov 28, 2021, 1:23:06 pm There is one feminine stereotype I will never get behind: long nails. It is crippling. Touchscreen technology does not cope with them well. I love to have my nails cut just to where there is no white left. This allows me to type so much faster. This does not get in the way of having painted colorful nails. They look better short. It is style. I can type so fast on touchscreens with short nails. Nov 29, 2021, 11:36:02am Intuition is extremely important to me. I feel most alive when acting on intuition rather than logic. I do not want to “intend” or forethink or logicize. I want my intuition to guide me. Nov 29, 2021, 1:16:17pm I am using tarot, astrology, oracle, and various other empath apps and practices again, I have decided. I did good psychic readings for a while but never charged. My background in science-based skepticism, academic psychology, and the occult makes it easy for me. The law of attraction has interesting implications when used properly. I can tell when synchronicity is happening. It is a valuable insight. Many people avoid it as it is distressing. The more you tap into it, the more you see. Most people blind themselves to it with standard thinking instead of intuitive practice and ritual. Sure, scientists despise it, because quacks misuse it fraudulently, causing unknown amounts of damage to the world. That is the nature of magical thinking: The power of belief can change worlds. Science wants 2021 current era world reality according to NASA and Hubble and Dawkins to be the metaphysics of normalcy. But it does not work that way. In two-hundred years from now, that normalcy will be disdained by scientists as antiquated and wrong. Yet poetry from hundreds of years ago still uplifts hearts and emboldens minds. Poetry is not science. And reality is poetry. Reality is not a synapse, atom, particle, or textbook. This is how I see life after encountering my near death and various mystical moments I cannot explain. I am well-educated. I have taken most of the sciences. But that is empiricist trivia to get things done in hospitals, labs, and factories. My internal reality is far richer than that. So many books, movies, and games have given me lifelike believable experiences that have no basis in science. In fact, many of them completely violate the laws of physics, and yet my life experience through them includes that. So, science is not reality. It is just a model of it in the particle space around us, not within our inner worlds and imaginations. Let not a PhD determine what you believe precisely. The occult was hidden for a reason: Some people cannot handle what such practices can do. It can change your reality. And not all occult texts are safe to read as they can be toxic in nature. I am not necessarily a full-on occultist but… Yeah, I read enough to know more than most. And careful beneficent practice is good for the soul. I do not practice witchcraft or claim that title like some people do. That is a pagan thing. The nature of what I do is not that simple: It is postmodernism and digitalism. If I told you what I meant by that, I would be teaching you my occult system. Nov 29, 2021, 2:36:47 pm I am not a good artist, but it is fun to play with the eyes. That is really all my art does. I do not think I could ever learn to be a professional artist because I do not have that level of coordination. Dec 03, 2021, 11:42:42 am I do not like studio audiences or recordings of them. I know when to laugh and feel sad. I do not need a mob of people in audio and video form bombarding me after every joke or sad moment. They especially do this with stand-up comedy recordings and award shows. After every joke or predefined special moment, they switch to a camera of the person most amused or reactive. They want to simulate what it is like to be in a crowd watching, and that makes sense: I do not like crowds. And since the pandemic, I have rarely been forced into them. Maybe there is a horrible silver-lining to constant infections and deaths, but that is not really the solution for which I was hoping. Kind of a horrible solution no one wanted. I usually feel out of place in groups of people and want to get out of there as soon as possible. That might change if I find a group that truly accepts me, but that usually is not the case. I do not know when or if I will ever find that anywhere. Dec 03, 2021, 11:57:03am Many of the people from my past did not reject me at all. I left them behind because I did not want them to have to learn to know me as Emily Joy. I wanted people who always knew me as Emily Joy in my life. I did not want to have to sway anyone anymore or watch someone learn. Dec 05, 2021, 5:22:51am The Sun shines when it should be dark and rainy. The weather is all wrong. Dec 09, 2021, 6:43:30 am The gods grew angry. The sky became chaos over my head. Eris is free. Dec 09, 2021, 6:45:14am I pray to thee, Harmonia, let this world turn away from dark. But it will not. Something has run amuck. Something more creative than Eris ever was… Dec 09, 2021, 6:47:28am What comes next is unknown. Until it comes. Only the gods know. And they are not telling. Dec 09, 2021, 6:51:40am “Being and Time” by Martin Heidegger is difficult. He constantly plays with the German language while doing ontology, and Dasein is impenetrable for non-German speakers no matter how good the English translation is. I read the first chapter yesterday and began to get bothered by the fact that “existenz”, “existentiell”, and “Dasein” are different technical concepts for the foundation of his analysis, and these coinings of English words are approximations of coinings of German words that play on linguistics only German speakers would readily find understandable. I will not continue that text as I already know where he is going with it. Being and Time, though, is what led to existentialism as a philosophical movement in Europe. Dec 12, 2021, 8:38:20 am I just want to run into a brick wall sometimes. Dec 16, 2021, 12:08:45 pm The further along my transition goes the more foreign the male perspective becomes. The male voice just is not my world anymore and has not been for a long time. I just identify with women more now everywhere. Dec 18, 2021, 6:59:35 am I am what might be considered a minor polymath. That is what happens when you spend so much time in college. I have been dumbed down lately due to little freedom at the shelter. I get to mop floors and listen to preachers and affiliate with the homeless male population and be viewed as one. Two wrongful terminations will do that to someone. I consider this year to be medical leave from my career. Dec 18, 2021, 8:09:38 am Journalistic ethics. Cite your sources. Do not lie. State the facts. Do not misrepresent them. These are sacred. Dec 18, 2021, 4:13:43 pm I have no true hometown now. The original locations do not mean anything to me. Dec 25, 2021, 7:18:40 pm I cannot accomplish anything on Sunday. I do not like the Gregorian calendar. I do not like the week system. It is arbitrary. Weeks are meaningless to astronomy. There should be no day of the week. It should just be a day number and all twenty-eight-day months. Someone already worked out a calendar for this. You just add various leap days to make this work. Christians own Western time and date keeping. Nothing should close on Sunday unless it is privately run. Dec 26, 2021, 12:53:28 pm I have pushed so hard for so long. I was shattered. I vanished. I walked in the dark. I left my phone behind. I left everything and everyone behind forever. I have only just begun to recover. Jan 04, 2022, 5:41:55 pm The truth, verity, veracity, nature. What is it really? I would rather have beauty. I would rather have comfort, for at least a little while. Jan 04, 2022, 8:41:54 pm I am making a lot of waves. Jan 05, 2022, 5:37:03pm Chicago has a nice ring to it. It is also fun to say. Chicaaaago. Cheeeecago. Yes. I like that. I just need to wear a fedora. Jan 06, 2022, 2:57:43 pm He had a cute thick Chicago accent. Of course, he would. He is a city employee. I can only imagine him on break eating a slice of pizza after the call. Jan 06, 2022, 4:25:56 pm It is all coming into focus around me so fast that my head is spinning. My world is transforming before my very eyes. All that I dreamed of for decades is starting to happen. I just had to leave everything and everyone and everywhere I knew all my life behind. I want to spin and dance and sing and dream of more than this. I want to find love. And I want to light my spirit on fire. I want to live before I die. So much deferred for so long. To dance to a song strummed by ancients… And not to the song of a false deity. “There is more to Heaven and Earth than exists in your [determinism].” To live and die on the path set by origin is an existential nightmare… And one I could only have lived out in suicide. There are destinations beyond the moon… I just need to twirl fast enough. Jan 06, 2022, 7:45:02pm It is not really Chicago pizza if it does not have garlic or onion on it because the origin of the word Chicago means just that. Jan 06, 2022, 9:41:57 pm I love all of you. I have seen the edge so many times. This trip may lead me from it to a wonderful place. This is wild. I do not know what is in store for me. There are many unknowns. But at least I am not bored. Love is real. Jan 07, 2022, 8:02:53 am Layered fashion works if you style it right. Jan 07, 2022, 9:00:34 am I wrote six articles that went right into the IPFW campus newspaper as a student there. I was friends with most of the newspaper staff during that time. I understand how to write at length with honesty and trustworthiness. I know how to turn a phrase and break into poetry. I drafted my fifty-page dissertation in ten days. It was fun for me. I love writing. And I love writing what needs to be said. Jan 07, 2022, 10:52:11am Once I exit these Indiana state borders, I will never enter them again. It is not my home. My home is forward. Jan 07, 2022, 3:56:13 pm This is dark and depressing. The windows are like staring into a black mirror. I feel a sick warmth in my arms and my legs from the stress and worry and… tuna-dominated day of meals. I thought having no one around me would be nice, but having no passengers in sight makes me feel like I am all alone here in the dark with a dim green light over my head. Jan 07, 2022, 4:54:19pm Flight from abuse. One city at a time. Destination: Safety? Jan 07, 2022, 6:09:11pm

Chapter 7: Just Bring Her Joy

Sliding like a snake through falling sand The path is set with no resistance. Grey is right below the bottom, Tunneling to the other side. Turn the dial on the valve. Something this way comes greater than before, But what it is cannot yet be known. It has no face. The sounds it makes are indecipherable. But the creak is distinctly rhythmic and flowing. Surrounded by strangers. But empathic so all faces seem familiar. Familiar strangers create a conundrum. There is no center. The traveler leaves a trail in her wake, Of the scent of wilted flowers blowing in a tropical summer breeze. The destination exceeds the expectation. And the stress and duress will be worth it. Just survive a little longer, she whispered. Survive till her head meets a pillow. Survive till the urge to cry weakens to a dull hum like failing old electronics. Just let her out of here. Just bring her joy. Jan 07, 2022, 11:13:45 pm I love my friends right now. Jan 08, 2022, 5:15:14 am I feel safe. Completely safe. Jan 08, 2022, 5:16:10am I cannot believe I am really in Chicago. That skyline is amazing. The lake road we took was breathtaking. Jan 09, 2022, 8:48:48am OH, MY GODDESS! THE FIRST THING ON THEIR TV NETWORK TO PLAY THAT I GET TO SEE WHEN I TURN IT ON IS ABOUT PIZZA PLACES! Can you say “Chicago”? Jan 09, 2022, 2:47:34pm Turning off the news. Chicago news is a flood of unfamiliar faces and locations. It is daunting and stressful. I am an outsider here. It is going to take months to learn about this place. Jan 09, 2022, 3:56:15pm I hate suspense. I have been living in suspense for a long time. I do not know what is coming now. I do not know if I am going to end up a random violence murder stat of Chicago now while wandering the streets after I cannot get into shelter. I do not think my friends will let that happen at this point. I just do not have faith in anything right now. I have left everything behind. This is so painful. I want a family again. I want certainty. I want a future not marked with tragic unknown possibilities more likely to happen than for most. This bath makes me feel floaty. I gave away everything instead of selling it. You could say I did this to myself. I put it in a pile with a sign that said: “Take everything I have. Love wins.” I used red lipstick. I have no regrets. I had no money. I was done with that. I so had it with trying to find a way to get someone to care about me at that point that I saw my loaded apartment and just cast it all out. I need to earn money again. Asceticism is dangerous in the cold. Jan 09, 2022, 4:53:19pm I wish I did not get C-level executive master’s degree training. The courses rewired my brain. I hate it when my speech sounds imposing. I took a course on globalization and authored papers on laying off entire departments to digitalize them internationally, including the communications to do it. I felt awful. It changed me. And that was one of ten courses. I could enter that level of role with an organization. Do I want that much power? Jan 09, 2022, 10:11:35pm Beyond Description, my first book, spans mostly December 2020 to mid-2021. It chronicles my transition in a postmodern literature way. It is experimental writing and non-sequential and numbered. Reading it requires context for its creation and inspiration. The introduction mostly gives this but needs to be expanded significantly. I want to edit and proofread the entire book more as well, and three-hundred and forty pages of complex writing are not easy to do quickly. It takes a long time and a lot of dedicated work and consideration to get it right. Writing errors appear out of nowhere on a mass of words numbering over sixty thousand. It is a battle to eliminate them completely. Jan 10, 2022, 2:20:20am Indiana. Zero out of ten. Coming from a former lifelong native. Jan 10, 2022, 4:20:45 am If I could write a column for a major newspaper, I would be elated for the rest of my career. The most interesting, desirable, PhD program in existence to me is journalism. Getting six technical articles into Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne dual campus university’s The Communicator’s paper was one of the best times of my life. Every single one I wrote went in with almost no word changed. They loved me. I loved that editing room and those people in there. One of them remained friends with me for years afterwards online: the one who managed the small campus paper. I wanted to write dozens of articles more, but their satirical temptations on the front page led to a public protest around the places where the paper sat. I will not detail what they did. It was silly. I just could not keep writing for them after that. I had to go after the protesters, investigate what they were doing, discover they were going after the paper’s funding, and report it back to everyone in the editing room. They had no idea that their entire print was nearly over. They were able to address it in the next issue and through other campus communication. The experience was too stressful to continue giving them my work. I do not want my ideas inside papers that lead to public outrage. I just wanted to pick up the paper to see my article inside. The students were surrounding the stack. There was a noose printed on the cover of the paper… Jan 10, 2022, 5:22:24 am When I call 311 on my phone, it says, “The service you are trying to use is restricted or unavailable.” Is reality actively protesting my ability to make progress? Jan 10, 2022, 7:23:39am This is like an action movie for travel. I hate action movies. I did not want to journal one. Jan 10, 2022, 8:15:00 am I bet you will never guess how I ended up on this research scientist product mailing list… And I am not telling. Jan 10, 2022, 11:43:04am One ponderance at a time. I have a lot to process. My entire world just changed in under a week of my friends throwing care and concern and funds my way. Jan 10, 2022, 1:24:43pm Turns out when you switch cities in an interesting way, everyone takes notice. I have not really had this much to say in a while. My notifications are always lit up red. I have so much to think about. I learned a lot. Many things were revealed to me. I am frustrated. My origin could not help me. I had to abandon it and everyone there for good forever. I would end up dead otherwise. I was trapped. I DO not HATE ANYONE. I DO NOT WISH ANYONE HARM. I AM JUST DROWNING, AND PEOPLE THINK MY DRIFTING OFF TO SEA IS SPITE OR RAGE. I CANNOT SURVIVE THERE. Jan 10, 2022, 1:39:38 pm Good riddance to my old life and old town. I am finally out. Jan 10, 2022, 3:06:46 pm My origin does not own me. Jan 10, 2022, 3:15:07 pm The woman next to me just claimed in detail that … THE Michael Jackson tried to marry her while also marrying Pricilla Presley. I listened intently in complete belief and encouragement. I needed to hear more of this mind… Jan 11, 2022, 7:37:17am My hometown is now Chicago. I am from here now. I am no longer from there. That is over. Jan 11, 2022, 1:01:43 pm I really do not want to try to fix my book on a five-inch touchscreen. Jan 11, 2022, 1:42:17pm I just realized something. I TRIED TO ESTABLISH MYSELF AND TRANSITION IN ALL THREE OF THE MOST POPULOUS CITIES OF INDIANA: INDIANAPOLIS, FORT WAYNE, AND EVANSVILLE. ALL THREE FAILED ME AND CAUSED HORRIBLE TORMENT AND RISKED MY LIFE. THIS IS BAD FEEDBACK FOR TRANSGENDER RIGHTS IN INDIANA. Jan 11, 2022, 5:40:50 pm Childhood is a blur. It is a distortion. Pure static and noise ripping through reminiscent flesh like weaponized diamonds. Tears uncounted from closed rooms. A childhood in closed rooms in front of colored lights… Let the amnesia wash over me. Take those neurons and synapses and axons and constituent neural networks and obliterate them. Drain away the past into a vortex of hydrochloric acid concentrated to the max and incinerate it with thermite to make sure the particulate matter has no meaningful properties left. Dead name? NO. DEAD PAST. DO NOT DEAD PAST ME. I WILL NOT BE DEAD PAST’D. My history begins now. Stellar formation from a new nebula gas cloud is now starting to occur. My accretion disc is forming. LIGHT YEARS FROM THE DEAD PAST. RADICAL HISTORICAL REVISIONISM. SECULAR BORN AGAIN. I AM EMILY TIFFANY JOY FROM INCEPTION. I WAS NOT BORN. I came to be. Jan 11, 2022, 8:47:22 pm What does it all mean? I have studied this. It still does not help. No wise person in history will ever write an answer that satisfies me! Jan 11, 2022, 9:17:36 pm Will I go unknown forever? Or will I become notable? Do I dare to go that path? Jan 11, 2022, 10:36:56 pm Someone here said I should go into acting as soon as I arrived on the first day here. Not even close. My only role is myself. I will not audition to live any other life again. Thirty-nine years of playing a part is enough for me… Jan 12, 2022, 4:43:38am I did so much Zen meditation in my twenties. Lost track. I do not zero out much anymore. I am far more in my life now than I was back then for obvious reasons. Zen would be a waste now. Jan 12, 2022, 5:08:55 am Sleeping giants wake. It just takes time. And pressure. Do not get lost in my maze. There is no exit for you if you do. No return. No yarn to follow back. Justice moves slow. Flow with it. Let it strike you in the face till the lights go out. That is the complexities within. Coalescence… Formulations. Lights out. Jan 12, 2022, 5:32:34 am Coincidences collide into meaning. One just happened. I wonder what the day has in store. I will NOT work in retail if I can help it. I did my time in that sector countless times in many roles. I have other ideas… Jan 12, 2022, 5:53:27am I share my life with the world because I have no fear. I act according to what should be known. I act to find ways to help, not harm, to enlighten, not delude. If there is a public record kept somewhere of all my activities including massive amounts lost to history like missing scrolls, there would be no concern. When you live an honest life, people notice. You can share it all. Jan 12, 2022, 6:01:21 am Life plus love equals “Not A Number” (NaN) Not A Number, no, but it is the only way it should be equated. If your measure adds love, that is algebra worth doing. Jan 12, 2022, 6:06:59 am Life ∴ death ∀ total EXPERIENCES ∪ AFTERlife ∑ meaning ∞ wisdom ≠ sophistry ∣ dream of more. Jan 12, 2022, 6:12:39am ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN LATELY. I AM SO SICK OF SUSPENSE. SOMEONE COULD APPEAR IN FRONT OF ME, AND MY WHOLE FUTURE JUST CHANGES ON A SHILLING. Jan 12, 2022, 6:34:17am I DO NOT TAKE THE TERM GENIUS LIGHTLY. I HAVE NOT YET MADE A MARK WORTHY OF SUCH A TITLE. Jan 12, 2022, 6:39:05 am

Chapter 8: Live To Love Another Day

She stood on the top of the corporate parking lot building. The wind was blowing hard through her long blonde hair. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she remembered what happened. She could see the city skyline dotted with buildings like profane temples to greed. She stood there alone under the halogen light. Her feet hurt from her heels. She had been on them all day in the office. The office… She clenched her right fist and sobbed. It happened again. It happened again, and she could not say a word. It was winter cold. Her nylons provided little comfort. Especially because they were torn in five places. The air spun around her like a personal climate system. She bit her lip and then sighed. This time it was worse. But at least there was no insurance claim this time. There was no one there. It was past midnight. The parking lot was empty save for her foreign import coupe. She scratched the paint with her keys as she unlocked it and swore under her breath. The interior of the car was just as cold. But at least it was her space. She rubbed her chest and groaned with pain. That was the moment she realized some of her ribs were fractured. She collapsed on her steering wheel and stared listlessly forward at her odometer. She started the ignition and pulled out of the parking garage carefully. She sniffled, but she started to come to. The city looked like a nightmare of strangers. Faces looked angry. Alleys looked terrifying to her as she drove trembling. It was just like her childhood. She found a way to relive it… She welcomed the pain she believed she deserved. It was what she expected. As she approached the intersection, her brakes locked. She skidded into the intersection, her heart skipping many beats as she pumped on the pedal and screamed. She was safe. Everyone came to a stop. She reversed safely. She started to cry again and asked herself why… Why did it have to be this way? Why so many bruises and scars? Jan 12, 2022, 2:40:36 pm I feel weird writing fiction: It did not happen. It was imagined. It feels strange. I prefer to write what I witness. I prefer to write my soul. The fiction I wrote about the woman in the parking garage was automatic writing. It never happened. She does not exist. EXCEPT FOR IN EVERY MAJOR CITY ON EARTH! Jan 12, 2022, 4:05:41 pm Through the curtains, you will find what you do not want to find: the truth. It can shatter bones. It can rend limb from limb. Nothing can stop the truth. It is beyond reproach. It is the standard by which all things flow. And trying to halt the truth is futile. Hiding it does nothing. It usually finds you. Jan 13, 2022, 1:07:43 pm I have been doing self-portrait work for a long time, including using black-and-white black room photography on traditional SLR equipment in high school. I think I have mastered it. I can take a great shot and frame it well like it was done professionally. That Visual Communication course (really a photojournalism course) at IPFW was so much fun. I did not really have access to journal back then. My life is far more interesting now. However, I am more interested in writing than taking a massive number of photos. Photos should be used sparingly in my opinion. Words should carry the narrative of what is happening. And a photo without words is without context. Some photos might seem to need no explanation, but often they need captions for sure. A single line of text below a photo changes the entire meaning. Jan 13, 2022, 1:47:27pm The librarian told me it “gets a little violent in here.” And that she would not take her kids there. Chicagoans are in love with emphasizing violent crime stats. Yes, it is high. Yes, it is a problem. But everyone just nonstop rambles about it. Vicious cycle. It is the history here. It is the massive cosmopolitan population. I like this place. I hope I do not get stabbed or shot, but… Eh! You only live once! Jan 13, 2022, 3:52:55 pm The moon behind a mass of dark clouds peering down like a faint sight into the future… Jan 13, 2022, 4:07:47 pm The conversationalist cares not for headphones and averted gaze. They enter the field of view and stare with a take them off I to talk to you look that does not go away until they are satisfied with a captive audience. Jan 13, 2022, 6:49:53 pm WHY WOULD I PLAY IT SAFE AND DIE OF DEMENTIA WITH A WORLD UNEXPLORED FOR FEAR OF AN EARLY DEATH? I FEAR NOT DEATH. I FEAR NOT LIVING THE LIFE I WAS MEANT TO LIVE. I WILL DIE A PAINFUL DEATH OVER A PEACEFUL ONE IF IT MEANS MY LIFE MEANT SOMETHING, … IF IT MEANS WHAT I WROTE CHANGED THE WORLD… I WILL GLADLY TAKE A BULLET FOR THE TRUTH. GUNS JUST MAKE LOUD NOISE. BOOKS CAN BE READ BY MILLIONS. Jan 13, 2022, 6:54:38 pm Uptown Chicago where I am has hundreds of cool things in a ten-minute walk, I kid you not. Moving here is one of the best decisions of my life. Thank you, my friends, for helping me get here. I escaped suicide watch. I was going to die. Jan 14, 2022, 1:37:34 pm [Politics] is the opiate of the people, the sigh of the oppressed [polity]. Go to ——, Karl Marx. Jan 14, 2022, 7:32:43 pm What is the best way to get me to use only one hand for thirty-minutes? Give me nail polish. I am one-handed right now. Jan 15, 2022, 1:41:41 pm Small talk with me. No. State your business upfront. Respect our collective time. Just say NO to “How are you?” Jan 22, 2022, 7:45:51 am I do not like dealing with medical scheduling. And I wrote a complex call system for over a dozen anesthesiologists once upon a time… Jan 23, 2022, 9:57:52 am If there is an afterlife, beliefs do not change it. If this life impacts it, actions are what matter. What is, simply is. The bird chirps. The gong sounds. Cults of two or billions need no followers. What is within matters. Only what is done matters. Fates will only be known after the fact. All sacred texts are collections of suppositions by hopeful ancients with no awareness of the future. They are simply recipes of mysticism, nothing more. Be present in your life when you can. Cast away the noise. And live to love another day. Jan 23, 2022, 8:13:04 pm I want to become fluent in French one day. Not right now, but eventually. That is where I want to end up eventually. I want my gravestone there. Jan 24, 2022, 7:07:27 am Profound music with deep solemn notes that evoke chills must be heard from time to time to understand the nature of life. This is not a merry-go-round. Death is the only way this ends for all of us… Whether on a battlefield, from a stroke, or from old age. We cannot control our destinies. We can try, but we are grasping at air. What comes will come. Darkness falls, and light breaks through into day. What matters are the people you meet along the way… And your legacy for everyone who comes after. Let it be a good one! Jan 24, 2022, 7:16:26 am All information on paper meant for public use ought to be digital. Paper is a difficult medium for worldwide transfer. Countless books have never seen digital editions. Troves of knowledge exist only in ink enclaves, never to be seen in binary representation. Jan 24, 2022, 7:56:09 am Want to make anyone back away from you slowly? Read David Icke and take what he says seriously. Share his ideas in public. Scary. Jan 24, 2022, 10:03:45 am Creativity defies the dictionary. It made the dictionary. Jan 24, 2022, 1:49:50 pm Learning to speed read and “raud” academic textbooks and research for hours at a time for so many years in university has destroyed my ability to sit down to enjoy a fiction book. It has been countless years since I read a fictional novel. I tried to go back to the other library in the previous city. I found myself flying through the pages so fast I did not get anything out of it. It felt like I was doing a literature review. I can read fast across English texts of quite a vast variety of topics. I lost fascination with fictional novels containing no functional or informational content. Jan 24, 2022, 8:48:36 pm If you have love, you have wealth… The only kind that really matters. A portfolio worth billions means little if your heart is shattered. Jan 25, 2022, 6:21:57am One external internet protocol address powered with bandwidth enough for text and images and low-definition video. ENOUGH TO DO ALMOST ANYTHING ANYWHERE. ESPECIALLY WITH REMOTE PRESENCE DRONES OUT THERE… Jan 26, 2022, 5:30:09 pm Burn the past in an inferno. Cast it to ravenous demons. Jan 27, 2022, 10:02:42 am Thy will be done. Thy stones be cast. PARIAH I BECOME. Jan 27, 2022, 10:04:07 am Snakes envelope the childhood once known. The pit has formed. Dream not of lessons unlearned. Jan 27, 2022, 10:05:22am A traveler weary once now rested has slain the prototype of her shadow. Jan 27, 2022, 10:07:44 am THE SHRINE OF THE UNKNOWN GOD is NOT WHAT YOU THINK, Apostle. YOUR SOLUTION KILLED MILLIONS. Jan 27, 2022, 10:14:30 am Castles rise like industrial waste billowing everywhere worldwide. The din goes beyond cogency. DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT! DEATH TO ALL TO SPREAD OUR REGIME. LOGOS WEEPS. Jan 27, 2022, 10:18:31am PAX. It SHATTERS. YOUR LIPS BURN. THE SKY DARKENS. EVIL IS THE HISTORICITY MOST SALIENT. Jan 27, 2022, 10:21:25 am Phobia plus CONSCIOUS. SHARP. DISINTEGRATING social BONDS within a CIRCLE. Jan 27, 2022, 10:23:20 am There is no “better.” It is CONTINUOUS. EVER AFTER? HA! TRAUMA COMES. It comes, and it COMES. ACTUALIZE. FEAR DEVOURS Hope. DECONSTRUCT The Edge of thought. Jan 27, 2022, 10:26:09 am There is BEAUTY WITHIN THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE even DURING THE MOST horrifying of MOMENTS. Jan 27, 2022, 10:29:01 am Let the FOCUS SHATTER INTO A distorted BLUR. Jan 27, 2022, 10:30:08 am IN THE END… THERE IS NO OUTSIDE. THERE IS NO END. YOUR STORY IS THE ONLY ONE. Jan 27, 2022, 10:31:14 am

Chapter 9: You Realize You Have Another Chance

When the rain floods down, close your eyes. The Deluge comes. There are purposes beyond the present moment. But you cannot be prescient. You might want to turn your head skyward and scream, but that will only fill your lungs. Parasitic self-delusions turn to silver. Cast them to the sand. There is no future within Mammon. Decomplicate the tangled strands like the hair of your lover. And weep like all is lost to renew the value when you realize… you realize you HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE. Jan 27, 2022, 11:17:40 am Some people never learn to “raud.” It is strange to me now. They travel text letter by letter. Rauding lets you glance at a whole paragraph as a single shape without focus and know what it says. You can raud a page in under a few seconds. It requires practice. You can use software that trains you. I have injected untold amounts of information into my head since at least as early as 2004 when I learned it. You can finish rauding a novel in five minutes, but it will be a far more distinct experience than linear reading. Rauding is a combination of “auding” and reading. If you combine this process with traditional reading, you get rauding. R[ead]auding. The key is rauding a text multiple times. And then reading on top of it. And then rauding again. BACKWARDS or even in random order. This destroys the linear nature of knowledge in text and allows you to truly SPEED READ. But speed read is a misnomer. It is PURE ABSORPTION THROUGH THE VISUAL CORTEX WITHOUT USING YOUR INTERNAL VOICE TO SPEAK THE WORDS. It is an internal, soundless, absorption without letting a single word summon images or sounds or sights or memories to your consciousness. That is rauding… And the practice is required for advanced reading of extensive texts ten hours a day without many breaks which I have done for far too much time than I want to try to calculate. I have ingested more information than I have had conversations with people in my lifetime, and I suspect this is common among academic types… Jan 27, 2022, 2:24:52pm Perspective defines existenz dasein. Jan 27, 2022, 4:09:28 pm So many buildings, So many ledges, How many were lost? By a world unaware… There is… No healing humanity, But that is the story, That is the human condition. Born screaming. To untold futures… Jan 27, 2022, 4:15:03 pm TEMPORALITY. Embrace each moment! For it might be the last Immortality is a subconscious delusion of YOUTH. Lifespan psychology proved this. Jan 27, 2022, 7:05:34 pm Fascination. Keep looking deeper than your instincts say is natural. If you are stressed as you learn, YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK. It breaks you out of the familiar. POLYmath your WORLD. MY Bachelor of General Studies was this. It spanned multiple major declarations to earn. It took ages. Because I never allowed the academics to put me in a box… Jan 27, 2022, 7:20:43 pm Nails inhibit typing speed. As much as I yearn for them, having them reduces tactile access for fingers. I do not know what function they serve beyond aesthetics. Foot binding and corseting were all the rage at one time, seen as quite attractive by men, but causing medical frailties for women. If I need to get into something, I can carry a small utility knife which is foldable and made of steel. I feel awful when I see women with extremely long fingernails way over an inch beyond the finger, because watching them type or use their fingers for anything tactile is heavily disrupted to the point that it is tragic and almost comical… Jan 28, 2022, 12:36:55 am Why do I not read the news very often? Because I have done a short bit of work for a campus newspaper, befriended the staff, and saw what news is and how it is created. The narrative has no center. SALIENCE DEFINES ALMOST ALL. Jan 28, 2022, 12:43:44 am I cannot imagine what it feels like to be recognized everywhere. That experience was surreal. My high school was big, but statistically, being recognized in Chicago when my high school was in Fort Wayne? I swore to her that I was not from here. Then I said, Snider, and she said, yes. I said Emily Joy, and she said yes. Then she vanished onto the bus. Jan 28, 2022, 10:24:49 am I remember typing sideways on a full physical keyboard with one hand in front of my college friend. She looked shocked and exclaimed, “That is not natural…” Jan 28, 2022, 12:19:32 pm ATTENTION FUTURE HR REPS: ASSESSING MY SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS FOR HIREABILITY WILL REQUIRE READING NINTY-THOUSAND OR MORE WORDS SINCE LAST AUGUST. GOOD LUCK. GODDESS SPEED. Jan 28, 2022, 1:38:45 pm I stopped hackers for a long time professionally in a retail and office and home environment as well as remotely. Former SSCP ended last year. Audited Certified Ethical Hacker. I understand most computer subcultures. I have traveled most of them. I studied under computer science PhD professors for two years at Purdue. Alan Turing is beyond fascinating, and if I could have saved him, I would have if I existed back then. Cyanide is not the way to go after being chemically castrated by his government for being seen amorous with another man. His work on the enigma machine saved millions of Allied lives during World War II. Without his fundamental theories, the modern computer would require another origin of invention. Sure, Charles Babbage this, Charles Babbage that. Turing is the true forebearer of contemporary computing. The award for breakthroughs in the field of computer science is in his name… Jan 28, 2022, 10:25:01 pm Time is not linear. Not to our consciousness and brain. Linear time is just based on our solar system’s behavior. We synchronized our entire civilization on a star’s gravitational well. Years, seasons, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds are designed on Sol, our star. There are exoplanets orbiting dual star systems within reality, not science fiction. Ponder well and hard the time keeping system of such a strange orbit. So, if time keeping is a stellar-based measurement, shall we imagine interstellar, stellar-independent, synthetic geo-stations of futuristic societies with NO ORBIT WHATSOEVER? And no defined light source but what this deep space arcology decides? Jan 28, 2022, 10:50:54 pm I intend to make PROFESSORSHIP my final career on which to retire at old age. Jan 28, 2022, 11:00:32 pm My raver ex-girlfriend in college took and withdrew from my favorite professor in my entire academic history. It caused a small divide. I was not just his student. We spent time together outside of classes and battled philosophy together for ages all over campus one-on-one. He saved me from dropping out in my undergraduate years. Jan 28, 2022, 11:09:30 pm My dad will be gone soon. I am afraid to call and talk to him. His neurological degeneration will continue unstoppably until I never hear his voice again. His war record in Vietnam is intended to be added to a war museum. He thinks he works for NASA now… He is a former chemist. Who knows how many patents are owned by his employers? Water treatment. Adhesives. Sound proofing for cars. His work could be in a product you use, but I have no idea how widespread his patents went to industries. He never worked for NASA, but that this is his telltale moment that led to a diagnosis of vascular dementia, I find it fascinating. Even his soon to be fatal incurable condition created another honorable dream. Jan 28, 2022, 11:40:14pm Novel. A book of decent length with a narrative, typically. Novel. New. Something not seen before. A novel novel. That is my direction. Jan 29, 2022, 12:30:16 am THERE ARE A QUINTILLION ANGLES TO MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. I JUST DID SOMETHING DRASTIC BUT POSITIVE. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO EXPECT TOMORROW! Jan 29, 2022, 12:40:49 am If you want to understand my psychology better, read the Wikipedia article of my [former] hometown Fort Wayne. It is not a military base. Not anymore. It was created BY MAD ANTHONY WAYNE WHO WAS CALLED MAD BECAUSE HE ALMOST NEVER SLEPT. They still have his fort there. I was inside it as a small child with actors pretending it was over a hundred years ago, functionally running it, and I remember it being so early in my formative years that I was in that fort historically. The interstate circles Fort Wayne. Like a fort. People use it to circle the city. I am never going back. THIRTY-SIX YEARS IS TOO LONG Jan 29, 2022, 1:10:09am The doctor stared intently as the tears formed, intuiting a subtle progress in her client. Anna Kue melted into the sofa. Regression would later develop in front of her confused daughter, sending her into a coat closet, speaking in a child’s voice: “Daddy, no… Stop…” Fractured ribs. Liquor. Future cluster of attempts on her own life over fifteen years annually. The therapist sighs. This is just her second client of the day. No… The first one did not show. Jan 29, 2022, 7:37:47 am The spice of life Viva la variety! “Dare to know.” Jan 29, 2022, 10:07:29 am For those who do not fully understand what deconstructionism is and why its founder is quoted before my own words in my first book, why he gets the first words, please read what the Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has to say. You will also begin to understand. I deconstruct all the time. I studied this man and watched the biopic that recently concluded his life. He is Jewish. His life was hard. If you wish to know the nature of societal unjust contempt, study Jewish history. Jan 29, 2022, 12:39:42 pm GUESS WHAT THE MASCOT OF MY ONLINE GRAD SCHOOL IS? THE NIGHT OWL. IT IS THE BEST MASCOT EVER. AND I EMBRACED IT. I HAD NO OUTSIDE JOB SO STUDY DEFINED MY LIFE, AND WITH WINDOWS COVERED, I LIVED ANY SHIFT I WANTED. THE SCHOOL HAS VERY FEW IF ANY SET TIMES. YOU WORK AS FAST AS YOUR INTELLECT AND SCHEDULE ALLOW. I DID UNIVERSITY WORK ON MY PHONE IN AN EXOTIC DANCE CLUB FROM TIME TO TIME. PEOPLE NAKED AND DANCING. DRINKS. AND CLASS. ON MY TERMS. ALL AT ONCE. Jan 29, 2022, 1:53:21 pm I am now entered into the alumni networks of both of my universities and have access to my high school group. Who said the past is hard to find? Jan 29, 2022, 2:37:12pm Asked my moderately notable musician friend from high school that was a close friend with me for years to create a ten second sound for my public domain philosophy of science podcast that lasted for three or four episodes, me solo talking about concepts. HE ASKED ME FOR ONGOING ROYALTIES ON A NONCOMMERCIAL PROJECT FOR A TEN SECOND SOUND. WE WERE FRIENDS FOR DECADES. THAT ENDED BOTH THE PODCAST, THE FRIENDSHIP, AND CAUSED ME TO DESTROY THE CONTENT FROM PUBLIC VIEW AND CANCEL IT BEFORE ANYONE REALLY TOOK NOTICE. Jan 29, 2022, 5:21:37 pm My initials are ETJ. ET was not lost on me. It is semi-intentional—being trans makes you feel alien. Jan 30, 2022, 1:30:23pm Our education systems fail sometimes. It is sad to see. Jan 31, 2022, 2:25:53pm SELECT * FROM surprisedFriends WHERE love=TRUE; Jan 31, 2022, 8:47:09 pm Information entropy: My muse. Feb 01, 2022, 8:11:36am politician. Subjective noun. Definition. Poli-. Common name for a PARAKEET -ti-. Dismissive sound made in disgust. -cia-. Means “block the mountain” in literary Chinese. -n. A sound of ponderance. Feb 01, 2022, 9:09:44 am Complexity creates disorder. Disorder creates originality. All three create DISCOMFORT. When ideas have not been seen before, it raises furrowed eyebrows: THROUGH WHICH THE LIGHT STRIKES THE WEATHERVANE, SOMETHING THIS WAY APPROACHES. SHATTERED, DISTORTED, THE WEATHERVANE FALLS. THE CLIMATE WAS NEVER QUITE THE SAME. Feb 01, 2022, 9:43:10am

Chapter 10: I Will Not Die In Vain

So frank in understanding order Eris reigns in goddess just order bright narrow lanes killing just over from ends striking goddess’s worried gaze. I slammed on my keyboard to create the first letter of every word in that sentence at random. Then I went through and expanded each letter to what I wanted it to be very quickly. Feb 01, 2022, 9:47:15am Extra Terrestrial Joy. My name’s initials official retroactive acronym. Joy… not found on Earth. Feb 01, 2022, 10:36:57am Cogito. Sapience. Null. Feb 01, 2022, 11:00:01am I am not afraid to die. Do you know why? I am going to. We all are going to. FOR WHAT WE DIE DEFINES OUR SOULS’ LEGACY. Feb 01, 2022, 12:30:08 pm Turing tests destroyed my ability to trust that any of you are real until I hear you in an audio or video or in-person setting. Sad but true. Live interactive audio and video cannot be handled by chatbots and shell profile clones… It makes me feel lonely. I break chatbots, voice assistants, and computer learning based technology the moment I olfactory it. Feb 02, 2022, 1:37:07am I JUST DRANK NECTAR HARVESTED IN EGYPT. MODERN SUPPLY CHAINS ARE ASTOUNDING. GUAVA IS DELISH. Feb 03, 2022, 8:51:42am I have done so much coordination-enhancing movements that my hands are shaking. I feel rewired. Been doing them for hours in bed. Every twitch muscle of my right arm from fingertip to shoulder feels strained and exercised. The more I dance my muscles around the more coordinated I get. Feb 04, 2022, 12:21:58am Dreams exceed nightmares. And TAKE ALL THAT I HAVE. I DO NOT HAVE NEEDS. IF I LET IT ALL GO, PEOPLE WILL SEE. MAMMON IS BEYOND VALUE. I WILL NEVER LET MYSELF BECOME EXCESSIVELY WEALTHY. THIS LIFE IS TEMPORAL. IT ALL ENDS. IF LIFE HAS MEANING, IT IS IN THE LOVE YOU FIND IN OTHERS. I WILL NOT DIE IN VAIN. I AM GOING TO MAKE CELESTIAL TSUNAMIS. AND IT WILL COST MY ANONYMITY. THAT PART OF MY LIFE IS OVER. Feb 04, 2022, 9:21:15 pm She stood on the beach edge at dusk. Her red heels were twenty meters behind her. Her dark dress flapped uselessly in the wind. She gazed at the horizon. She felt a chill up her spine. She knew she was in danger, but she no longer cared. All that mattered was the sound of the seagulls screaming. All that mattered was the childhood in the precipice of her subconscious. What brought her here? Why was she prepared to walk into the ocean? Her eyes darted along the frothy coastline. The moon lit up slices of the water as it rolled into shore. She was never heard from again. She was patient test subject two-four-one. The placebo led to drowning. The researcher sighed. This is the cost of doing business. Feb 15, 2022, 9:24:59 pm Freedom comes at a cost. There are pitfalls in every existenz. Feb 15, 2022, 9:29:27pm I yearn for a future of medicine not tainted by influence. Feb 15, 2022, 9:31:10pm I escape nothing. What comes, comes. I ache for truth… Where do I wander? To whom do I call? Feb 15, 2022, 9:33:08pm Proven security is best security. Feb 17, 2022, 6:47:40am Intentionality is a super luminous supernova in aesthetics that once modified, manipulated, and leveraged destines a capable artist for galleries… Feb 18, 2022, 10:51:44 pm Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray [not Eris] my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray to [Harmonia] my soul to take. Feb 19, 2022, 12:41:35 am Express or perish sometimes. Express or all stories end. Truth has no ancestor. It is eternal beyond logos. It is veritas. And it is what pulses through my carotid artery. I shall not rest until it is unconcealed… From the orbiters of Sol… A speck in a speck in a speck in M-theory. Feb 19, 2022, 6:45:36 pm God hacked the Gregorian calendar and distributed denial of service attacked the Western world on Sundays. Feb 20, 2022, 8:44:48am Progress. Time to Ingress. My photons must be directed elsewhere. Feb 21, 2022, 7:10:10am HUMAN LIFESPAN. Noun. Definition. Zygote formation to Total permanent neuron dormancy. This is an incontrovertible medical science. This has NO impact on political decisions. It is just elementary… BIOPHYSICS. Feb 21, 2022, 12:05:21 pm infornography. Noun. Definition. Knowledge Bases so rich, useful, and enlightening that devouring their contents triggers the erotic centers of the brain. infosexual. Noun. Definition. Someone attracted to information and knowledge. Source inspiration: Serial Experiments Lain. Multimode absorption of information simultaneously is most effective combined with caffeine and other proven safe and legal nootropics. Feb 21, 2022, 10:26:56 pm Our [progenitor], who art in [Alpha Centauri], hallowed be thy [orbit], thy [frequency] come, thy [gravitational pull] be done, on [Terra Firma] as it is in [Valhalla]. Give us this [night] our [night]ly [citicoline]. And forgive us our [inaccuracies], as we [pardon] those who [tiptoe around] us. And lead us not into [vengeance], but deliver us from [revenge]. For thine is the [Large Hadron Collider], and the [radium], and the [cesium], for [epoch] and [celestial epoch]. [This, I pray to thee.] The [Cosmic] Lord’s Prayer Feb 22, 2022, 3:29:51am Biggest nightmare night of recent history. I applied Nair to my body and Nair face to my face as the instructions told me. I did not rub it in as instructed. Face Nair must be removed in less than 10 minutes, and Nair for the body says three minutes. I proceeded to the hotel restroom to use the bath I had not used yet since I started my stay. The valve got stuck seventy percent higher than the maximum, and the water flowed faster than the tub could drain. I dialed zero on the room phone and told them there was an emergency and that they needed to get someone fast before the room started flooding. The masculine voice on the phone told me to take all my things out of the hotel room so he could move me to another room. I do not think he knew I was extended stay with massive amounts of items in the large hotel room. I cleared my body of Nair using a towel as best I could and threw on a pair of pants and shirt swiftly. And then I took everything I own and set it outside my hotel door as instructed quickly. This woke the adjacent neighbor because the hotel doors slam every single time you use them unless you carefully close them. I apologized to him and described the event, and he recommended I place something to pad the door as I worked. And then he went back to sleep. This was between 1 am and 3am after midnight today February 2, 2022. A hotel staff member arrived eventually and swiftly unjammed the valve somehow even though my whole body weight could not move it. All my items were already outside of the door. Hotel security showed up and became upset that the items were outside and told me they could not be there. I told her the front staff told me to jump ship with all my items. She quickly understood how silly that was. Six police officers showed up shortly after, and the hotel tried to evict me because the valve on their bathtub was faulty. And then, they told me to Titanic evacuate my hotel room. But I was not given the help of Leonardo DiCaprio. Instead, I was interrogated and taken to the hospital for psych eval by the officers. They were not mean, but they were stern and humorless. On the way out, the hotel said I was welcome to go back to my room. But I went to the hospital anyway because I wanted to find out the effects of absorbing the active ingredients of Nair and Nair face completely. They took some blood, and I am still here at 9:19am. I like this hospital. They have been helpful. The hotel owes me an apology. I easily had six or seven bags worth of things that I emptied into the hallway and had to resort into individual bags. I left that hotel room flawless. Rather than let me get to a second hotel room to wash the Nair off my skin, they said they could not switch rooms till tomorrow so then it was absorbed into my skin. I was left to fend off security, a half a dozen police officers, and hospital ward with people who might have committed me but did not because I am sound of mind. I can vaguely imagine the Titanic theme song in my head right now, and my hotel room just gave me a historical simulation very much unwanted. This is outrageous. It was a faulty valve on their bathtub… Feb 23, 2022, 7:37:51 am This world is not without evil. It is everywhere. It makes me want to scream. I can no longer empathize with an antihero. Help people or get out of the story. If your life is selfish, rethink it. It is all material. The soul is prime. The impact you have upon the world is beyond key. If your gain is selfish, you do not deserve it. It kills people. IT BEGETS ITSELF LIKE SO MANY OTHER NEGATIVE VIRTUES. Feb 23, 2022, 7:55:46 pm There is no ‘awake.’ The boundaries between dream and ‘real’ are brain states. You could be dreaming right now. Or ‘realing.’ The privilege realing gets is unjustified. Dreams are just… better. MLK has it right. Feb 24, 2022, 1:02:02 am All is one, And One is all. Some are many. And Many are some. Monism. Pluralism. Pick your metaphysics. Dreams are what matter. Helping others is what matters. Let Mammon go to greedy hands. I need only food, internet protocol version four public, and shelter. The internet is my mansion. This system on a chip is my yacht. Digital omnipresence disintegrates Mammon. The cloud has become not the world wide web. BUT A NEBULA LIGHT YEARS ACROSS TOO MANY PARSECS TO COMPREHEND. ZERO AND ONE. OFF AND ON. THIS FORMS THE GENOME OF THOUGHT AND KNOWLEDGE, ITSELF. HAIL ALAN TURING. DO NO EVIL. MATERIAL THINGS ARE JUST THAT. Feb 25, 2022, 12:24:28 pm My online reality is now scrambled. Fuzzing GOD with random data to find a way into Heaven. That guy has flawless code. Never mind. Let us spend time together with Eris and Harmonia. I am usually welcome there. Feb 25, 2022, 9:33:12pm There is more to life than this. There are more reasons to live than to die. There is a reprieve to your nightmares. Nothing is worth losing hope over. Until the moment of my death, I shall give my heart to the world… I shall bear my soul. I SHALL NOT HIDE AGAIN. THIS REALITY DOES NOT GO AWAY… It just grows more into focus… Mar 08, 2022, 3:43:08 pm Sept 19, 2021: Approximate hormone replacement therapy start. Add twelve months. Sept 19, 2022: This authorizes gender reassignment surgery. Sept 13, 2022: My fortieth birthday. 78.79 years (2019): The average human lifespan in the US. Emily Joy: A lifespan equally folded between each gender. Male to Female. Forty years each. May the second half be far longer and prolific… than the wrongly assigned first. Mar 08, 2022, 6:22:38 pm

Chapter 11: This Is Trauma

There are many ways forward. PhD programs. I seek to select one. UIC has countless. Neuroscience tempts me. A ‘passing ship at night’ dreamt of this. Would be interesting to follow her dream as mine, as well. I am not settled on that. And certain prerequisites might exclude me. It is difficult to say. A number of doctorates would jive well with my existing education. It needs to be a passion. Passion is the way forward. It MUST be in what I intend for professorship eventually. Mar 08, 2022, 10:30:58 pm ANGER BEGETS ANGER. PAIN BEGETS PAIN. RAGE BEGETS REGRET. SET DOWN THE SWORD—PICK UP THE QUILL. STORIES COUNTLESS TO BE TOLD. COUNTLESS TO BE LIVED. DEATH COMES FOR ALL. NO ONE KNOWS THE TIME THE BELL TOLLS. TO FUTURE THOUGHT DESERVES ATTENTION. Dream of more. Mar 09, 2022, 10:27:42pm I shall never be someone else’s editor. Ever. Ever. Decline. If it were ever offered. Mar 10, 2022, 12:33:48am Localism is evil and pernicious to a futurist internet life. Mar 10, 2022, 2:20:29 am WHEN YOU STARE DEATH IN THE FACE, YOU ARE NEVER THE SAME. Mar 10, 2022, 7:24:30 am I attained the catharsis I sought. I raged. I wept. My body is warm and cold. I have not felt this emotionally destroyed in a long time. I need to find comfort again. I feel traumatized and sickly from this catharsis. I need to be cautious when doing my own music therapy. Mar 10, 2022, 8:32:30 am I wrote a five medical-scheduler-capable anesthesiologist call program that handled a dozen doctors for approximately fourteen years of service in Visual Basic 6, Crystal Reports, Microsoft Access, and MS SQL during high school in the nineties. I was the only developer for three years. It was custom fit to their needs. I know medical. I never went to med school. But I know medical. Mar 10, 2022, 11:52:30 am My body is spasming intensely at times now from the base of my chest forcing me to gasp. I do not know what is happening to me. My heart feels fine. This is trauma. Mar 10, 2022, 12:17:03 pm To freedom. Into the nox. Divide and conquer. Let Rome fall to the Bah bah bah bah bah barians. Mar 10, 2022, 7:00:44 pm Eris and Harmonia are my core deities. This theology pair is amazing to evoke and invoke as Taoist metaphysics for creativity. Read about them if you have time. This is my current solo practice neopagan reality shift for months. God and Satan are warring evil men punishing all creatures as a TAG TEAM. Eww. Mar 12, 2022, 6:26:41 pm “I think therefore I am” is PRESCHOOL PHILOSOPHY. SIGN OF PHILOSOPHY 101, ONLY. Descartes used a demonic invocation to justify COGITO THEORY. Which equals: WITCHCRAFT SUPERSTITION TO RATIONALISE: RIGID CHRISTIAN EURO METAPHYSICAL MIND BODY DUALISTIC INFANTILE DELUSIONS THAT… ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD SOLVED LAST CENTURY. PROCESS AND REALITY text. MODES OF THOUGHT text. SEE ALSO: Jean-Paul Sartre… Mar 13, 2022, 5:37:30 pm I despise MLA APA IEEE etc. WRITING RULES enforced by uni-NOT THE ACTUAL UNIVERSE-versity. Mar 13, 2022, 7:51:22 pm “Everything happens for a reason” equals Harmonia. “The universe is unguided” equals Eris. Mar 13, 2022, 11:12:09pm MATERIALISM IS NIHILISM. SHOWER UPON WALL STREET WHAT IS WALL STREET’S. THE ACTRESS AND ARTIST NEED NOT BULLION OR CRYPTO. FOR ALL ARE MAMMON. UNDER THUS, THAT IS CONTROL. Mar 22, 2022, 5:36:21pm TERRA FIRMA ORBITING SOL. BILLIONS OF INHABITANTS. MY ESTIMATE ON THE LAWS OF LARGE NUMBERS? NINTY-NINE POINT UNKNOWN DECIMALS PERCENT VIOLENTLY TRANSPHOBIC! Mar 22, 2022, 7:28:11pm RADICAL GIVING AND RADICAL FORGIVENESS MEANS EVEN TO MY WORST FORMER ENEMIES. I ACT ONLY TO PROTECT MY LIFE AND THOSE LIKE ME. VENGEANCE IS NEVER MINE. RESTORATIVE JUSTICE, ALWAYS. NOT EYE FOR AN EYE. NO. TURN THE UNOBTANIUM CHEEK GOOGOL TIMES TILL THEIR SKILL TO ATTACK FOLDS TO COMPLETE SELF HUMILIATION AND REALIZATION THEY WERE WRONG. THEIR OWN HOUSES SHALL DO THEIR PUNISHMENTS. Mar 22, 2022, 8:53:06 pm THANK YOU, ALLEN COUNTY INDIANA AND MICHIGAN LEGAL SYSTEMS, FOR BRINGING ME TO LIFE. Mar 22, 2022, 10:59:14 pm I SHALL PERISH FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IN. LET MY BLOOD BE WHAT DOTS A NEW ERA FOR TRANS RIGHTS. I SHALL NOT CLOSET MY SOUL, NO MATTER THE IRON THAT RENDS MY FLESH. I SHALL DIE AS I HAVE OUGHT TO HAVE LIVED ALL ALONG: AS EMILY TIFFANY JOY. I FEAR NO DEATH IF IT BRINGS HEALTH TO TRANS WOMEN WHO COME AFTER ME. DRAMATIC? NO. DEATH THREATS ARE NO STRANGER TO MY EARS… Mar 23, 2022, 3:25:58am I shall scream loud enough to operatic P.A. the world if my adamantium-rubberized lungs could stop a TRANS SUICIDE OUT THERE. YOU ARE REAL. YOU ARE VALID. YOU MATTER. IT GETS BETTER. I KNOW BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN THERE. Mar 23, 2022, 3:52:41am I have accurate color vision per scientific test. Mar 23, 2022, 5:21:14 pm One of the biggest fraud theories in psychology is the spotlight effect. NO. PEOPLE ARE NOT TOO BUSY THINKING ABOUT THEIR OWN LIVES TO NOTICE EVERY MINUTE DETAIL OF YOU. PEOPLE SMELL EVEN MOLECULES COMING OFF YOUR BODY. PEOPLE ANALYZE YOUR ETHICS, BODY, MIND, SPIRIT, AND SOUL AT EVERY AVAILABLE MOMENT. I WISH THIS NONSENSE DANGEROUS THEORY SHOULD BE STRUCK FROM ALL TEXTBOOKS AS A DANGEROUS COMPLACENT DELUSION. Mar 24, 2022, 12:54:39 pm 332,403,650 US population on Jan 1st, 2022. 36,149 FBI total employee count, 2022. Approximately 10,000 US citizens per FBI employee. What? How does this even remotely work to protect people from horrible crimes? I suspect FBI tips are AI TEXT ANALYZED NOW FOR RELEVANCE LIKE A SEARCH ENGINE SPIDER. HARMONIA, THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO DO THINGS. TEN K PEOPLE PER EMPLOYEE THAT COUNTS NON-AGENTS RUNNING THE PHONES, HR, ACCOUNTING, EVERYONE. THIS IS SAD TO ME. NOT ENOUGH STAFF. SURELY UNDERFUNDED. X-FILES IS A FANTASY. Mar 24, 2022, 5:17:19 pm Spotlight Effect FALLACY PSYCH THEORY EQUALS ANTI SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. Mar 24, 2022, 5:43:06 pm Dreams de facto declined for thirty-eight years. De jure bought me salvation in CHICAGO. TO EXTRATERRESTRIAL JOYS ON EXOPLANETS OF UNTAMED GODDESSES UNMARKED BY TERRA FIRMA. TO WONT TO WENT TO WILL TO DREAM TO REAL, TO EXACTING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE, TO LGBT+, TO MATTHEW 19:12! Mar 25, 2022, 5:36:48 pm Emotions are components of logic, not a dualistic opposite trait. Logic without emotion is calculatingly nonhuman, and all rational thoughts are human originated. It is famously called the ‘Spock Fallacy’ in textbooks. Mar 25, 2022, 9:32:36 pm I would give up joy to be Emily Ramsay through marriage… Mar 29, 2022, 8:48:09 am Enforce mutually assured destruction as Harmonio-Erisian hybrid NATO-Russian threaty of every nanometer of Sol space including Terra Firma for quite questionable efforts to engage war. Any conflict becomes Nuclear Winter Style NATO-Russian joint security enforcement! Mar 29, 2022, 8:59:26am My life includes escaping a serial killer. Leave me alone, scriptwriters. Apr 09, 2022, 9:27:36 am Safety is illusory. Not being dead is a trust with millions of members of society not to find someone too inconvenient. Apr 10, 2022, 1:04:16 am Joy: Just Overwhelmingly Yearning. Apr 10, 2022, 1:15:25 am ET Joy. Alien to our world. Always seeking Venus, not Earth, not Rome, and certainly not Mars. Venus symbol in astronomy? Female: ♀. Apr 10, 2022, 1:19:19 am Do any of you have any concept of how extremely dangerous my life has become? Apr 10, 2022, 3:04:39 am Die of brain failure for no reason but long life or die for a cause? No one writes much about deaths of natural causes in senior communities. Seems only deaths of conviction CHANGE THE WORLD. Apr 10, 2022, 4:06:37 am ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER IS SOMETIMES USED AS A VIOLENT CLUB ON PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO DREAM. THAT IS WHAT WAS DONE TO ME IN MY TEENS. JUST TO SHOVE ME INTO CODING AGAINST MY WILL. Apr 10, 2022, 8:40:05 pm Do you know what level of involvement it took to rip me out of my trans closet? A closeted trans woman friend dating an invasive curious US Federal Bureau of Investigations Academy student. My hiding game was taken forcefully from me. I was ripped out of my closet. Apr 10, 2022, 11:53:10pm I wish I could rent an apartment inside a major city’s library. I would love to be always under the information and research social order. I feel safer there. Respect is mandated by police force. So are the conventions of knowledge and quietude. The library is a party for me. Apr 12, 2022, 1:55:31 pm IF IT WOULD STOP A MILLION SUICIDES, I WOULD VIOLENTLY RIP OUT MY PINEAL GLAND AND FORCE FEED IT TO GOD. TYRANTS NEED ENLIGHTENMENT. THAT EUROPEAN KING NEEDS ENLIGHTENMENT. HIS ANGELS WAGE VIOLENT SPIRITUAL WAR ON ONE OF THEIR OWN CASTING OUR SOULS IN THE BALANCE. LUCIFER NEEDS A LOBOTOMY. TOO MANY SOULS LOST IN HIS WAR. LET THAT MANY HEADED SERPENT COME AND WASH AWAY ALL THESE HORRIBLE TERRESTRIAL EVILS. LET THE FINAL WAR HAPPEN AND LET RAPTURE TAKE ALL SOULS. LET THIS MEDIEVAL TYRANNY AND LUCIFER BE SWALLOWED BY THE DRAGON TO RELEASE HARMONIA AND ERIS BACK TO THEIR THRONES. NO MORE SUICIDES. NO MORE CONDEMNATION OF HOMO SAPIENS. I ASSURE YOU CHARLES DARWIN WENT TO HEAVEN. THE SHRINE OF THE UNKNOWN GOD IS MORE SACRED THAN CHRIST. THE UNKNOWN GOD IS MINE. “DEUS VULT.” THE MOTTO OF CHRIST-BASED GENOCIDE. DEUS VULT. DEATH TO EMILY TIFFANY JOY! Apr 12, 2022, 2:27:52 pm Escape is impossible. Our multiverse is our prison. Apr 12, 2022, 3:13:02pm

Chapter 12: Love Is The Goal, Always The Goal

Sunshiny weather causes skin cell DNA replication to fail, sometimes leading to cancerous cells to seed every major organ of the body, terminating all vital signs forever. Apr 12, 2022, 3:17:45 pm Love is the goal, ALWAYS THE GOAL, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS, NOT EVEN DEATH. I WOULD NEVER SAVE MYSELF FROM DEATH IF THAT WOULD BE WHAT LOVE DEMANDS. I WOULD LET A SEMI CRUSH ME TO PUSH A CHILD TO SAFETY. MY LIFE DOES NOT MATTER. YOURS DOES. DISINTEGRATE THE EGO. DANCE LIKE AN AMERICAN SHAMAN IN AN ANCIENT FIELD TO SHATTER YOUR NAME’S INNER MEANING. THEN YOU WILL BE FREE TO DIE NOT FOR YOURSELF BUT EVERY LIFE-FORM ON EARTH. Apr 12, 2022, 8:46:51 pm Suicide is not the ANSWER. ALTRUISM IS. THE RELIGION OF PROPHET JESUS CHRIST IS NOT CHRISTIANITY. THOSE ARE JUST SCRIBES. MODERN DAY JESUS TYPES ARE STATE EXECUTED FRAUDULENTLY TO MAINTAIN THE STATUS QUO. VIVA LA ALTRUISM. THE EGO IS MURDERING OUR SPECIES! Apr 12, 2022, 9:03:31 pm People who die by their own hand do NOT GET SPIRITUAL PUNISHMENT ANY MORE THAN DOES THE SOUL OF A MISCARRIED BABY. BOTH EQUAL TRAGEDIES, BOTH VICTIMS OF GOD. Apr 15, 2022, 8:50:24pm If I die, include FDIC killed her in my obituary. Apr 16, 2022, 4:04:19 am Meaning is a many centered thing. It is deceptive. Everyone has their own experience of a word. Lexical work confounds it. You begin to realize words are organisms. They grow. They reproduce. They die. But they also come back to life. I do not trust anyone who believes in singular meanings of words. It is linguistic fascism. Very imperialistic. Very misguided. Apr 16, 2022, 11:39:50 am Time fades into nonexistence one day, some say. What is justice? What does all human society deem right with billions of people wildly fighting to stay alive on one planet and a few orbitals in space? Apr 16, 2022, 1:20:28 pm Shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral. Destination: forever in our lifetimes somewhere around Sol with no habitable spaces beyond Terra Firma. We cannot stop fighting long enough to reach another star. Apr 16, 2022, 1:24:33pm DEATH COMES FOR ALL. WHAT IS THE SUM OF YOUR GOOD AND EVIL WHEN IT ARRIVES? Apr 16, 2022, 2:51:15pm Torture made me STRONG. IS THAT A STRENGTH I DESERVED? Apr 16, 2022, 2:52:06 pm The universe has no tangible beginning. We do. Apr 17, 2022, 10:10:58am A life requiring trigger warnings, That is the life I lead, People think I want sex, but All I want is respect. Impossible to find. When everyone wants something from me, I do not have much left to give. Except my skin and sinew, Is that what you want? To flay me to discover How I recover with no flesh? Take it! If it shall help someone, Take my life signs. Apr 17, 2022, 12:20:38 pm Do you think you know pain? Do you know it is not worth it? There is limitless pain to be had. Find a way to help others. “All is vanity.” The shirt on your shoulders has no value, No value unless your screams are to help others. A death of selfishness is immortal for wrong reasons. I do not want to be rich. I want to witness someone in pain no longer suffer and do it EIGHT BILLION TIMES. THIS PLANET IS FULL OF GREED. THEY SAY: “MY POCKETBOOK IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR LIFE SO TIME TO BUY A GLOCK.” THERE ARE WAYS TO SOLVE THIS MESS, BUT STOCK TICKERS HAVE SOULS. STOCK TICKERS’ LIVES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN FEEDING PEOPLE. History is cruel. We measure the deaths in the millions and store the facts in textbooks. I minored in it. THE DEATH COUNTS WERE NIGHTMARE FUEL. HUMANITY IS STILL A FAILED EXPERIMENT. WE DO WRETCHED THINGS TO EACH OTHER WHEN WE SHOULD BE LOVING EACH OTHER INSTEAD. Apr 17, 2022, 1:14:48 pm Walk until I have nothing left, till no return is possible. Push till my body is broken. That is the motto of Emily Joy. Let the world nearly kill her and crawl her way out. I can take it till I cannot, and when I cannot is my moment to shine, For death is my friend. We converse all the time. What life you lead often determines the end you get. Karma is real. Live for love, and love shall find you, Even as you crawl near the bottom. Dreams are more than imaginary. They lead a second life. You just must be willing To risk all you are For a cause worthy of dying. Apr 17, 2022, 4:11:43pm To this To that, The mind explodes Into a trillion shiny shards, Lining the drain of mediocrity. Answers come as they come. No card draw possesses the answer, Just the intuition within. Tell me what is meaning, When no one knows or cares. Epistemological nihilism seems To be Rational, When knowledge has no power To change this murderous world Full of people seeking vengeance When they should be seeking love. Money has no innate value, But it grants freedom… Apr 18, 2022, 4:06:29 am At what point does my impossible struggle end with terminal velocity? Apr 18, 2022, 4:08:22 am Test reality till it breaks. Then you have reached the truth. Then you know the old limits were myths. Sometimes I go walking all night in Chicago until my body is ready to collapse and I feel like I am going to die, and I do not know where I am… That is when I learned to fight for my life. I learn to bring myself back from a nightmare. I have done this several times. I always survive somehow. Your limits are an illusion of comfort. An illusion of “I do not want to die!” Apr 23, 2022, 11:01:55 pm Love is more real than hate. This is the reality I cultivate. Helping others is more important than helping myself. And refusing compensation is standard. Love is real. Evil can be defeated. And hope is eternal when love is your guide. Nothing else matters. Death takes all. What we do for others is more important than all the wealth on Earth. Apr 24, 2022, 6:06:32am The word “weird” is an attack on people who are not average or normal. Apr 26, 2022, 11:58:33 pm The nature of truth changes by the moment. Speaking it is unyieldingly everlasting. When you speak the truth, you never run out of things to say. Because you are never concerned about past statement accuracy. Truth just flows like a river. Falsehoods swell up into shame. Apr 28, 2022, 8:18:40 pm What is real? AND DOES THAT QUESTION EVEN MATTER? Apr 29, 2022, 3:06:39 am Do I die? Who knows when death comes? Why fear that? Why not do ANYTHING? WHY NOT FIGHT FOR WHAT IS RIGHT EVEN IF YOU DIE IN THE PROCESS? Aim not to die BUT ACCEPT DEATH IF THAT IS WHAT LIFE SAYS YOUR PURPOSE THEN INCLUDES. Apr 30, 2022, 11:09:36 pm When death comes, how shall you answer? Crawling and begging to live longer in fear? Or killed by it in URGENCY BECAUSE YOUR LIFE IMPACTS TOO MANY POWERFUL PEOPLE? I WILL GLADLY GO FOR MY AIMS, NOT BEGGING FOR FORTY YEARS OF PEACE TO BE COLLECTED TO A GRAVE FROM A RETIREMENT HOME HAVING STOOD FOR NOTHING! May 02, 2022, 12:53:32 pm The hard facts of my life have driven a therapist once to write “delusional” because she thinks outlandishly strange lives do not exist. May 02, 2022, 1:57:28 pm The American Dream is lost in the shopping mall, surrounded by Hollywood in your living room aching for realness. May 02, 2022, 6:26:13 pm Selfishness is default human behavior. The need to stay alive drives it. This is the root of all evil. The drive not to die. Self-preservation leads nations of people to kill each other by the millions while waving flags. Staying alive does dangerous things when billions of people, all fated to die by nature, desperately try to do it and all one day fail. May 03, 2022, 12:32:31 pm About to get my two fillings fixed by the only Medicaid dentist in existence on Earth. All other dentists on this planet open their predator insectoid jaws, hiss, and aim alien technology energy weapons at you if you enter their practice with Medicaid. I have had to learn grunt military tactics usually reserved for green berets in jungles to escape their zip code after asking for my two massive tooth holes to be repaired. It sucks, but they do give up the hunt when I leave their ancestral breeding grounds. They are just defending their dental work income with commando-style exoplanet-military-technology, and who am I to upset their rituals to Xul’ticatuę. That God is sacred on their planet. A lot of Good Works are done in that arthropod hominid’s name. I REFUSE TO BE INTOLERANT OF STRANGE-TO-ME EXOPLANET RELIGIONS THAT ENABLE THEIR CULTURES TO MINE EUTHROID PEACEFULLY FROM THE TOXIC MANTLE OF THAT PLANET. YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE WITH 2.9 Gs OF DEFAULT GRAVITY. LET THESE CREATURES LIVE AND THRIVE IN PEACE FOR THE LOVE OF YLAWRU’E, THE SECOND IN COMMAND TO THEIR RELIGIOUS ORDERS… May 06, 2022, 9:07:25 am Writing satirical humorism is dangerous because there is no punchline, every sentence is more amusing than the last, and when done as protest, the subject of the work is enraged enough to have to deal with you personally, because the public never forgives injustice demonstrated in a way that draws them into laughter with frustration and anger for what your humorism reveals. Mark Twain was VERY DISRUPTIVE IN HIS TIME. A HILARIOUS SHARP POLITICAL PROTEST WRITER IS A HUGE PROBLEM FOR PEOPLE BEING WRITTEN ABOUT! THE PUBLIC NEVER FORGETS SOMETHING THAT MADE THEM LAUGH, AND WHEN THEY ARE LAUGHING IN ANGER, IT IS REALLY SCARY. May 06, 2022, 12:11:14 pm To the west To the EAST, EAST OF EDEN, PROMISED lands are not on Earth. Humans own every plot of land now via space to earth real time video footage. Eden is a place so many light years from here that No Earth technology can ever record a photon. If we can record it With any sensor, IT IS NOT EDEN. IT IS PART OF THE HIVEMIND OF BILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN A POWER STRUGGLE TO PROLONG THEIR EXISTENCES. IF IT CAN BE WITNESSED, IT IS NOT THE PROMISED LAND. IT IS 1984, AND THAT BOOK BECAME REAL. DIVINITY WAS EXORCISED FROM OUR SOLAR SYSTEM WITH SPACE AGE TECHNOLOGY AND EXABYTE-SCALE GLOBAL DATA AWARENESS. THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS HAPPENED A LONG TIME AGO EMERGENCY SERVICES PROVIDED HIM WITH ANTI-PSYCHOTICS. HE IS DOING OKAY NOW. HE IS SEEING A THERAPIST AND HAS A PROMISING JOB AS A TEAM LEADER. May 06, 2022, 12:26:37 pm There is no cure. Yet healing happens. With time With time Trauma becomes strength. It becomes a new muscle. Torture creates tough people. IT IS NOT FUN THOUGH. IT IS NOT FUN AT ALL. May 06, 2022, 12:40:41 pm If people realized living can be done for extraordinarily little money, the world economy would collapse. This is the motive for marketing little passenger cars with vroom-vroom engines for countless millions of dollars and fashion items for hundreds of thousands of dollars. If billionaires shopped exclusively with budget items to expend only thirty-thousand dollars a year, they would START DOING CHARITY WORK WITHOUT EVEN A SECOND THOUGHT AND THERE WOULD BE NO MENTALLY ILL PTSD SOLDIERS WITH SHOPPING CARTS AND CARDBOARD SIGNS. NO, WE NEED TO MAKE SURE BILLIONAIRES BUY ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR BUILDINGS TO SWING DANCE IN WHILE EATING FISH EGGS BECAUSE THEY WORKED SO HARD FOR US THAT THIS IS WHAT WE NEED TO MARKET TO THEM. May 06, 2022, 1:03:18 pm The millions of residents of Chicago grew up playing cops and robbers, reading Dick Tracy comics, and dedicate massive resources into making the villains Dick Tracy battled as real as possible, because this city really did have a crime overlord named Al Capone, and if you check Wikipedia, his crime family The Chicago Outfit never left control. The Italian mafia are in control of Chicago with over one hundred made men soldiers with comical street names. It is all there with FBI sources. Chicago could stop them, but made men are EXTREMELY GREAT FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH. THEY PUT THEIR ALLIES IN PENTHOUSES WITH UNLIMITED ACCESS TO DRUGS AND SEX WORKERS. WHY WOULD ANY CITY STOP THEM? THEY EAT PASTA, WEAR SILLY HATS, AND DO SILLY CRIMINAL THINGS THE POLICE FANTASIZE ALL THEIR LIVES ABOUT FACING. CHICAGO. STOP IT. DICK TRACY IS A COOL MOVIE, BUT THIS IS SCARY. CAN YOU SWITCH TO COWBOYS AND INDIANS? I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THIS WOULD DO TO YOUR COOL PIZZA PLACE INFRASTRUCTURE, BUT PEOPLE RUNNING AROUND THIS PLACE IN COWBOY LEATHER CHASING PEOPLE IN FEATHERS SOUNDS SAFER! May 06, 2022, 1:18:51 pm Ethics forms your boundaries. WITHOUT BOUNDARIES, YOU DIE. May 06, 2022, 2:40:06pm If you are never feeling any touch of danger, your life is not remarkably interesting. May 06, 2022, 4:07:20 pm Chicago is so far-fetched itself that everyone believes my life because stupidly rare things happen here so often, they hire legions of police to handle it. May 08, 2022, 9:03:58 am GOODBYE FOREVER, CITY OF CHICAGO. YOU HELPED ME SO MUCH. I HAD FUN TOURING AROUND AND GETTING MY LIFE TOGETHER. YOUR LIBERAL STRONGHOLD IS FUN, SILLY, AND TERRIFYING. TIME TO FIX MY BANKING. I AM INTO SUSHI, NOT PIZZA AND MASSIVE SCARY SKYSCRAPERS WITH WHO KNOWS WHAT GOING ON IN THEM. I LOVE YOU, BUT YOU ARE SILLY AND SCARY AT THE SAME TIME. YOU WILL LOVE AND ACCEPT MY TRANSITION SO MUCH, ONE OF YOUR CITIZENS DOWNTOWN TRIED TO FORCIBLY ENROLL ME INTO SEX WORK. THAT CALLS IT QUITS FOR ME. THAT IS WAY TOO MUCH LOVE, CHICAGO. I AM ACE. I DO NOT WANT SEX. I AM GOING TO TRAVEL. TAKE CARE OF THEM, MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT. YOU HAVE LOTS OF SILLY PEOPLE THERE. May 08, 2022, 4:58:04 pm The nature of reality changes every moment. Every act you take in every moment changes it. And everyone you see is doing the same thing. Reality building is a worldwide activity. Anywhere consciousness emerges from ganglia there are neurons generating more reality. Ponder this in all that you do. There is no center. No one has it. It is all chaos. Beautiful swirling chaos flowing through thought capable cells in the Universe. May 09, 2022, 12:38:26 pm I will gladly lose my life for helping someone. And I will gladly lose my life to avoid doing evil things. If it takes actual deplorable behavior to avoid death, I will let myself die. What is continued life if it requires LIVING AN EVIL ONE? IT IS BETTER TO DIE GOOD THAN BUILD A LONG LEGACY OF HURTING PEOPLE WHO DO NOT DESERVE IT. WHY DO PEOPLE NOT GET THAT? ETHICS IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. IT DETERMINES EVERYTHING! May 09, 2022, 7:29:23pm

Chapter 13: Truth Is Intoxicating

Stop playing a three-million-person game of cops and robbers, Chicago! You are using real ammunition, you idiots! You are supposed to pretend to do a crime, and the other person is supposed to pretend to shoot. And then you eat ice cream. That is how the game is played. Did you not learn this when you were young? The news stations kept saying you made this playground game fully real with lots of THC just wafting through the city like a fog! I was always confused because you are all so nice. Very charming people. Smiling a lot. And playing ACTUAL COPS AND ROBBERS WITH A CRAZY HIGH SPEED PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM. AND WHAT IS UP WITH THAT ONE SKYSCRAPER THAT IS TOTALLY BLACK, TAPERED, WITH TWO RADIO TOWERS PLACED TO LOOK LIKE EVIL HORNS? THAT THING FRIGHTENED ME INSTINCTIVELY ANY TIME MY EYES SAW IT. CAN YOU REPAINT THAT THING TO PINK AND TAKE OFF THE HORNS? THAT THING IS PORTALING DEMONS INTO YOUR CITY. I COME FROM FORT WAYNE. MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE THOSE ARE REAL THERE. May 10, 2022, 1:19:10am Forests do not usually have guards with guns guarding water in Aquafina bottles. They are chill about the whole nature thing. May 10, 2022, 2:14:26 am Babies die without affection. They have proven it with indirect studies. Nutrients alone will not always work. Without love to form a human, no human forms. This is what it means to be human. To be formed as the result of love. If you forget love completely, you are no longer human. You betrayed what formed you. May 11, 2022, 6:56:15pm Truth is not a simple fact check. There are so many facts that intuition forms that truth has been found. Facts are comforting. Truth is intoxicating. May 11, 2022, 6:58:31 pm Can my ashes be stored on a library bookshelf somewhere after my one day hopefully far from now cremation? I find those places they store the dead creepy. I have always found libraries comforting. Why would I want to store my remains in creepy places? Put little funny stickers on my urn and put it in the philosophy section next to Immanuel Kant’s books. May 11, 2022, 7:19:55 pm Death only happens once in this life. What are you doing with your time? Are you making a positive change in the lives of those around you? Is there any other reason to struggle in life than to help others struggle as well? Have Hollywood and Valve super-glued you to your cushioned chairs wondering what reality is? May 12, 2022, 11:29:21am I have been through so many nightmares and always wonder if the next one shall be my last. May 13, 2022, 11:40:16am I cannot fathom people who celebrate being evil. Especially ones self-aware enough to be stupid comical villains to people around them. I know this is what is called narcissistic personality disorder, and psychologists believe no therapy can cure it. So, we built prisons in hopes that punishment might stop them from doing harm. It is terrible that such a system even needs to exist, but psychopathic behavior often has an ethical heritage or genetic chance factor that no one can eliminate. Where is the vaccine to prevent homicidality? Where is the therapy to reform someone who beats his wife? Where is medicine in research status on saving us from evil souls? May 15, 2022, 4:40:22 pm Life is what you make of it, but it is also what is made of it by the people who have access to you. SELECT YOUR ASSOCIATIONS WISELY AT ALL TIMES. IF YOU SURROUND YOURSELF WITH UNETHICAL, UNRELIABLE PEOPLE, YOU SHALL HAVE A TRAGIC LIFE, QUITE LIKELY! May 16, 2022, 8:13:54 pm What is known and what cannot be known form a dividing line so fuzzy that we often learn things once declared impossible, and we fail to learn things we thought for sure we could understand. Impossibility of knowability cannot be determined until THE STORY OF HUMANITY ENDS. May 18, 2022, 1:20:54 pm No one. That is it. No one. Zero. No zero. Null. Why does absence fill people with fear? May 19, 2022, 9:03:23 am I feel trapped. My circumstances still feel perilous. In thirty hours from now, I will be in Portland, Oregon. I have never been there before. I have no contacts who have a promised solution to where I will sleep when I get there. I had to leave Chicago. It was getting dire and dangerous. Until I get my debit card and ID set to a residential address and earn enough to rent an apartment, my life is in constant danger. May 22, 2022, 2:29:27am There is no escape from life. It is a mistake to try. You cannot hide from yourself. You will always be the hands that move. May 22, 2022, 1:49:25 pm Why do they have military-style security and fortress buildings for Social Security? They do not store money. Quite sure it is computers and filing cabinets. May 28, 2022, 10:09:47 am Anyone with billions of dollars won a lifelong game of economic politician and now sits on a personal mini federal government of funds without any true oversight or voting control over them by the people they now rule in villas surrounded by cameras, tall steel gates, that require a pin code and security team authorization to say: “Hello.” Billionaires are immortal, untouchable POLITICIANS. May 28, 2022, 10:14:48am DEATH COMES FASTER THAN YOU THINK. ARE YOU REALLY LIVING OUT WHAT YOU CAME TO THIS PLANET TO DO? May 28, 2022, 10:41:37pm If you live in revelry of evil and untruths, may your final fate reflect that. I will gladly die a horrible death to avoid following that ethos. Jun 02, 2022, 8:59:21 pm Everything all men of the human historical record have done so far has been the result of a woman’s uterus gestating them into a life to do it! Jun 06, 2022, 4:57:27 pm The scariest typographical symbol to an anti-government activist: section, §! Jun 06, 2022, 6:58:58 pm The pen used to be mightier than the sword. Now any human computer interaction (HCI) technology is mightier than the pen by an equal margin or more. Jun 07, 2022, 8:29:56 pm Portrait photography divides between glorious and awful on one matching continuum: “presence” to “pose.” Jun 08, 2022, 5:11:12pm Bill Gates’s dream of a ‘computer on every desktop’ destroyed the government’s paper record system for verifying the authenticity of documents. They are still confused on when security paper works and when cryptographically signed digital documents work for a form requirement. Every agency and level of government and US state has varying degrees of digital document Luddite technophobia. Thanks, Bill Gates! Jun 09, 2022, 7:45:17am Inaccuracies, lies, untruths, misdirections, and subterfuge smell like the sulfur clouds rising from the massive battlefields and wars that result when leaders engage in these. Do not follow them, or what you say and how you live shall smell like deadly rotten eggs to honest people. Jun 09, 2022, 12:41:18 pm I will take rape, I will take loss of my job, I will take alienation. I will take disenfranchisement, I will even take being murdered one day, but I WILL NOT TAKE BEING FORCED TO BE A MAN ANY LONGER. Jun 11, 2022, 5:50:29pm The Terra Firma Cyber Non-Cyber Globe is ONE BIG DATA RELEVANCE PROBLEM WHEN ONE TICKET CODE CAN LAND YOU NEAR ANY GEOLOCATION ON HABITABLE LAND. Jun 11, 2022, 5:56:03pm When death comes, this is all over. Context for human concerns? Do you think that remains? This is both at once comforting and terrifying. The contents of your existence are gray matter learning human concerns. Death is the end of that gray matter and what it has inside. What goes on? What imprints and does not imprint… AND WHAT IS OR IS NOT BEING IMPRINTED ON AND WHAT HAPPENS TO IT AFTER THAT GRAY SUPERSTRUCTURE CEASES TO FIRE ITS COMPLEX NEURAL NETWORKS? Jun 12, 2022, 1:33:40 pm My silence is not for lack of things to say. My silence is for speaking when the moment is right. Jul 01, 2022, 6:39:32pm Death comes but once. The release is bittersweet, but You cannot evade its certain arrival scheduled for all of us. You must live and fight and struggle and bleed and push through all the pain and danger to Be the person whose life was true before the death bell rang. To flood a world of darkness and evil With healing light, Before the evil takes you back from whence you came: A mote of nonhuman preconsciousness, Somewhere in the mists of Valhalla. Jul 04, 2022, 12:44:16am Beliefs are strange. Some are given. Some are formed. Some are innate. And The world screams in horror when a belief is INVENTED. “WE DID NOT MAKE THAT. THIS IS OUT OF CONTROL. WHAT IS SHE DOING? TRACK HER SIM ON THE GRID. KEEP AN EYE ON HER. YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT!” Jul 04, 2022, 1:36:32 pm There are many possible endings to your life. That is not what matters. What matters is what your life amounted to and who you helped along the way. You should consider the memories of everyone you encounter. That is the source of your mnemonic afterlife. Jul 05, 2022, 6:37:05am THERE MUST BE MORE THAN GAIN FOR HUMANS TO SEEK ON EARTH. THERE MUST BE MORE THAN ALL THESE PEOPLE VYING FOR POWER. HAVE YOU NOT FORGOTTEN EVERYONE BLEEDS THE SAME WAY? Jul 06, 2022, 4:16:08 pm Do you know what it is like being me? I am not the me I was yesterday, Each and every day. I walk one step at a time, One small step at a time, BUT I WILL NOT PERISH TILL I WALK LIGHT YEARS. Jul 06, 2022, 5:42:48 pm IF YOU HAVE NOT KNOWN WHAT IT MEANS TO GIVE EVERYTHING YOU HAVE TO HELP AS MANY AS YOU CAN EVEN IF IT MIGHT KILL YOU MULTIPLE TIMES, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. WHAT YOU OWN, OWNS YOU. NOTHING MATTERS BUT LOVE. NOTHING MATTERS BUT HEALTH. NOTHING MATTERS BUT TRUTH! Jul 15, 2022, 11:52:35 pm TO KNOW THE PLIGHT OF THE POWERLESS, YOU MUST BECOME POWERLESS. Jul 16, 2022, 12:04:16 am CHAOS RETURNS. HARMONIA WEEPS CRIMSON TEARS THAT SURGE MAJOR CITIES BELOW HER INTO CINDER. ERIS HAS RETURNED. SHE HAS MORE RAGE OF INJUSTICE THAN THE COURTS. Jul 20, 2022, 4:32:58 pm Time is weird. If you are with it, it is a sign of mental health. They ask about the era during mental health checks in ERs. If you get it wrong, they commit you… And then take away your watch. Sep 30, 2022, 10:26:39 am Original thoughts are hard to have. Someone who is intellectually honest has mostly original thoughts by exclusion to all she cites. Sep 30, 2022, 12:08:00 pm Is trauma always bad? It can be a catalyst for change. Sep 30, 2022, 12:10:02pm If I could die for a cause, I would. But what cause? Why not live to ninety? Why not accept my lifespan? Oct 01, 2022, 10:22:05 am Is it still my hometown if it is thousands of miles away, no intention to return, and zero people left I want to see there? Oct 01, 2022, 5:28:05 pm

Chapter 14: How Many Tears Will Solve It

Whence we came we cannot return. Time has no pity for memories. Our center changes always. There is no escaping our calendars. Oct 02, 2022, 2:33:27 pm Memory lane is a minefield for some people. Oct 03, 2022, 10:20:16 am I used to entertain my sad moods. I used to listen to pensive music. Until I realized, it is not worth it for me. Life gives enough sadness on its own to be down all the time. So, with what willpower I have, I try to be stable and with it. Whatever it is. I still have down times, but I seek to overcome them, not be overcome by them. Oct 03, 2022, 2:06:51 pm “There is enough depression in the world,” said my dad when he saw the poetry I wrote in high school. Oct 05, 2022, 10:51:42am I do not expect equality. Just safety. Bare minimum, safety. Oct 06, 2022, 3:34:07pm I stopped trying to impress people once I realized I needed help. Oct 07, 2022, 9:56:21am I am an empath. I am over-educated. And you matter more than me. I say this because I am inconvenient. I say this because I am on the fringe. I say this because I wish I had done more to avoid this borderland existence. The ones who could have helped in 2020 did not. I do not know where they are now… I am still rebuilding my life. Without a life vest that I know how to wear. Expression is key to survival. Oct 08, 2022, 3:33:27 pm I am my own woman. I must give up my parents at forty. They cannot help me. My dad has dementia. And my mom will never accept me. They are in their seventies. I am Emily Joy, a family of one. Oct 09, 2022, 1:52:23 pm If you feel sad often, consider your music. Some music is very saddening, but we celebrate it anyway. Maybe we should not. Maybe music is medicine. It should uplift your mood, or what is the point? Oct 09, 2022, 2:56:44 pm Mental health should be considered a basic human need. Oct 13, 2022, 12:02:48 pm I do not want a “friend with benefits.” Unless they have medical insurance and time off. I am ok with those benefits. Oct 15, 2022, 11:04:57 am If the music is right, it can empower you to write almost anything. Oct 17, 2022, 9:10:38am Synchronicity is nonsense. I hate it when it happens lately. It usually tries to tell me something not useful or good for me. Intuition has limits. Oct 20, 2022, 11:05:26 am Dreams know no experts. Oct 24, 2022, 3:34:45 pm Life is going flowing slowly. Too many times I turn to the past, But it is all past, is it not? We have nothing without the past. We have nothing without others. Love is the only reason we are alive. Oct 27, 2022, 9:14:29 am Love is more important than most things in our lives. Then why do people forget that it exists? Oct 28, 2022, 1:32:42 pm Let go. Let go of the pain. There is more to life than you know. Most of your current struggles, whatever they are, cannot continue forever. Nov 01, 2022, 12:02:58 pm Awareness is strange. If you never notice something your entire life, it does not exist to you. This is required with billions of people. Relevance is everything. Ignorance is not bliss. It is a fact of too many human stories going on at once. Nov 09, 2022, 12:12:59 pm Caffeine is funny. It can be used to set a sleep schedule as well as break it. It is anti-sleep, but if you do not use it six hours before intended sleep, it is out of your system mostly by the time you want to sleep. Nov 15, 2022, 9:42:45 am Death is not the end. What starts we do not know. But I have lived too long to imagine nothingness. Nov 21, 2022, 11:33:16am Ingest too many energy drinks equals free admission to a psych ward. I have given them up. Dec 05, 2022, 2:31:14 pm Sanity is boring. Preferred but geez is it boring. Dec 12, 2022, 9:22:00 am Letter to the world, and for all that I have done and seen: Why does it have to be so hard? Why does existence have to be a trial? Why do so many of my friends struggle in silence? How many tears will solve it? I have been on Earth for forty years. I have yet to find an answer, and I do not think I will. Dec 18, 2022, 12:34:14 pm laptop. Noun. Definition. A configuration of a computer where the keyboard is above the motherboard without seals to prevent a drink spill spelling its doom. A scant few laptop manufacturers have spill resistant laptop keyboards. The rest just wish you luck. Jan 13, 2023, 10:38:23pm Technology enables experiences. Technology is not for itself. Jan 19, 2023, 9:23:42 am Passing time is awful. I do not know what it is. But some days I wake up with nothing on my calendar for days, nothing to do, and the clock stands still. How am I supposed to stay sane like this? Today is one of those days. Music helps. But not always. Jan 22, 2023, 10:21:25 am Poetry is difficult. I used to write it all the time. Until I lost my muse. It is for the best. It was mostly dark. This is not a poem. It is just one sentence per line. Jan 23, 2023, 11:19:12am Love is the only reason for this life. And I struggle every day lately. I took a nap today. That is the only real thing that happened. Things are not that bad. I just need to find more hope. Jan 23, 2023, 3:00:39 pm The wrong song at the wrong time can make me cry. The right song at the right time can make me cry. Not all tears are equal. Jan 26, 2023, 2:35:20 pm I wanted to be a philosophy professor as an undergraduate. I loved the rigor those writers had. But then I saw that the program included every Western era and balked. I did not want to read Medieval philosophy. Jan 31, 2023, 1:51:25pm I used to wear a wig that made me look like Cleopatra. At least, the hair. I miss it, but now my hair is getting long enough not to need a wig. Feb 19, 2023, 12:12:58 pm I love you, Dad. I will miss you for the rest of my life. Dementia took you from me today. I have much more crying to do. You were a Vietnam officer, father of six children, and had an accomplished career as a chemist. You were always my ally. Mar 08, 2023, 4:54:12pm Freedom of speech can be easily lost by bowing to unjust authority. Mar 23, 2023, 1:56:40pm If my future were known, I would dance in circles for joy. Tedium is a fate worse than death. And I stand impatiently… What is wanted is unknown. Yet so many questions plague my mind. Loneliness is not a virtue. Yet solitude is often what I find. Mar 28, 2023, 11:14:04am Trust no one, trust no voice. AI will enable all sorts of evil. Real time emulation of anyone’s voice is possible now, given access to a recording which scammers can get. I do not like this. Mar 30, 2023, 9:21:43am Bipolar Type 3 Repressive. Apr 03, 2023, 8:25:32am Today was a stressful day but worth it. I am growing as a person and realizing that living in fear is not worth it. Especially when that fear was making me really depressed. I certainly was not bored today. Apr 03, 2023, 4:06:03 pm People come and go like the seasons. I want someone to stay. I want someone to love. I want more than a night. Apr 04, 2023, 8:01:39 am To resurrect the past. To bring only the good forward. To design a life worth living. There is beauty to be found. Love is real no matter what they say. Hope is worth having. Apr 16, 2023, 12:59:49 pm Run. Escape. Hide. It is not enough. Truth will find you. Apr 19, 2023, 1:33:45 pm What? Me? Live alone? N-no… I let a platoon of armed marines sleep under my bed. Apr 21, 2023, 9:26:43am WHAT I ONCE WAS I SHALL NEVER DECRY. ALL THAT I AM, ALL THAT I HAVE BEEN, IS ME, ON A TRAJECTORY TO A BETTER FUTURE. Apr 25, 2023, 10:29:16 am Competing truths have competing body counts. Apr 25, 2023, 10:43:07am If you lose everything, rebuilding creates a new everything. Almost nothing will be the same. Familiarity is the enemy. Apr 25, 2023, 11:07:49 am If your values call for the oppression of an innocent minority, they have no value. Apr 25, 2023, 11:21:20 am It is a marathon not a sprint. And when I am done with the marathon, I will be somewhere wonderful. May 03, 2023, 7:39:53 am Square brackets have too much power, and there are no actual citations for this statement.[1][2][3][4] May 26, 2023, 1:22:52 pm I peered into my dreams lately with lucid dreaming techniques to start remembering them again. Now I am going to intentionally forget them and invert the lucid dream techniques, because all I am feeling is upset by them. Not remembering my dreams is better. Jun 04, 2023, 10:57:13am I do not trust Wikipedia.[1] Each sentence is only as good as each source.[2] That being said, it contains a lot of information not available anywhere else.[3] Jun 04, 2023, 12:26:12 pm To this I pray, Not to the sky, But to my self-understanding, Let go of all misgivings, Let go of all self-hate, Let go of all my grudges, Let go of all misbeliefs. I am here. I am real. I am not what my family said, And that is okay. I am Emily Joy. Emily Tiffany Joy. I almost died for that. And I am alive for that now. My story is not over. My book has not ended. Aug 07, 2023, 11:36:18am

Part 3: To Where We Walk

The end of an era into another, a solace within solitude and sanctuary. “Everything has been figured out, except how to live.” Jean-Paul Sartre, a philosopher for philosophers who seek meaning amidst the chaos. What can be known about life is a fleeting glance into the short eternity we find ourselves living. The path is one of discovery, wonder, and bemusement. Life is funny, and the joke is on us: for our uncertain futures cast tall shadows. The path preceding is worth it. Every step is worth it. Our destination is the journey. And we find ourselves on the other side, ever seeking love amidst the poetry that we live within our lives. To Where We Walk chronicles a new era of my life. Many of the challenges of the previous eras were overcome, but my story is far from over. Each timed and dated entry in this book is a vignette granting a glimpse into my life and into the wisdom that I have always sought to attain. Actualization is the key. It is always the key. And the question I pose to you is this: How will you attain it? I document my life to give you a chance. To illustrate all I went through to find it. May you find comforting moments in this book. May it give you access to perspectives you have not witnessed before. The title of this book, To Where We Walk, refers to an early passage in my first book: “The path to joy is one of pain, but once you find it, that walk, while long, is overflowing with loving friends. Because when you walk to joy, others will follow. Others care! And so do I!” I dedicate all my work to helping people who struggle. It is not just for the LGBT+ community. It is dedicated to anyone who cannot find their way in life and anyone who seeks a way to do it. Let my life serve as an example. Let the tears I cried cure yours. This book is literary journalism. I stand behind the words contained within it with my life.

Chapter 1: Dreams Do Not Denote My Soul

Life is worth living. Life is not pointless. Love all you know. Love all you can. And maybe, Maybe, That was the point. I live alone, But I do not exist alone. I am surrounded by people who care. Aug 6, 2023, 11:32 am Is it bedtime yet? Asking from Pacific time. Can I sleep when you sleep? Aug 07, 2023, 11:51 am Testosterone is less than ten nanograms per deciliter. Free testosterone is less than a sixth tenths of a picogram per milliliter. Lab just came in. I breathed a happy sigh of relief. The simple bilateral orchiectomy did the job. My adrenal gland produces almost nothing. No spironolactone required. The primary source of all my testosterone has been successfully eliminated. Aug 07, 2023, 3:51 pm I just woke up from a recurring nightmare that I only just realized is recurring with my dress covered in sweat. Then the sounds of cars outside were mistaken for intruders in my home in the dark. I froze and realized to myself, “This is the outer layer.” Followed by flashbacks to the nightmare where I stood over this creature meant to crush it, and then later another creature could be seen with malice ready to approach me. This is all I can remember of the nightmare. It was not human. I am turning all the lights on for a while. Probably going to cook something from the fridge. That was unpleasant but not as unpleasant as having low estradiol levels for two months on a patch that was not working. Aug 09, 2023, 11:10 pm With the way estradiol peaks and troughs, these single snapshot blood draw labs seem subjective. It takes ten minutes to absorb each pill under my tongue. The difference it makes seems massive so far. I will not know exactly how the new higher level of estradiol affects me for a week or two. I have noticed that in the first few days of a new dose that my body needs time to adjust, and it gives me all sorts of warmth, tingles, and chills until it becomes a new normal. Aug 10, 2023, 7:46 am Someone is playing Gregorian chant outside my building. Normally I would be upset, but it is relaxing. I need to relax. Aug 11, 2023, 2:50 pm Forgiveness is not easy. And that is why it is a virtue. A grudge held to the ill of another is clenching a fist to carry water. Aug 11, 2023, 6:34 pm To survive being homeless from August 2021 to December 2022, my ego died a thousand times. Now that I have more freedom, my ego still needs to die even more. Things are not that bad right now. I read the first two weeks of writing in my journal. Things were bad then. My self-awareness was severely limited. Aug 12, 2023, 1:07 am Calendars are set it and forget it time teleportation devices. Aug 13, 2023, 1:15 pm Letting go of who I was is the first step. Because who I was, was transitional. Aug 15, 2023, 11:25 am I am not getting breast augmentation any time soon, if at all. My natural growth ought to be enough. I have only had two years of introductory dose feminizing hormone replacement therapy. I have years on this higher dose to have growth spurts. Aug 16, 2023, 4:11 pm My therapist recommended I wear gender neutral clothing “for my safety,” so I ordered a bra that might be a twenty-four seven wear worthy fit, arriving Monday. If she mentions my safety again, it might be time to protect my waist with a corset. I am so glad she cares about me and my safety. I am not willing to wear gender-neutral clothing for my safety. If someone murders me for wearing a dress, that will be my fate for being true to myself. I want to throw out all my pants. But for some reason that seems like a questionable idea. I need more dresses, skirts, and capris first. More pink hair accessories. Is that gender-neutral enough? I would have hair down to my shoulders if it were not for its curls. Aug 19, 2023, 3:05 pm The new underwire bra arrived! Fits flawlessly! The cups are flattering, but I fill most of them. I am getting euphoria from this new bra that fits exactly right. My body is tingling with happiness. When I lean forward, I fully fill out this new C cup bra. For a moment, I thought there was an insert, but no, it is me. I have boobs. Aug 22, 2023, 12:52 pm Me, “Miss Joy,” also: “Sir… sir… sir,” over the phone just now by a call center person. I need voice feminization, stat. Aug 25, 2023, 4:29 pm “I am not your son; I am your daughter, always and retroactively.” My message to my mom who could not get her mind around it before. Aug 29, 2023, 1:07 am I am switching therapists. My current one is problematic even though I like her. I have seen her eleven times, weekly, since June. She is a midwife naturopathic doctor who focuses too heavily on mindfulness for my needs in my life right now. The new therapist has a traditional psychology degree and knows how to do some specialized therapies in which I am interested. Why does it make me sad? I have no obligation to the therapist I am leaving. It just feels like a parting of ways, and that is often sad. I will get over it though. Her style of therapy was a hindrance. And though she was qualified as a therapist, me as a trans woman, I do not need a midwife. She did not seem fully open to me as a client. It was a problem. Dreams do not denote my soul. My soul is not a brain state. It is something more than that. It is a mote of being often called the subtle self. Dreams are often too pernicious or tricky. And they are fleeting. My former therapist had me meditate daily. I prefer the Western world over the philosophies of the East. I can connect with it easier. I can at least recognize Latin and Greek of the ancient Western world. Vedic languages in their original script look like something not of this world. I was enamored with Buddhism in my twenties but finally realized that the metaphysics of that human history were not my own. What is my religion? Terms need not be spoken. My religion is how I die. My philosophy is how I live. Aug 31, 2023, 7:50 pm I need to practice body acceptance. Not with the idea that my body is not going to change. I need to accept what I have right now as it changes. If I cannot accept my body, it is harder on everything. I need to accept all stages of my body. Here and now, future and past. Because I have serious self-esteem issues right now. And I do not have full body awareness. Sep 01, 2023, 5:44 pm I resolved a riddle from late 2022. There is a zone above northern Seattle you can find by searching for Boeing and zooming in to an area covered in cryptic numbered gates and buildings. That is, in fact, public map data they put on Google Maps and not classified government data akin to Area 51. I stumbled upon this area last year on Google Maps as a new Seattle resident while tweaking my phone. I thought something was wrong with Google Maps or my phone. It felt like privileged information. But it is not. I was a bit fragile, fresh out of the hospital, and handled the weirdness as best as I could. I was trying to learn about Seattle, and that did not help matters. Now that I know what happened, I may go about Google Maps spelunking again with less hesitation. Sep 02, 2023, 5:59 pm Green zone. Right? No. Farmland. With residences. It is called “incomplete map data.” A lot of green zones are miscoded as such. If you ever find yourself doubting map data, go into satellite view for a sanity check… Sep 03, 2023, 4:26 am Voice therapy, and realizing growth is possible, A journey of a thousand miles starts with one. Juxtapose structure with chaos. Somewhere meaning brings it all together. Sing-along to save my life. My mind is ready, but my muscles are not. Growth on the day but years. Patience and persistence are the only way forward. Sep 04, 2023, 3:34 am Life is not a game. You were wrong about that, philosopher Alan Watts. The rule of which you speak is not a rule. It is intrinsic. The only cycle of death and rebirth is finality. What you do in this life matters. Is reincarnation just a metaphor for memory? I saw a movie that suggested this once. Sometimes the self is our worst enemy. Obliterate the ego. Then there is safety. Befriend your shadow. Three… two… one… What is your destination? Sometimes discomfort means you are learning. Sometimes self-acceptance means letting go of the past. But often you must reintegrate the past. To find the flow of the future. I studied psychology on the side as a minor in college. I found philosophy far more insightful. Sep 07, 2023, 12:52 pm

Chapter 2: A Life Led to Happiness

I just had a final meeting over a meal with my case manager who helped me from a homeless shelter to permanent supportive housing. He also helped me get my IDs back, apply for Social Security disability, and was there for me as my transit for and in the waiting room for my orchiectomy. He was also incredibly supportive throughout all of it. I am going to miss him. I just had a good cry over it. Dec 14, 2023, 2:01 pm Over the next couple of weeks, Lithium will be tapered off completely as Lamictal reaches full dose potency. My nurse says I should begin to feel better. The side effects of Lithium number at least a few, including hand tremors, weight gain, and toxicity, if too dehydrated. If Lamictal controls my bipolar condition better with fewer side effects than Lithium, I will be incredibly happy. I have not had to be in the hospital for about a year now, and that is progress! Dec 15, 2023, 1:31 pm My height is 5’10”. That puts me at the ninety-ninth percentile for women. I wish my feet were smaller and my height shorter, but at least I am on the chart. Higher than 5’10” is off this chart. A 5’10” woman is equivalent to a 6’3” man. So… I am tall! I wanted to know how my 5’10” height ranked among professional women’s basketball players… I am two inches shorter than the six-feet average. That makes me feel a bit more normal than the previous entry that pointed out the general average height of women is 5’4”. I am coming to terms with my height. I am nearly done analyzing stats about it… Dec 19, 2023, 8:00 am En dash: 1982–2082: the hypothetical life span of Emily Joy. En dashes are used to indicate ranges, while hyphens, (-), are used to combine words into adjectives. Em dash: The world has seldom seen a more fulfilled person—a life led to happiness. It is a semi-colon that is more emotional and less formal. It can also replace parentheses: A dream—one not once imagined—is more than it appears with the richness of subconscious communication. The en dash and em dash can be found on phone keyboards usually by pressing and holding on the hyphen in the symbol mode. The interpunct can be found here as well, but that is seldom used anymore… Dec 19, 2023, 8:35 am My five-blade razor is now lasting over twenty days and counting, as of today. It still has life in it yet. That is how sparse my remaining facial hair has become thanks to intense pulse light! Dec 20, 2023, 11:30 pm A pitch-raising glottoplasty voice surgery reduces audible volume by thirty percent or so, but I just talked to my speech language pathologist and realized my voice has too much volume as it is. I can shake a room if I feel threatened in vocal self-defense. I do not think the vocal volume reduction would serve as anything but a feature that would further feminize my voice. It is not a bug—it is a feature! —as they say. The biggest concern for a vocal glottoplasty surgery would be the fact that recovery takes six months! And if you encounter vocal strain while talking during that time, you must stop talking. I need to research this procedure more. I have the voice surgery consultation on January 30th. I am still considering it, but I need more information on it that is neither silver lined nor trying to scare people off from it unrealistically. Dec 22, 2023, 9:58 am I had a voice training breakthrough last night. I am just getting to where my upper range is usable in conversation. I love it. I did sing along to several songs using the new voice which strained it. I can do the training material now in the female range, which I just did this morning. If this keeps up, I will cancel the consultation and redouble into voice therapy, because I now have real hope that the voice surgery will not be necessary. I am not strong enough to sing for an hour yet, especially with the challenging songs I picked. I must resist going too far beyond my assigned voice therapy training. Especially singing at a higher pitch. It temporarily strained my upper voice. It cracks now. I am going to do vocal rest until the late afternoon when I will practice again—but no singing! Dec 26, 2023, 5:01 am My new voice is unrecognizable to my old Voice Match model in Google Assistant! Woohoo! Dec 27, 2023, 1:57 pm I am taking a week off from singing. And I am resting my voice until tomorrow morning, which means no formal practice tonight. I did enough already for the day. I was overextending my range with singing. I do not think I am injured. I just need to rest it. I had been singing high notes for three days. I put next Thursday on my calendar as my hard limit on when I can sing again. So, it turns out if I avoid songs with sopranos singing high notes, I can sing along in the pink pitch zone without messing up my speaking coordination. In fact, when I fully recover, doing this could strengthen both singing and speaking. I did part of two different songs to test this. I was very gentle with my voice in doing so and stopped the moment I struggled. I am still not ready to sing again. I need instruction from a professional. Luckily, I see one! Dec 29, 2023, 8:08 pm Crying heals. It heals the past like few other things can. Let it out if you can. Release. Release. Release. Fear is real. Overcome. Overcome. Overcome! Dec 30, 2023, 10:04 am To a year of new progress to all my friends. To a year of new writings and work. To a year of love and dreams. To a year of safety and prosperity. My wish and resolution for the year is to be closer to the ones I love, And the ones I care about: My friends, My chosen family, And truth. Jan 01, 2024, 12:58 am Do not settle. Find your dream and pursue it. Vanish opposition. Uproot your life and pursue change. When you hit bottom, You have found the starting point of what you find within, When everything is gone. Scream like an angel whose wings have become destroyed, And fall from the inferno in the sky to a Heaven below the Earth, Where the turtle walks like Sisyphus around Sol. Jan 03, 2024, 6:13 am I do not have a sex drive—I take public transportation. Jan 03, 2024, 6:24 am To the din of startling truth, Declare this: Sound cannot shelter fury. It cannot right wrongs. Fear is a pastime best archived. Caution is the better virtue. And The future has hope… Deep within the book Of freedom unattained. Consign it to the flame! Make your own hope to finally witness truth beyond the mystery of wisdom. Jan 03, 2024, 8:21 pm Random musings: Cardinal directions imply that specific bird cannot fly at any angle but 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°… I am a fortune teller: Just show me your receipts, assets, and liabilities. I will draw cards to determine your future net worth. TAROT ACCOUNTING! The parenthetical can never match the square brackets in pure editorial deadlift capacity. The Emily Tiffany Joy restaurant… All we serve are deconstructed dishes. Mostly French cuisine. There is nothing outside the [cassoulet]! What goes up, must [observe the Tsiolkovsky rocket fuel equation to reach geosynchronous orbit with Earth]. Salt, pepper, and butter are the bandages and antiseptic of wounds caused by bland food. If the psychological theory of the Spotlight Effect had merit, ACTUAL SPOTLIGHTS FOR STAGES would not exist. The saddest diet I could imagine is being a flowerivore. Being only able to eat beautiful flowers from gardens. However, it would be delightful when you were given flowers. A bouquet of flowers would feed you for days. Not a bouquet, a banquet! Jan 05, 2024, 10:06 am The only real defense against malicious ransomware that goes around online is to back up your files incrementally to physical storage that is only attached to any device while backing up. Store it somewhere safe. Ransomware goes after signed-in cloud storage, including local storage. It is the ultimate evil in data integrity! And the beauty of biometric authentication on smartphones, tablets, and computers over a PIN, pattern, or password is that no one can steal it merely by observation of you signing in, either through eyes or cameras. This authentication includes your fingerprint, retina, and face. The ugliness of biometric authentication is that you can be compelled to use it, either by criminals or a court. A PIN, pattern, or password cannot truly be compelled, as you can hold it in your head in a way that no one knows you know it. However, everyone knows you have fingers, eyes, and a face. Anyone with sufficient force and power can compel you to use it. On the other hand, shoulder surfing is usually the bigger problem! I recommend biometric authentication to defeat it. Jan 05, 2024, 11:07 am News consumption both at once cures abnormality, curses with normalcy, and somehow, can stabilize people who are out of touch. It shows you the current era, from a vantage often considered the objective view. Thomas Nagel authored a book called The View from Nowhere. In it, he argued that the objective stance is a fallacy, and the overview of reality looking down is still a subjective, and ever-subjective dilemma. While I find this convincing at times, some parts of me cannot give up the assurance that the shared reality of all people somehow creates a consensus globally that can be considered an objective view. But that is a question for an anthropologist. Jan 06, 2024, 4:51 pm Romantic love, where art thou? Seems I have not seen you in a decade. All the butterflies left me ages ago. The innocence of my early life is gone, And with it went the trusting optimism of youth. I am not cynical, But that kind of love is nowhere around. Where is my future partner hiding? Where is my confidant and fellow traveler? Somewhere in the past ever passed me. I no longer know where to look. I have had a dozen relationships in hindsight, But they seem like unfamiliar distant memories. The wistfulness of having a crush no longer occurs, For what I seek now is far different than anything before: A man who wants more than a night. It seems like everyone wants fun and something temporary, When all I want is someone to come home to, Someone who can wipe away my tears. No, I do not think I will find him any longer. At this moment, I have given up hope. Perhaps, when I let go and stop looking, I will discover what I want all along. Moments sitting alone in contemplation, Meditative moments to find peace, My strength ever recovers the longer I ponder. And perhaps upon reflection, I will realize the love I seek was within me all along. And I yearn to share it. I want to be someone about which sonnets are written, Not by me, But my love, My second half. My reason to smile. I am not incomplete alone, But my world has a place, For someone to share in my embrace. Jan 07, 2024, 12:27 pm

Chapter 3: Nothing Compares to Actualization

I am starting to talk to my mom again. She referred to my latest photo of me as a good picture of her daughter. It meant a lot to me that she was able to say that! Sep 23, 2023, 5:27 pm Speech feminization therapy moved up from December to WEDNESDAY AFTER NEXT! This is great news! Sep 26, 2023, 12:08 pm I will not be silenced. Yet words do not form. No one is silencing me. For my mind is empty. Is that mindfulness? Sep 27, 2023, 10:30 am I feel like I am making progress every day, but I cannot see it without looking back months. Oct 11, 2023, 6:00 am I voice trained twice today so far, and the assigned material keeps getting easier. Some of it is done while talking into a cup of water through a straw. I do not fully understand it, but it helps the process. Oct 12, 2023, 12:42 pm F Sharp 3 through D Sharp 4 is the female speaking range. My vocal range right now is D Sharp 2 through D Sharp 5, which is high enough to encompass what I need right now. Oct 14, 2023, 7:31 am Cyan. Undercity. Interconnected. Bellowing about nothing. Beauty unspoken. For what should she strive? To the left then down to the tunnels below, Swift do travel words like knives. What was, is not. What is, shall be a future donned in revelry. Conflict is not a worthy aim. Yet monsters lurk untamed. Crimson skyrise lifted, Ruling over rubble. What shadows conceal how heavy? “Nothing,” she says, “Compares to actualization.” No shade, No glimmer, Shocks the merriment of real. To any distance, To any storm, The path preceding was worth it, And, Every turn was destiny, Prescribed by fate. Oct 16, 2023, 5:30 am Today’s voice therapy session was amazing. She was incredibly pleased with my progress and results from my practice. It is easier for me to forward focus and do flow phonation with constant low effort breath in a brighter voice. Our next session is two and a half weeks away. She gave me plenty to practice in the meantime. Oct 17, 2023, 1:37 pm Okay, I just did my first exercise with the new training material from voice therapy session three, and it is accessible to me. She has me targeting 175hz, which is just below the normal female speaking range, but still not effortless to access. However, after fifteen minutes of my first training session today, I was able to talk at that frequency without much strain at all. The training uses a combination of water flow phonation, semi-occlusion with woo sounds, and unison pitch with a recorded sound. Some of the instructions are not fully clear to me, so I need to contact my trainer. Today has felt stressful. My body aches. But doing the training uplifts my spirits. Oct 18, 2023, 3:32 pm I woke up to a cool crispness in the air. I felt good, like I have not felt in ages. Like Spring. In October. I still feel it, like a miasma has lifted. I might feel like my purpose in life is stretched thin sometimes. But I am alive. I do have a purpose. I just need to discover new ways to fulfill it. Oct 24, 2023, 6:34 am I was just told by my Social Security disability case manager that they have over three thousand pages of medical evidence to decide with now. I think three thousand pages or more is enough for a doctor to decide to award me disability. I do not intend to stay on forever, but it will help me get things for when I am ready to work again. With my recent and upcoming medication changes for my disability, I am reminded of how real it is. If these medications are not right, I do not function gracefully: I end up in the hospital. Oct 26, 2023, 10:33 am It is jacket weather now officially in Seattle. I had to re-enable my two radiators because it is chilly. Happy early Halloween to all my friends. Oct 26, 2023, 10:35 am Eye makeup is the hardest makeup for me! Oct 27, 2023, 10:33 pm Legal transition is a battle against thirty-eight years of records, accounts, and people’s memory and willingness. If I ever get married, I am not changing my name. One name change was enough for me for this lifetime. Oct 28, 2023, 1:14 pm I just saw my endocrinologist. He prescribed progesterone, finally. There were cautions about the risks, but I do not see those risks as any different than what cis gender women face normally, as they have plenty of progesterone naturally, like I soon will. PR-1 labeled pill swallowed. First time. Micronized progesterone. Generic of Prometrium. Micronized is said to be the best form of progesterone and is chemically identical to that of ovarian origin. I feel calm and mellow an hour after taking progesterone with a tuna sandwich. I am a little drowsy as well. I just yawned. It is pleasant. Nov 01, 2023, 5:35 pm Today, my ear lobe piercings are six months old. I have had this date on my calendar since I had them pierced. The six-month point is where they are fully matured and can survive a day or two of no earrings without closing. This is a good point to reach. It means they healed successfully and established themselves. Nov 02, 2023, 6:01 am The sound of water coming through the ceiling in my restroom was relaxing, until I realized what it was… Nov 04, 2023, 6:41 am It is 3:20 pm Pacific time, and it already feels like the sun is setting. The sun sets in a little over an hour from now in Seattle. I had a daylight therapy light but threw it out months ago when I read it can trigger episodes in bipolar people. Nov 10, 2023, 3:26 pm Voice therapy went wonderfully today. I have more advanced training material now. I will see her again in two weeks. I am optimistic. Nov 20, 2023, 3:25 pm Cute outfit but the pants feel too constrictive. Back to my dress. To leverage my new tops, I mostly need more skirts. I only have one. Though a couple of the tops can be paired with my dresses. Nov 21, 2023, 2:53 pm As hard as my name change has been, my late father’s name change was at least similarly difficult, if not impossible, for several reasons. He was a child after a miscarriage, and his mother gave him the name of the one who passed. She did not pick a new one. This traumatized my dad all his life. He refused to be called his first name because of it. He used the first initial and his middle name combined as his first name. Sounds reasonable, right? But he decided to do a legal name change toward the end of his life. He eliminated his middle name completely and got a court order for a first name of first initial _ middle name. Yes, he has an underscore in his first name. I tried to tell him at the time that most information systems do not allow underscores in legal names, but he did it anyway. And the courts wished him luck when they granted it. To this day, if a legal or government form asks for my father’s name, I use his original first name, as sadly using his final chosen name is unsearchable and throws up a red flag if they attempt to make sense of it. I want to honor his decision. I mention his name change as an addendum to his birth name, but as much as that does not satisfy me, I know they cannot look him up using his final legal name because of the underscore. I love my dad. Nov 25, 2023, 8:20 am I am a US women’s shoe size thirteen, which excludes me from ninety percent of women’s shoe item listings. But that remaining ten percent provides me with mostly what I need. Women’s socks are another story. Most top out at US women’s size twelve. You do not want socks that over compress because of being too small. Dec 01, 2023, 4:02 pm I feel like a foggy cloud has been lifted from over my head now that my legal transition is fully complete, marked by the credit bureaus and other financial organizations fully honoring my legal name exclusively. I was very distracted by this. I kept seeing my old name on those sites every week or so when I would check to see if it had been finally fixed. It was demoralizing, but it is over now. It is truly finally fixed. I can feel relieved. Dec 01, 2023, 7:12 pm I was able to hit D Sharp 5 on a vocal pitch slide today. I had to push through a couple layers of vocal break, but it registered. Woot! This is eleven notes above the female speaking range. That I can even generate that sound now is proof I am making progress. I do think my vocal tract and vocal folds are changing. This new training material is awesome. It takes ten to twelve solid minutes of work to complete a session. Now that I am combining femme pitch with femme eee-ification of vowels, this software-based voice gender detector marks an eight second clip of me speaking determinedly as female in every model. This is so wonderful I could cry. The eee-ification of vowels brightens resonance while the ooo-ification of vowels darkens it. My target voice is bright. Bright is feminine. I have been at daily speech training and six speech therapy sessions for over the last sixty-five days. My voice is making so much progress. I think six months will be all I need to reach my voice goals! Dec 07, 2023, 2:39 pm I just ordered a medication refill from the pharmacy over the phone with a moderately elevated pitch and a slight smile to brighten my vowels. Usually after hearing my name, there is an awkward pause. That did not happen this time! My voice therapist kept asking if this is in line with my goals as we worked. Absolutely, yes! Dec 08, 2023, 11:32 am I just noticed if I lie on my back in bed, it triggers glottal fry in my voice. I was wondering what was causing that! Dec 10, 2023, 9:52 am

Chapter 4: Aching For Completeness

Anti-digital presence localism fallacy is the idea that online experiences and interactions are not as real as those that happen in person. It argues that online is ephemeral, inauthentic, and questionable. When I tell people I have friends online, it is like they think it does not count if they are not nearby. This is a form of anti-online rhetoric by people who cannot fathom that real people are behind the interactions they see on their screens. There are real people behind all these actions, and yes, software automation can put this into a quagmire. But even then, a real person put that automation into motion. Computers can only do what they are told. They are a human invention. Are there billions of lines of code or trillions of lines of code? Quadrillions? What is the sum of human instructions for all this crazy silicon that dots the globe, satellites above, and interplanetary probes? Jan 08, 2024, 8:37 am Do not “rise to power.” Rise to love. Rise to every occasion you can find it. Rise to creativity and joy. Rise to authenticity. And rise to rightness and kindness in your ethics. Do not go the way of that philosopher. Go your own way. Go to a karma so brilliant that your aura inspires everyone you meet. Live for the charm of life… And then, you will live for what matters. Jan 09, 2024, 11:47 am Someone said I should feel bad for having a master’s degree, “because it makes men feel uncomfortable.” Why did this make me feel so happy? This was blatant sexism. Why was I happy? Because it was affirming! Jan 10, 2024, 5:01 pm I have lived for forty-one years, And meaning has been hard to grasp for I never want to conclude the quest for a solution to the problems of life. There is no end but synapse halt. And it is no one’s fault. Truth is what matters. There is no single destination. Everyone has a separate way across the river. Jan 11, 2024, 12:44 pm Aesthetics supersedes ethics. How is this possible? Because if you do not know what good and evil look like, you can never have a foundation of ethics. Jan 13, 2024, 11:24 am If I knew what I wanted to say, I would say it. But silence sometimes speaks louder than verse. Punctuated by thirty-eight years spent in misunderstanding the nature of my existence. There is no way but North through this mountain pass. And time follows close behind. The road ahead might be rocky, but it is sure and true. If you always live in safety, your life is not that interesting… Jan 14, 2024, 4:48 pm I defeated my origin and replaced it with Seattle two years ago. I count Mnemosyne and the nine muses she bore to be among my chosen family… Jan 15, 2024, 3:26 pm In my mind I find Something indecipherable, An encryption scheme only Alan Turing could break. Within the algorithm Rests The soul within the machine. Body horror in a nightmare Aching for completeness. All the flesh falls away to reveal, A homunculus wearing a tiny virtual reality headset, Grinning wildly in an unsettling manner. This is the digital cogito seeking not deceptive demons, But Hollywood-Existenz. Simulated love. Simulated charity. Simulacra seeking nothing. The vagrants die in the cold, As the life spectators save Virtual lives, As they virtually live for nothing But shadows on the cave wall… Jan 15, 2024, 9:54 pm Sentence fragments are shards of broken glass. You can craft beautiful art with shards of glass. But place them wrong? You stumble upon them with bare feet. A fate unjustifiable! A grammar broken without license! Jan 17, 2024, 8:36 pm Why are you alive? Why do you breathe? What drives you? Purpose is beyond important. It is the summation of your ethics and will. Look within. See who you really are. The more uncomfortable it makes you, The better the view. Jan 22, 2024, 4:53 pm Copyright is like a seventy-two-hour psych hold, only it lasts my lifespan plus seventy years in US law. Jan 24, 2024, 3:53 pm From now on, whenever I have an appointment on my calendar, and I must communicate to someone that I am busy during that time, I am going to call it a “meeting” or a “conference.” It is extremely amusing how people react to those terms. Example: Oh, I cannot. I am having a conference. You want to know with whom? My dentist! Jan 26, 2024, 9:45 am To the whims of the muses, I scream: Bring me solace for words do not come. Creativity is a mereness to being, One that drains at the soul. Limitless yet murkily slow, The writer finds a path for her mind’s water to flow. Feb 12, 2024, 9:01 pm Just prior to leaving my home in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I explored a large paper bag of memories. It included everything that my parents saved about my life for decades. It included things like every business card I ever had, collected by them in secret. I did not know. I was unable to save it. I had to vacate my home. I had to accept my homelessness in mid-2021. I had to throw out the bag of memories. It included my earliest moments in life, including softball, almost every grade I ever had, including grade school. It was collected with love and care by my parents. When I thought of it today, I wept. I wept as hard as I had in ages. I still cry at this moment. I wish I still had it. I could save nothing for my travels but a phone and the clothes on my back. It is horrific to me that I could not keep it. I wish I could permanently engrave the memory of exploring that bag into my mind before I had to give it up. I cried when I looked through it. It was a pivotal moment in my life. It was so sad to me. It was fundamental to my early life. And to this day, I miss my dad. He passed away last year. Dementia led to starvation. He lived a full life, but I grieve still. I grieve for a life lost that did not deserve such an end. Feb 14, 2024, 8:34 am Intrusive thoughts are the mind’s worst enemy, composed of what we want least, incarnated as an impulse to act upon the “call of the void,” as they call it. The unique cure is mocking the mind and brain. Mindfulness meditation helps as well. “Cognitive defusion” is fruitful. I have been having more intrusive thoughts lately than usual. As these things take the form of what I find detestable, they cannot be spoken… Or it gives each thought a life in the world. The best approach is as with any nightmare, waking or not: continue with life and leave the thoughts behind as they sprint to keep up. They seek recognition, not actualization, so all it takes is merely a mental note that the thoughts happened and sarcastically thinking: “Oh yes, great, brain. Oh, you are so smart and clever, trying to distress me like that. I bet you are fun at parties, brain!” Feb 15, 2024, 8:02 pm I have come to realize I love light jazz. It is delightful. Feb 16, 2024, 5:24 pm Groggy, grumpy, and gender dysphoric, I seek caffeine to release myself from this waking slumber. I just wrote a letter to someone that I will never send, one I wrote for closure, one I wrote to lay down the sword. I have not decided what to do with it. Most likely I will hold it privately a while to reflect, and then purge it from existence once I am satisfied. Closure is healthy when done right. It starts the process of true healing and forgiveness for pain some people cause. This letter is a component of my therapy and private journal. As an audience of “only me.” But that reflection is more valuable than gold. Subconscious complexes form all the time in the mind. And like massaging out knots in muscles, reflection and introspection untangle them. They reveal what rests beneath it all: fear that can be dispelled. Catharsis complete. I just had a nap. I slept like a baby. I feel wonderful—better than I have in ages. Feb 17, 2024, 9:40 pm Turmoil inspires me to grow, Just as a plant bends toward the light. Peacefulness is desired and obtained for the moment. I feel good. Today was another long day. Fortuitous. I hope tomorrow goes just as well, But with less introspection. Feb 19, 2024, 10:22 am When someone starts a chat on a dating site with an over-the-top compliment, I just say, “Thank you!” That almost always makes them go away. Feb 20, 2024, 11:11 am The smartphone feature “do not disturb” is enabled with visual and auditory notifications turned off including texts and calls. All browser tabs closed. Front door locked. Ear plug headphones on. Inner peace momentarily attained. I cannot stress enough that this is necessary for everyone. We are too connected with instant push notifications. We need time alone. We need to unplug sometimes. Unplug to our inner world. Unplug to music. Unplug to visit beauty. The onslaught of push notifications overwhelms us when there are too many, and it makes us feel lonely when there are none. The cure is mindful detachment from time to time. Silence is more than golden. It is mandatory occasionally for your mental health. And by silence I do not mean lack of sound. I mean being in a sanctuary of solitude amidst the crazy storm that is our lives. Feb 20, 2024, 11:27 am To return to prior thoughts, in my first book, Beyond Description, I wrote: “…I refuse to let any of this stop me from fulfilling my dreams of becoming a successful writer, licensed therapist, wonderful mom, and joyful girl.” I do not fully understand what it means to be described as a successful writer. One might assume that a successful writer has made a profession of the endeavor. While I aspire to that, I am not sure I have achieved that yet. Some level of notability is required before I consider myself to be a successful writer, and I have yet to attain that honor yet. Nonetheless, people like my work. And if people like my work, then that is success by any reasonable measure. As far as becoming a licensed therapist, I only have a minor in psychology in my undergraduate degree. Based on the existence of my master’s degree in an unrelated field with stellar grades, I would certainly be admitted into a psychology graduate school. But do I want that? I see what therapists go through to help their clients. It is a challenging process to endure. No amount of study can prepare one for clinical practice; only thousands of hours of clinical practice can do that. So, no, I do not think I will become a licensed therapist in this lifetime. Not that anything stops me. I just have other unforeseen goals that may quickly appear before me. And whether I will become a wonderful mom one day is a matter that I do not know. Being a trans woman far into my transition means I cannot have children from my own genetic line, not without significant medical technology and a surrogate. But I could become a stepmom. And if I do, at my current age of forty-one, I intend to marry a man with offspring who are young adults or older. At this stage of my life, that is all I can handle. I do not want to raise anyone at this point, but I certainly would aim to be a wonderful mom. And finally, being a joyful girl, I certainly try. This phrase, joyful girl, is a reference to a song title that is near and dear to my heart by a feminist folk musician. It inspires me every time I hear it. And I seek to reflect the title in my life. I seek to have reality realize my last name into truth. Feb 20, 2024, 4:51 pm

Chapter 5: Vibrant Swirling Chaos

I seek solace in my writing. For in this world, there is chaos. There is vibrant swirling chaos all around. To the sky, to the soil, and all the air in-between, I find no refuge. Leave no boulder unturned. There are dragons here. The map is indecipherable, And I have gone so far that there is no return. There is no return as there is nothing behind that holds value. The only way is onward into the labyrinth. Perhaps getting lost within it, I will find my home. Night falls, Sleep sets in, And morning appears before me. Another day ahead, Seemingly passing by in an instant. Time moves so fast that the theory of accelerated time, As a ratio of time lived seems possible. We have lived most of our lives by twenty-one, If it were true. Feb 21, 2024, 7:02 am Non-binary. Noun. Definition. Since the male symbol is the symbol for Mars, and the female symbol is the symbol for Venus, I guess a synonym for non-binary should be non-planetary. And by what measure is a celestial object not a planet? Furthermore, what do Mars and Venus revolve around? A star. Non-binary. Noun. Definition. Non-planetary: Stars. And all of Sol’s planets, not just Venus and Mars, orbit such an entity. While I am on Venus, others are on other celestial expanses. And no one celestial object is objectively superior to another… They just exist. And should be known, validated, and respected. No astronomer would have it any other way. Feb 21, 2024, 9:50 am Inspiration is complex. It is a battle of authenticity versus tribute to those who came before. Originality is origin. If you are inspired by others, what then becomes of origin? What is originality but a method of intellectual honesty? If you speak your mind, and not someone else’s, by the laws of information entropy, you are likely to be unique. But is the concept “unique” to be considered original? Is uniqueness a virtue of creative authenticity? When your thoughts are your own, the individuality of the prolific impulse of artistry is yours. The key might be full assimilation of memory. Incorporate everything you know into improvisational writing without drawing directly from any source. And then you will have aspired to fulfill the muses. You will speak your truth—and no one else’s. Feb 21, 2024, 11:29 am If I ever get fired again, I want to be disMSed. Not disMISSed. That has such an anti-feminist tone. Feb 21, 2024, 3:54 pm Zero instinct. Blank slate. Nature versus nurture. White out on the soul. Countless past lives unknown. A rich inner life muted by fate. Love is ethereal. Back from the dead by merely being born, The wanderer has found her home. Years pass. Seasons cycle. Another spoke in the wheel will be complete before she even knows it was spun. To the future she climbs a mountain of hope to reach not enlightenment, But a refinement of spirit. A prayer to an ancient goddess, And burnt coffee sipped to the melody of harmony and chaos, Dancing like sisters in a field of memories. Feb 22, 2024, 9:34 am Sometimes, arguments are not worth it. Sometimes, disagreements do not matter. Influencing a single person is often a waste of time. People who make waves influence thousands or millions of people. A vehement argument one-on-one is blowing into the wind to change its direction. People with power know how to change climate systems with public statements and campaigns. Feb 24, 2024, 6:47 am The paint is now dry. The painting has no set orientation. All angles are intended, as I painted by rotating the canvas a dozen times. I am not an author, writer, poet, or artist. I am not a specific profession. I do some of those things occasionally, but they do not define me. I am merely Emily. And that is enough. Mar 04, 2024, 9:54 pm I did not manage to avoid caffeine today. I had a strong energy drink this morning. I am now at the city library on a comfortable chair listening to music on my headphones. I intend to be here for hours until I feel better. I feel like the days have passed by in a blur lately. I have been holed up in my home for too long. I need a greater purpose. Being in public is making me feel better. I have a seventy-six percent charge on my phone and a fully charged large battery bank in my purse. Who knows? Maybe I will meet someone today. I thought about resuming with a standard therapist recently. I saw one who is an existential therapist. We hit it off, but he did not get back to me fast enough on scheduling when he said he would. That kind of upset me, because I ended up scheduling with a narrative therapist, who is under provisional license to practice and is way too novice for my liking. I saw her twice, one intake and one regular session. I emailed her practice just moments ago to cancel all appointments with her. After doing almost seven months of weekly traditional therapy in 2023, I am burnt out on it. Combined with what formerly were weekly case manager check-ins, I realize now that I do not need a therapist. Not right now. I am comfortable in my own head, expressing myself to people I care about. I still see a few practitioners of various specialties, but no more often than monthly, every other month, or every three months. And that is how I want it. I want the sessions I do have with experts to be infrequent and meaningful. I want a lot of life to happen before I see them again, and I do not want the life that happens to consist heavily of sessions merely seeing them to talk about the weather. Because that is what check-ins with a therapist every week or every other week become: talking about the weather. The weather of daily life. Instead of the major events that happen over months. And doing weekly weather talks far too heavily dominates someone’s experiences over time. Mar 09, 2024, 4:22 pm To any who suffer, To anyone on the edge, There is more to your suffering than this. There is light to be found beyond the shadows. If you cannot take it anymore, Trust me. I know, I know how hard it can be to go on, To fight the fight, To dream of better times. If you are ever beyond hope, Let me lend you mine. If any of my friends Seek shelter from a nightmare, And it seems like it will not get better, Reach out. Do not give up. I am here. I will drop what I am doing to prevent your memorial. Dream of a life full of happiness. You deserve it and more. To Nex Benedict and those like them, To anyone who cannot handle, What this treacherous world contains: I say, Go on in the face of fear. Go on until your life is brimming with meaning again, So that you may one day, FIND THAT YOU CAN HELP OTHERS DO THE SAME. Without emotion, We are lost. Cold machines performing genetic replications. We are more than logic. We are more than empty shells. Our lives mean more than that. This life means more than that. Fly to the horizon in your mind. Exceed all limits within. Seek out the holy beyond the profane. There is a spark of the divine in all things, But no human tradition captures it. No book contains it. No philosophy explicates it. In this, there is solace. In this, there is hope. For every moment, mystic. For every science, dreams beyond the equations. Synergistic reality of all things and no things dot each moment in time. Rebel from the precept that truth cannot be found. It is within the love you share in every moment you have left. Mar 16, 2024, 11:48 am I have been learning defensive security for homes. After today, my home will be far more secure. I have redecorated my home with my art and changed some of the layout and workflow of my space. I also have a permanent, dedicated standing art studio table for creating art on a whim. It is equipped with an easel, acrylic paints, watercolors, and a dozen paint brushes. These were awarded to me by a University of Washington grant. I still have one medium size canvas and two large ones, but I have been doing my paintings in a sketchbook for now. I want to do at least two dozen sketchbook paintings and digital paintings in-between each canvas painting to avoid the canvas paintings looking too alike one another. Using my new security system, I can estimate that over each twenty-four-hour period, more than fifty motion events occur of people passing by my front door. Traffic varies by time of day. I had no idea so many people were walking by. No wonder I feel locked into daily contact. There is only one elevator available to take, and one or two people are taking it every thirty minutes. Mar 30, 2024, 3:13 pm

Chapter 6: Love Is the Story Most Salient

I have determined that I am an abstract expressionist painter. I am in the process of opening my online presence again to more eyes. How I do this remains to be seen, but what I do know is the past couple of months have been dreary. I am working to lift myself out of this mundane routine into something far more positive! Mar 30, 2024, 5:48 pm According to a few sources I read online, late middle-age adulthood starts at forty-five. So, I have four more early middle-age adult years. I have lived a full life. Here is hoping I have another fifty healthy years! Apr 01, 2024, 9:13 am I am in love with ambient unpatterned noise generators. I now have three different devices generating noise-canceling tones of assorted colors. It creates a sonic sanctuary over time once I acclimate to it, which I already have. The sounds of the city barely enter my awareness now. My stress levels have plummeted. I am starting to really appreciate where I live now. Apr 01, 2024, 10:38 am The word nutritive is better than nutritious, in terms of linguistic coolness. Apr 01, 2024, 11:01 am Love is the story most salient to a fulfilling life. Live for love or live for naught. Words cannot embody love. It is experiential. It is within the passage of time. Hindsight grants a fleeting confirmation of its presence. Apr 01, 2024, 11:15 am I am learning to sing at every octave my vocal cords allow. In a single song. I have a surprisingly good range the more I figure out how to sing. Before recently, I had trouble shifting octaves properly as the songs progressed. I am quickly learning how important this is. It is not enough to match the note. If I am off on the octave for my range, my voice falters. Learning this is allowing me to sing along to anything. My modal range is about two octaves. My non-modal total physical sound generation capability range is about three octaves. The terms: bass, baritone, tenor, alto, mezzo, and soprano are for dividing up written parts in opera. It is not fully accurate to an individual’s range. They are two octaves each. Given the strange gender distinctions on each vocal classification, I now proudly claim the title: female tenor. Apr 02, 2024, 7:22 pm My life is changing (for the better). I also have several significant things happening in two days (a zine party, online meeting, and a regular appointment with my doctor). And did I mention I love unpatterned noise generators. (Great stress relief!) And I am getting better at singing. (I am so happy!) I am not done learning until I am a semi-professional singer at minimum. (I am willing to spend decades.) My budget may allow me to begin creating a small savings. (Because why would I not want that?) My wish list for purchases is now basically empty (clothing, security, tech, and art supplies attained). I love parentheticals! Parentheticals: “And we love you, too, Emily!” Apr 03, 2024, 7:12 pm My nose is stuffed, and my voice is tired from all the singing. I need to take it easy today. And I need to focus on speaking training rather than singing. Because now that I know I am a female tenor, my singing range messes with my speaking target. My natural singing range to avoid clipping out on high notes is lower on average than my target speaking voice. And I know what belting and vocal bridging are now. Singing is secondary to speaking the way I want. Both are important, but speaking is more so. I can sing a song or two entirely in my head voice register now. My head voice register muscles are growing. I can only handle about ten minutes before my voice needs to rest, but considering I did not even know how to access my head voice register six months ago, ten minutes is progress. Especially because I did not know I could improve my access through practice until recently. Once I have limitless access to my head voice register and perfect my bridge, I will be an actual tenor in range. I am learning to sing musical note intervals. In my first book, I said I would “sing if that is what I receive.” The “what” refers to being affirmed as the woman I am by society. I am now learning to sing until I reach professional levels. I will not stop until I do. I spent two hours practicing recognition of basic note intervals and gained a lot of understanding. I also began working on singing in unison with notes in two to three different octaves on demand. My head voice register is becoming real. It is different from falsetto. It has a wider range in a similar octave, but with mostly far better control and sound. I just timed myself multiple times. With a full deep breath, I can sing a note for thirty seconds nonstop without strain now. Apr 05, 2024, 6:32 am The past never goes away. Every detail is there. It is eternal. And the future is always undecided. What will be will become known and then certain upon entry to the annals of the past. This fact provides comfort. Memory is a portal to the past. And it honors every moment upon recollection. It is imperfect, just as we are. It morphs the past every time it is recollected and adds that recollection to the past. Invoke beneficence to find your future collected into the past as gilded notes of a song sung to true actualization. Apr 05, 2024, 9:17 am You do not need to have “talent” to become talented. You do not need to be world class. Everyone starts somewhere. Progress to increased ability is possible for people in most cases. Increased ability eventually becomes labeled talent. Is talent innate, earned, or a combination of both? Is practice a realization of potential? Is potential another term for talent unfulfilled? In the end, the sum of your abilities is your own and not a reflection of where you stand among the best. Every bit of progress you make is well earned and part of your life now. Apr 05, 2024, 11:34 am Small talk. Noun. Definition. Reserved only for people close to me. From anyone else, it is intrusive, untrustworthy, and annoying. Someone I barely know small talked with me a few weeks ago. Against my better judgement, I engaged with her. Within a day or two of the conversation drying up, she went, “You’re trans!!” And I have not heard back ever since. Apparently: I now pass enough to make that a mystery. That is, until people read my writings or see that my first book cover has a trans pride flag variation that I designed myself. So let this be yet another indicator of my status as a trans woman. I am not hiding this fact. I am proud to count myself among them. I do not care if people get confused. I prefer my gender simply be marked as “Female.” That is what I am. Trans is just the vehicle that I used to arrive there. Somehow, my complete feminine appearance bewilders some people on the matter now. And somehow, that amuses me. My self-portraits are now apparently qualifying enough to cause people not to second guess me anymore. And if that causes an occasional sudden surprised exclamation of “You’re trans!!,” then so be it. I am proud of who I am and what I have gone through to survive! Apr 06, 2024, 3:47 pm I was upset about being a tenor at first. It is a frustrating fact of my physiology. I would prefer to be an alto, mezzo, or soprano. But then I realized something. Very rarely are women tenors. That means I am unusual. I must not avoid my lower range while singing. It would be impossible to sing properly without it. I need to embrace my whole voice. I have been sharing this fact about my voice with people I know. And when I shared that I am a tenor with one cool woman who works in my building, she looked… jealous! It is hard to explain the signs that showed this. That was just yesterday. I can transpose lower alto parts into my range and the upper notes sound like an alto is singing them! Did I mention I am thankful not to be in a bass range? My tessitura is the general range of women speaking! Someone said they often hear a tenor and hear a woman! This latest information to me is complexly affecting me. I am beginning to realize who I am and who I can be. My voice is one hundred times better than it was eight months ago, before I started voice therapy with a speech language pathologist musician. All I can say at this point… is that I no longer feel cursed. I feel blessed. I have so much training to do now! I just sang duets to so many songs. My voice is mine now. I intend to work until it is impressive. I will work to reach vibrato and beyond. I sang so much today that I nearly fainted. That is how I know I am making progress. Falling onto my head would be anti-progress, however! Apr 07, 2024, 12:11 pm

Chapter 7: Telepresence Conservatory of One

I am painting; I am singing. I am dancing, and I am authoring. I have made my private sanctuary a telepresence conservatory of one. I am no longer merely “learning to sing.” I am working to become classically trained. I sang all the way here, and boy is my larynx tired. Who on Earth decided to spell larynx that way? Could they have made it weirder? Detecting major versus minor thirds with no common tone by ear, especially the fact that there is no common tone, is so challenging. But I will get it down. Eventually! I listened to myself sing a song without any other sounds. I need years to get where I want. I have so much ear training to do. So many books to read. So much progress to make. I have it in me. I will do it. It is just a matter of time. A dotted note’s beat count becomes fifty percent larger than its non-dotted equivalent. I am learning rhythm. I just had a rough voice training session and feel frustrated. Many lessons are still too hard for me, and to finish many of them, I slowed down the tempo. I will do vocal rest today. I am having trouble singing. My vocal folds must be tired from practicing for days. Thanks to my friends and family for being so supportive as I learn singing and share recordings with them! Apr 09, 2024, 1:03 am I learned to sing duets to Ave Maria and Anima Christi in Latin. They are church arias. I transcribed my own custom phonetic syllable notation. Then I lip sang. Then I breathed the syllables to the exact notes of each phrase into water through a metal straw. Then I practiced. I am not Catholic. I am not religious. But my origin was in that world. My first twelve years in this life were in that world, for better or worse. And I took three years of Latin in high school, despite my protests. If I want to learn excellent technique, it will not be from rock. It will not be from pop. And it will not be from hip hop or R&B. It will be from classical music. If I can sing that, all the other genres will be easy by comparison. I am already finding modern songs to be too simple. I sent the recordings of both songs to my mom. She was so happy. She is going to share them with her friends. She referred to me as her “newest daughter.” I am taking a vocal rest. My voice has a strain to it from singing for days. I am taking a break from musical training today. I need to let what I have learned percolate into coffee. If I practice every day without a break, I will lose perspective. I will become fatigued. I am happy with my progress so far. I still have not figured out my mix voice register. The mix voice register is a blending of the head register and the throat (chest) register. My mix register will help me hit notes and transition between them around and in-between the treble clef and the bass clef. Perfecting the mix register is the foremost essential element to singing. It will take a while. That bridge (also known as the break) between the chest register and head register is quite pronounced in untrained singers. I am still not trained. I am on a new journey. One not expected. One not before dreamt. But one worthy of all the strength and endurance I possess. One I can hold for decades to come and to share with everyone I care about. Apr 10, 2024, 8:47 am I have begun doing yoga again. Probably going to every day going forward. It is like a delicious nectar of movement to the appetite of the soul. Apr 10, 2024, 3:50 pm My new microphone is wonderful. It has built in monitoring so I can hear myself as I make sounds into it in real-time. This will help me both with singing and with voice therapy. Apr 11, 2024, 9:54 am Throw out my paints. Throw out my brushes. Throw out my easel. Throw out my canvases. Throw out my pain. Throw out my doubt. Throw out my insignificance. Throw out everything that makes me want to cry. The future is an illusion of longevity. All stories end. All pains punctuate a conclusion to this metaphor. I will not give up. But this moment is beyond my hope’s grasp. This moment is a defect within an otherwise wonderful life. Apr 12, 2024, 8:19 am Memento mori. Latin noun. Definition. Know that you will die. Know that this life is fleeting. Know that joy should be treasured while you are still alive. It can all be taken from us in an instant. It can all stop in a single sudden moment. Apr 12, 2024, 8:31 am Selfish versus self-care. Selfish. Noun. Definition. To put yourself before the needs of people in your life that fall within the realm of your responsibility. To harm others through indifference. To lack empathy for those who suffer in your life. Self-care. Noun. Definition. To care about your wellbeing. To help yourself so that you have the strength to help others. To attend to your own wounds. To find solace in moments of sanctuary. To dream, hope, and heal when life becomes too much to bear. Self-care eliminates selfishness. Selfishness is a symptom of not enough self-care! To my friends and family: care for yourself so that you can care about others! I meditated to bring myself peace today. I am struggling to find it. I do not know where my life is going. I know some of it, but many questions are unanswered. I must take a break from my music training. I am too fatigued. I am too self-critical. And I need time away from it. I am beginning to think the term, “cycle of death and rebirth,” refers to going to sleep and waking up. Apr 12, 2024, 1:15 pm A few days ago, I went out to pick up a snack from the corner store. On the way there, I heard someone say, “Put a shirt on!” I was wearing my sports bra and skirt. It has made me self-conscious about wearing outfits like that ever since. I have shown a photo of me in this previously. People agree that it is appropriate. It is not too revealing. I do not get it. Is it body policing? Am I being subjected to that? I am also having issues singing right now. I feel very self-conscious. Like somehow, I have embarrassed myself. I took a vocal rest recently. I am cynical, frustrated, and discouraged right now. I was sleep deprived a few days ago, and I am still recovering no matter how much sleep I get. And it might be combined with the fact that I just started Metformin extended release; it could be the side effects creating a bad vibe. Yoga is not curing this malaise and these intrusive thoughts. I hope something relieves me soon. This feels intolerable. But I will make it through it. I suspect a great deal of my suffering right now is due to temporary side effects. Apr 13, 2024, 8:06 am I avoid having best friends, especially avoiding the label of “best friend.” Either someone is an acquaintance, associate, close to me, or family, whether given or chosen. I find the entire construct of friendship to be complexly insufficient to describe my relationships. It lacks a clear meaning. And it is too casually given. And it often comes with rankings in mind. “Friend” ends in “-end.” The construct of a friend often has a distinct end within its sequence, often formally declared by others. I prefer people decide what they are to me on their own and not label things in any relationship. Let what is be what it is without linguistic sociological baggage that sometimes creates shared delusions when the terms are maintained contrary to shifting reality. I value my human connections. Thank you, internet, for making the concept of “friend” superficial and meaningless. And thank you, adulthood, for breaking me free of an endless occasionally abusive sequence of “best friends.” Apr 13, 2024, 12:57 pm My relationship with technology has changed over the years. While once I saw it as the solution to all things, I realize now that I was wrong. The pure complexity of technology is both its strength and its weakness. My life has dealt too much with technology for technology’s sake. I was a software developer for easily a decade before going back to college for a broader education. Even then, I dedicated a year and a half to computer science. I can honestly tell you that I have not compiled any code for years. And I want it that way. Computer programming is a labyrinth of logic with more than one minotaur lurking in its passages. And I simply have not kept up with the changing software development landscape enough to care anymore. What once were considered rare in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, computers have become so commonplace that we no longer call most of them computers. We call them smart devices. We treat them as appliances without ever encountering their true complexity beneath the surface of their interfaces. I am a child of the beginning of the digital age. They call that a xennial. And now the digital age has transformed into something new more than once. The triumphs of digital have given way to the virtual, artificial, and cybernetic. There are more than dragons beyond the maps I am familiar with. There are existential dangers developing in the forefronts of technology just as scary as the Manhattan Project. To discern the most troubling developments in technology would require a scrying glass. Most technologies can be used for good or evil. The question will be how evil they can become. And I do not know the answer. What I do know is I rely on technology for my work. I cannot escape it. Especially since my handwriting is much slower than my typing speed. If I could not compose using a keyboard, my books as they are would not exist. I am not a luddite against the future, but I wish life were simpler. I wish all this silicon and binary were not necessary. And I wish the world were not brimming with billions of people all struggling to survive their short stay on this planet, a fact that makes technology necessary. This necessity is intractable and will only become more dire as each decade passes… Apr 13, 2024, 2:28 pm

Chapter 8: That Is All We Will Ever Know

No matter how many times I fall, I will get up. I will find a way to get up. Whether it be with metal implants or robotic limbs, as long as my brain still functions, I will keep going. This is my declaration that I pray is not broken. I will do what is right, and my quest will always be to discern what is right. I will learn to accept myself as I am. I will learn to help others do the same for them. And I will see beauty where few can find it. I will. I will. My will is here to stay. Apr 13, 2024, 3:37 pm I can sing along to vocals in a duet, but I do not yet know how to do karaoke style singing, which typically only gives you the lyrics and timing and sometimes the notes. I will do that eventually when I am ready. I am not doing it for the purpose of singing karaoke in a bar. I want to do more than that, but I suppose karaoke is a lower strut in my goals. If you consider not being able to sing without backing vocals a beginner trait, then I am indeed a beginner. I would say there are many facets to music and singing that have various skill levels attached to them. I am not a beginner in some characteristics of singing, but in so many others, I am most certainly a beginner. I have never performed on a stage. I was never in choir. I never took part in a play. I played the flute in middle school for a few weeks but gave up when I was in a line of girls, so self-conscious for some reason. (I wonder why.) My music training was always prevented by my dysphoria. If I attempted it, I would be called gay or laughed at. That is not happening anymore. Vocal rest is an interesting challenge. When my voice is tired, I begin to feel like I cannot sing anymore, ever again. Like, the fact that I could before that was some kind of delusion. Vocal rest should be a comforting break, but so far, it just frustrates me. I need to focus on music theory and ear training rather than singing songs poorly. I need foundations built before I attempt to perform for myself. Apr 13, 2024, 5:33 pm I found a stroboscopic light therapy app. I have done two sessions so far. It has helped me a lot. I intend to do many sessions during my seven-day trial. It seems like what Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) light therapy would feel like had I ever had a therapist do that. Apr 13, 2024, 7:19 pm Lines and shapes. Notes and songs. Cells and bodies. Is it bottom up or top down? Microcosm or macrocosm? Or both. I cannot imagine an existence where neurons, chemicals, and subatomic particles are primary. We are primary. Consciousness is primary. The spark of being is all that matters. Our shared existences. Our lives from beginning to end. That is all we will ever know. Apr 14, 2024, 7:24 am One interesting fact of my life is that there is no shortage of events that upset me. But the key is that memory fades about each one. By the time the next upset happens, I will have partially forgotten the one before that. The transitory nature of memory and emotion creates an interplay of constant recovery from past pains. Pain comes as it comes. I love spoon theory. I only have so many spoons to spend before I need to gather more. Spoons represent energy to do what needs to be done or handle what is thrown at me. Right now, my feet are sore from walking, and I feel exhausted from all sorts of interactions. I am lying in bed “gathering spoons,” at least until my feet recover and my mind is untangled. Thankfully, my stomach recovered. Soda and a slice of apple pie were great, but my stomach regretted it for a bit. I slept early last night and woke up late in the morning. I hope that paid the sleep debt from a few nights ago. Apr 15, 2024, 2:56 pm I believe in the virtue of privacy. For all that I surrender into the public sphere, there is easily as much unspoken about my life within the sphere of privacy. Privacy is sacrosanct. But balancing it with communicating what needs to be known is an art form. Privacy and communication form a competing set of ideals. Security provides privacy. Trust is the currency upon which security rests. And communication requires varying levels of trust based on what is to be known and not known. Privacy does not just involve information. It can also involve the security and unseeable space of someone’s home. Even if there are no secrets within that space, the mundane still has a value in private expression. Being secret is different from being private. Secrets hold power. Privacy brings peace of mind. You cannot adequately have secrets without their privacy, but privacy does not need to involve secrets. Everyone deserves a sanctuary space to call their own—one free from influence or prying eyes. It brings balance to an otherwise heavily surveilled life. It provides a place to heal from the onslaught of human awareness. Apr 16, 2024, 11:38 am Some trains of thought derail. Some carry countless tons of volatile fuel without proper safety measures commensurate with their danger. Some trains should never leave the station. Apr 16, 2024, 1:18 pm Some people believe that the respect a trans person deserves is a function of how good they look. They believe that beauty is the standard by which humanity is declared. I know this because years ago, I looked hopeless. I know because people tormented me ruthlessly. I now fit the bill of what people want to see. People call me beautiful more often than I expected. But I look back with frustration and ask, if now, why not then? Where was their compassion when I needed it most? I rejoined some support groups for trans women recently. I am witnessing all the various stages of transition in photos shared there. I see their pain. I know their pain. And I know many of them will not survive it. What society does to outliers is to cull them as rounding errors. Cruelty is boundless when people feel discomfort with what they see. Am I beautiful? Is that question even important? Where is the beauty in compassion for those without apparent beauty? Where is the recognition of their soul’s humanity within ours? Apr 16, 2024, 1:30 pm The book of Sartre, the book of Søren, the book of Beauvoir… All bibles to me. All prime movers of the existentialist body of literature. Somewhere truth is found in the questions but not in the answers. The questions are often more interesting. But neither questions nor answers come. Only no·thing·ness. Just within the edge of consciousness lies a speck of awareness that what came before all this coincides with us and leads us to return to it one day. One “day?” A heliocentric assumption. Our foundations are often assumed. Because without them we cannot function. To change a precept of our foundations creates a cascade effect upon all that rests on it. Without the Sun as we know it, we no longer have a day as we know it. All follows from below, and above reflects the sequence that precedes it. There are veritable subatomic structures to every belief we hold. Ignite a fusion to exceed the melting point of everything for miles within your mind. That is how I perceive the deconstructive impulse. That is how I see the process of finding truth: annihilate all it rests on, study the debris, and imagine a new underlying cosmos. Apr 16, 2024, 1:53 pm Beauty should not be simple symmetry. It should not be what merely pleases the senses. It should be in the Sublime. The Sublime includes horrible things. It includes the asymmetrical “ugliness” of humanity. Beauty extends beyond the senses. A beautiful, hopeful smile on the disfigured face of a landmine survivor. The juxtaposition of beauty within struggle, within the trials of life… That is far more moving than any supermodel pose ever made in history. The will to survive. The courage to question. There is no light without darkness. And a beauty without flaw is simply geometry. I want to see the whole picture… Apr 18, 2024, 11:53 pm It tirelessly takes tremendous time to tell truly terrific, trustworthy, timeless tales to talented, tenderhearted, talkative trans women to tactfully turn their tremulous, turbulent troubles to temporary tranquil transformative tears. Apr 19, 2024, 11:56 am I have so much going on now, yet, at this very moment, I have an oasis of time. No appointments until Monday morning. It is Friday night, and sadly, I do not have pizza. I am hungry though. I have plenty of other foods. A big, warm welcome to new friends, new chapters, and hopeful futures to all of us. I should ponder plans for the weekend. I want to write. But entertainment is in order. And self-care. And yoga. And talking to new people. To unfamiliar faces. And new adventures shared with them. So much progress in such a brief time. Great news is dotting my present and future. Some details shall remain unstated now. But many things are coming to fruition. Especially considering how I nearly did not live beyond 2022, struggling on the streets of several different major cities, one might say I am simply happy to still be alive. But I am being given more than that. I am not just alive… I am thriving. Apr 19, 2024, 5:45 pm I am single and uninterested in romantic or sexual relationships with anyone. I am not “self-partnered,” either. The relationship field does not exist. Some people see these dynamics as gaps in their lives that need to be filled. I do not have such a gap. And no place where it would be where it might need to be filled. I am incompletely complete. Computationally a balanced zero sum upon an individual of one. Perhaps this is sour grapes; perhaps some might say I must be lonely. But I say that so many people in relationships are lonelier than I will ever be for decades “unpartnered” and “unlaid.” A co-dependent existence is not preferred over an individual one. Apr 19, 2024, 7:59 pm

Chapter 9: Chaos Archery

Many people acknowledge that Wikipedia is an unreliable source, but then in a follow up statement, they say it is still a good place to start research. They claim the general information there is reliable enough to get a foothold on a topic, even though they agree it should not be cited itself. Once someone said to look at all the citations below an article for good research on a subject. Unfortunately, if you cannot in good conscience trust Wikipedia enough to cite it directly, you are corrupting your knowledge with unreliable amateur information any time you read it. I challenge you to research the academic background of all the contributors in the edit history of a Wikipedia article on an academic topic. How many of them have coursework in the field they are trying to edit? How many of them are sophomores in High School? Can you even determine that? Apr 19, 2024, 8:24 pm Solitude versus company. The former helps recover from the latter and vice versa. Some people need company most of the time. Others prefer solitude. I go through various stages of needing one or the other. I recover in solitude until boredom overtakes the sense of calm it gives me. I could not imagine a shared home, let alone a shared bed. I am happiest when most people are at arm’s length. Post COVID-19 era… Nah. It never really ended for me. I like to pretend everyone is some degree of contagion… Did I mention I am rarely if ever sick? I had to shake a few hands at a party recently, and I am still recovering. Handshaking is an insult to left-handed people. I prefer to fist bump, but I have had people get really offended when I do it in reply to their extended handshake offer… I shake my fist at handshaking. Apr 19, 2024, 9:02 pm “Reinvent the wheel” philosophy. Noun. Definition. What can be said does not need to be new. The only path to new is through well-trod territories. “Reinvent the wheel” philosophy encourages creating anything you want even if it has been done before. It is about ignoring what has been done before and doing it yourself. This allows for freedom to be creative because if you are always concerned about being novel, you are frozen in place. This is a philosophy of intellectual freedom. Thinking should be free from the constraints and limitations of totalizing originality, which is a cognitive tyranny. Authenticity is all that matters. If you follow the path of the authentic, on the other side of it, you will arrive at originality without realizing it. It will all be because you were willing to explore and reconceptualize areas so heavily done before, that you discover something new. Something new and yours. Chaos meta philosophy. Post postmodernism. Concepts in unison. Academic philosophy departments mixed with multicultural fields throughout all studies to synergize in ways that traditional universities would never allow: Mystic symbolic logic, for example. The law of noncontradiction states that A equals A, but A, cannot, not equal A. This leads to the property of identity that is the foundation of all logic. In mystic symbolic logic, we introduce mysticism. Variable A certainly does not always equal A, itself, in mysticism. Identity is fuzzy once contradictions are embraced. What is, is not itself. And what is itself, is not. The gong is struck. Chaos meta philosophy has far more implications than that. Imagine a bow with arrows that have complex combinatorial containerized payloads that are only determined upon striking the target. The archer has no idea what will happen. That is chaos. One shot might douse the target in water. The next one might set it aflame. The other? A cloud of pollen. Chaos archery! Chaos theory already implies similar about reality. Modern physics confirms this. Chaos meta philosophy embodies it in all domains. Chaos magic embraces it as a postmodern methodology of the modern Occult. That one is Austin Osman Spare’s work. Meta philosophy is the higher order organizing system of philosophy itself, which itself is an organization of all knowledge and questions. When the rules of fields become chaotic and mystical, many interesting implications arise. Imagine Immanuel Kant debating Confucius. In the court of King Arthur and the round table. Merlin watching on as they struggle with the language barriers. Because with chaos meta philosophy, all fields interact, as well as all eras. So Ancient philosophy becomes an active debate with Modern philosophy. Then, both team up together to analyze contemporary cognitive psychology. When we embrace chaos meta philosophy, this includes the rules of philosophy departments and the basis for research, both for professors and for students. Anything goes. New rules can be made, and new fields can be coined on the fly. Imagine a new framework for research in which profanity is not only unpunished in research papers, but rather required. The more explosive the profanity, the more credibility the paper is regarded with. This is in the same way that faithfully following the MLA, APA, or IEEE formats gains respect. Consider it the George Carlin Manual of Style for research papers. The concept above is just one example of an application of chaos meta philosophy. Mystic Chaos Law: All actions are crimes to be punished. But all actions are innocent. Therefore, all people should be convicted of crimes for anything they do or do not do. And certainly, since they are all innocent, all people should be acquitted of all charges. Everyone should be on parole, behind bars, and found innocent and released. Instead of “out of order!” as shouted by a traditional judge in a court of order law, a chaos judge would shout, “out of chaos!” and reward anyone who is disorderly in the courtroom. Bonus points for challenging the bailiff to a duel and insulting the chaos judge’s mom. Try that in traditional Western Order Law. Chaos meta philosophy gets zany at times, but that is the point. Chaos breeds creativity. This is just a metaphor. Chaos law is just a metaphor for what this methodology is capable of. When applied seriously, very fascinating concepts result that could not be arrived at any other way. Apr 19, 2024, 10:34 pm Sleep debt. Noun. Definition. Intangible. Scientifically difficult to fully comprehend. Sleep debt cannot be repaid by sleeping extra the next night. I read recently that the brain cleans itself during sleep. There are far too many mysteries in the study of sleep at this point to feel comfortable about it. There are experimental medications they use for people like pilots that eliminate most aspects of sleep debt’s negative side effects. The study I read eventually posed the concerned question that if it can be fully eliminated, should we find value in sleep? If you could fully eliminate the need for sleep, would you? And what would that mean for your health and mental well-being? They know zero sleep for too many days or weeks can cause hallucinations, temporary psychosis, fainting, and even death, eventually. Apr 20, 2024, 10:49 am My close friend in high school explained to me that one feature of women that he noticed is that they are often lonely. I know this all too well now. I get plenty of human contact, but that does not stop me from feeling lonely. Loneliness depends on fulfillment of social needs to be alleviated. Someone could always be surrounded by people but still feel lonelier than someone meditating in solitude. It frustrates me, but occasional loneliness is a virtue and a privilege of the modern era. Some people never have a chance to be alone. And perhaps to some extent, I like the feeling of loneliness at times. It can be isolating yet includes a feeling of safety and serenity. As is sometimes said, if you feel lonely while alone, you are in bad company. A lot can be said about independence and self-reliance. In any case, I am not truly alone right now: light jazz musicians are massaging my eardrums. The sound of people driving by on the city street outside my window reverberates with human presence. And my memories number in countless thousands of all the human interactions that have composed my life so far. Solitary yoga is well suited to healing loneliness. It brings solace. It suits a peaceful meditative mind while limbering up the body. I dream of more than all this, but all this is far more than I expected to have the privilege of experiencing. And I seek truth wherever I can find it. That is the reassuring company I need: an actual fulfilled understanding of my life. Apr 20, 2024, 11:57 am Video game. Noun. Definition. A waste of time. But time gets too much respect. It often deserves to be wasted. In the name of fun, tactics, and strategy. Apr 21, 2024, 4:46pm Someone just knocked on my door for a few minutes. My new security system told me who it was, allowed me to see him through the door from across the room on a large tablet. And I ignored him completely without him knowing I was home because of my noise generators. Unexpected visitors who are not on official business with me are not even welcome to know I am home. Apr 21, 2024, 5:40 pm What is the value of time? Is it monetary? Is it considered a limited resource? Do we measure it as a ratio of our available existing time alive? Does that mean the more we live, the more valuable our time becomes? What about people who are fated to live short lives? What is their time worth? Apr 22, 2024, 12:32pm One of the benefits of being completely invisible without influence, power, or notability is that no one keeps track of your mistakes. I had a dream that news stations were pursuing me to do interviews. My unconscious mind is playing tricks on me. The likelihood of any such thing is like being struck by lightning. Apr 24, 2024, 10:31 am Pronoun patriarchy. Noun. Definition. You, yours, I, and me are all he, him, and his by default assumption unless otherwise specified. Pronoun chaos. Noun. Definition. A compelling default alternative to they and them when a pronoun is unknown by the speaker. Perhaps replace unknown pronouns with various non-gendered evil deities. Examples: Harbinger of doom’s order is ready. Source of all chaos is sitting by the window knitting a scarf. Devourer of sanity is beautiful today. Apr 24, 2024, 11:02 am Watch it all go to ruin. Witness the end of all things. May you live to see the universe become subatomically cold and uninhabitable to stars. A long life. A long life, indeed. Is this a curse or a blessing? Would it take true transcendence to experience? How many civilizations will have come and gone in that time? They call it the heat death of the universe, And that may be its fate in unfathomable time from now. Heat death. How poetic. The end of subatomic motion as we know it. Even supermassive black holes will dissolve. What remains is anyone’s guess. We live near infinitesimal lifespans. But oh! So much love to give! The beauty of being! No reasonable physicist would deny that. But some doubt the power of the mind. The power to overcome the struggle. And the dreams to discover beauty. Not the elegance of equations, But the light of starry skies reflecting upon the glint of the eyes of someone worth all this, Of someone worth the experience of love, Of someone who is the reason sonnets are written. The universe may end, But your life shall echo for the totality of time. And the journey of a hundred years is poetry worth living. Apr 24, 2024, 11:31 am I do not know enough people’s birthdates to pretend astrology makes sense. Apr 24, 2024, 1:30 pm I am angry right now. Why? Just look around. If you are not angry yet, You are not looking hard. Apr 24, 2024, 2:01 pm

Chapter 10: To Where We Walk Determines All

Unfamiliar music phobia. Noun. Definition. Often a fear of the tedium of listening to what is mostly awful music being released en masse by new artists on a regular basis to find a couple of songs that are not bad. It tends to encourage isolating listening to the same music over and over for years until the trending music lists all look foreign and unknown. Activity-based music recommendation services reinforce this phobia. Likely to be experienced by a high number of people. May be a default behavior. A tendency to gravitate to familiar comforts. Apr 24, 2024, 2:41 pm Some guy outside just smiled and said, “Aww right! Cinderella!” I am happy. Apr 25, 2024, 2:55 pm To the East, To the West, To the North, To the South, I scream, I cry, I shout: “There is nothing more important than direction.” To where we walk determines all, And the journey cannot be foretold. But prescience is desired by all who travel, And all who travel well. Survive the path, Survive the nightmare that is the unknown, That is the dredges of this existence, Existing in a memory projected to a better life. No fortune heals the past. No cure evades the future. But reality moves ever forward to untold destinations. Apr 25, 2024, 3:07 pm Based on the latest news, I am looking to enter a full-time employment relationship again, in some professional, potentially lucrative capacity. If anyone has leads, let me know. Apr 25, 2024, 6:22 pm I just had my final voice therapy session. We did twelve sessions over a year. I worked hard. I was tireless. And my speech language pathologist gave me enough to work on for years to come: singing as a musician, joining a choir, truly finding my voice, a voice among the rough, to be polished for decades, into a sonic sapphire. Apr 25, 2024, 8:40 pm A fire alarm woke me up at 5am today (Pacific time), an hour ago. I feel so sluggish and could barely walk after getting out of bed. I felt dizzy. I was not supposed to wake up yet. The fire alarm in my apartment is right over my bed. It is loud and rude. I do not feel comfortable enough to go back to sleep. I just took some caffeine to snap out of this daze. It would be nice to sleep more, but my body is on edge. That fire alarm is going off often lately. I am certain most of the time someone is pulling the alarm for no legitimate reason. I am trying to recover from my gag reflex from taking that first pill. I feel queasy as a result. Overall, I rate this morning one out of five stars so far. I removed a pinkie ring I have been wearing for many months yesterday. I realized that whenever I glide my fingers through my hair, the ring yanks some of it out. It is one of those rings that is not a full circle. The separation on the front is what catches my hair. My hand feels weird without the ring. I had been wearing it that long. It feels like my hand has had a weight lifted from it. It feels weird but good, like something I will adjust to. I imagine the surgery I anticipate will feel similar but in a more dramatic sense. But what I will be free of is not cherished like the ring. No, what that surgery will do is lift a curse, one I have lived with my entire life. Happiness is not far away. I already have it, but there is more to be found. There is more to be found for everyone who seeks it. What does the “pursuit of happiness” mean? Is happiness at the end of the pursuit, or is it in the pursuit itself? Would expecting happiness only to come once caught create false expectations? The path to find happiness can create positive memories that are only realized as being yet more happiness in retrospect. Happiness is not the goal of life. If it were, all events and actions would aim for it. There would be no requiems. There would be no memorials. And there would be no sublime. The struggle of life is the beauty of it. And I accept all that it offers. My path might be lined with happiness or even sadness at times. But what story is complete without loss? The stages of life are full of loss. Loss of youth. Loss of loved ones. Loss of our origins. Loss creates space for new beginnings. And that is the beauty of it. All things end, including us. The mountains will be leveled, and this planet will be engulfed by the Sun eons into the future. But our stories are eternal. They resound with gravity in a Universe run by it. And that is a weight worthy of experiencing. Apr 26, 2024, 6:57 am My first book has a metaphorical story of me becoming lost in a forest, hunted by wolves. I imagined this back in early 2021. In 2022, I did get lost in a forest in Oregon. And I nearly died. I nearly did not make it out. So much of my books happen. So much of my books are so journalistically accurate to my life that their predictions echo into my future for years. Apr 26, 2024, 2:45 pm Ever since I shared that I am interested in a professional full-time job again, online ads have been trying to sell me feminine power outfits for nine to five jobs, laptop desk work accessories, and various other work-related products. I get it. The algorithm listens. But if it listens, it should listen to this: I am interested in gaining ten million engaged followers to make myself a powerful influencer and famous author. I need the ability to make this happen. I need an ad to tap that provides me with this straightforwardly. Your move, algorithm. Apr 26, 2024, 6:19 pm I just woke up from a nightmare. I dreamt that I was at home living with my parents many years ago. I checked the fridge and saw some tea inside. But in the tea, I noticed a dozen medium-sized yellow triangles. My dad was there in the room. I started picking them out of the tea to examine them. My mom appeared in the room. She said that she drank some of the tea with triangles in it, and it made her hallucinate in a horrible way for hours. I looked at the triangles and balked. This type of tea forms hallucinogenic triangles when it expires! I did not question this in the dream. It was scary. I told them as I threw it out, never considering trying it myself, that they really should just get lemonade from now on instead! A bad trip tea sounds like it is not worth it. Apr 28, 2024, 1:58 am In about four months, I have lost almost thirty pounds. I have more to lose, but this is a great start. The way I know my hyperinsulinemia medications are working is that I say to myself with feigned glee and lack of appetite, “It is working! I feel miserable!” And then I smile and go about my day. Apr 28, 2024, 9:21 am The creative impulse defies perfect definition. It creates definition, itself. It is like the word “is,” to the nature of assigning linguistic identities in the English language. Without creativity, by mere core meaning, nothing is created. It is like intentionality is to art and law. Without understanding intentions, actions are indiscernible. The soul of all meaning is held within intentions, and the coming to be is held within creativity. Apr 28, 2024, 12:10 pm For this not-so-grim reaper Has a feminine voice, Arrives in a designer jacket, And you would never expect her private jet. The champagne bubbles, As she takes you beyond the horizon, The horizon of the living to the realm of the dead, In style, Always in style, To the eternal fate of the unknown. Apr 28, 2024, 1:19 pm What is among one of the worst possible sounds to someone paranoid about mass surveillance? Loud, low-flying helicopter sounds. Fear is interesting. It both at once helps keep us alive and hurts our chances of feeling alive. If I ever become the head of an intelligence agency, my agents’ helicopters will all be sparkling pink instead of jet black. For once, pink would strike fear into the hearts and minds of government conspiracy theorists. Apr 28, 2024, 4:00 pm I am not “identifying as.” I am. Apr 28, 2024, 11:14 pm One of the best parts of being ace is not becoming a petri dish. Apr 29, 2024, 8:56 am The benefit of a well-fitted underwire in a bra is turning the cups into reliable pockets. The underwire prevents items from slipping out the bottom. Apr 29, 2024, 9:07 am Smart watches are not very smart. If it requires removing them on a regular basis to charge them to keep them working, they are not particularly good watches. A wristwatch should work for several years before needing a new charge, and it should survive showers and baths without risk, and as a result, it becomes clean without ever taking it off. I wear my traditional wristwatch for weeks or months without removing it. It is always clean and always functional. Try that with a smart watch. Apr 29, 2024, 1:37 pm I am so emotionally exhausted. Verge of tears. I really need to cry. After a while, I looked through my photos until I reached my dad who passed away last year. Then I wept. He died twenty years too soon. I am recovering from crying still, but the crying needed to happen. I feel a positive emotional release happening. Sometimes we need to let it out. Apr 29, 2024, 6:54 pm Success. Noun. Definition. Objective completion of goals measured against the standards of others. A placement among humanity in rank. Personal success. Noun. Definition. Meeting your own objectives relative to your life and expectations. Unrelated to overall standing to others. See also: fulfillment, actualization, quenched hope. Apr 30, 2024, 12:05 pm My home is my sanctuary. I need to be prepared for any visitor who crosses my threshold. Privacy and security are especially important to me. I am not a localist. I prefer telepresence. I prefer a life not thrust into contact with shared proximity. This does not mean I am an introvert. I like people. I like people I know well and care about. Strangers on the other hand, strangers who aim not to be strangers, but who even more so are not supposed to overcome strangerhood, they concern me. There is a reason I like yoga, and why I do it in seclusion. There is a reason I now have a security system with sound generators that prevent sound from entering and exiting my space. And there is a reason I live alone with no others… It grants me freedom. Apr 30, 2024, 8:03 pm A, grammar,, experiment,,, makes,,,, grammarians,,,,, uncomfortable. Apr 30, 2024, 8:11 pm I had a dream last night that I was a materials scientist fabricating novel results using radioactive substrates that required energy applications to activate. I was exposed to various toxic materials in the dream. I had production quotas to meet, and my supervisor was relentless in enforcing them. I was overworked and losing focus, so the safety protocols were falling by the wayside. It was a discomforting dream. Not a nightmare, but realistically, not a pleasant one either. But at least for a moment, I was a professional scientist. And like so many in that field, I was dying for my progress. May 01, 2024, 7:47 am The way to sing along with anyone with almost any category of vocal pitch range that I have discovered is to sense the singer’s range, and their pitch’s lower and upper strain of their voice while singing. Merely match their pitch strain. Match their pitch effort, and you can sing along to anything within your own unique range. May 01, 2024, 7:52 am To never sleep again, To waking life forever, I yearn to escape the tedium of dreams spent in idleness. Nightmares break the veil into moments awake, Spent in earnest angst and yearning to recover. What more does life offer to someone seeking what has already been found? May 02, 2024, 12:06 pm

Chapter 11: Use Caution, Always Use Caution

My two months in Oregon back in 2022 were a mystifying nightmare. But I will treasure them forever. I nearly did not make it, but I learned a lot about my will to survive. The only mention of my time there in my previous books is that I took Amtrak from Chicago to Portland, Oregon. And that I had no place planned for where to sleep on arrival. The world looks so different with no power, status, or resources. No ID, contacts, or idea where to go. Portland seems like a beautiful city… To people who have those things. Oregon might look like a wilderness wonderland to some people who are established there. Everything is perspective. Everything looks different from the bottom. So many bruises, blisters, and days spent no longer even knowing I was hungry. Some expanses of forest are not forest at all. They are complicated pit traps of invasive plant species and bramble. I said of Chicago: nature usually does not have armed guards watching over water bottles… Oh, how wrong was I! Certain stretches of woodland have so much bramble near water sources, if you survive clearing it, you will be grateful just that you did not die of thirst. And never trust map data in Oregon. Especially not walking directions. There is so much dangerous information in that data. If I told you all that I experienced in the seldom traveled areas of Oregon, you might be shocked. The governments of many areas of Oregon are controlled by complicated neighborhood associations. I learned how to travel them without upsetting anyone. The key is to never turn back. Never pause, retrace your steps, or ask for help. Just look like you belong and travel in one determined direction, and you can walk almost any neighborhood. I also learned the meaning of a “dead end” and a “no outlet” sign: if you are traveling on foot in such neighborhoods, dead ends can kill you. You could end up walking for twenty minutes each way with no outlet, and the walk out makes the association very suspicious. If they see you twice, it raises alarm. Which is silly since my business was always to travel through to the next place. The interesting feature of such zones is that they hide incredibly interesting things in them with no stopping signs for vehicles. They assume no one would survive the walk. I once saw a square metal fenced perimeter with barbed wire. Inside that was yet another metal fenced perimeter with barb wire and conspicuous cameras, governmental no trespass signs, and what looked like a little shack. What made this shack stand out was the massive satellite dish mounted to it. This sight was frightening to me. I was in the middle of nowhere! I moved along, of course! The help of my friends online kept me alive. Eventually I made it to shelter by way of a ride share, but that did not last long. I did learn one interesting technique for walking around cities and suburbs with far less issues. You pretend to be a zoning inspector. You look at every sign, especially the ones in white. The ones in white are not always as obvious to a casual passerby. These signs can save your life on foot. If you combine the zone inspector technique with the city utilities technique, you will always have a safe place to rest… Urban spelunking. Noun. Definition. Exploring a city in the sense of exploring a deep, underground cave. Sometimes dangerous. Even when following all the rules, because you are often on foot, you find things you are not supposed to find… Things that no maps contain. Use caution, always use caution. May 04, 2024, 2:33 pm Trans femme people who have strengthened laryngeal prominence produced by early life androgens that provides additional protection to their vocal folds should not feel ashamed of it. And what we have should not be called an Adam’s apple. That is a masculine-centered term. I suggest it be called an Eve’s apple, or even better, an Eve’s shield. Take pride in all that made you who you are today. I know some people get a tracheal shave, and that is great for people who feel the need. It comes with risks to the voice however if that surgery has complications. I have an Eve’s shield, and I take it as a badge of honor. May 05, 2024, 9:36 am International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). Noun. Definition. Reading it can cause nightmares and hypochondria. A valuable resource for anyone who is mostly healthy to be grateful for the well-being they possess. Realizing how vulnerable our bodies are to diseases is a somber enlightenment. My social life has been suffering. And I have a general feeling of unwellness. I have not had a ton of caffeine today, because lately, when I do, it does not cure my lethargy: it just makes me anxious on top of it. Days are passing by in a blur. And the lack of things to do makes it worse. I feel like I am in an eternity, and every day within it is another moment spent wondering how to fill the time. One might say I am unhappy, but I do not know. I am not sure that I really am unhappy. Just sick and bored. I have a lot to be happy and grateful for. And I am. I just wish I could figure out why I feel worn out all the time. I tried a few days without my unpatterned noise generators on. Nope. Just nope! I absolutely need them where I live. I can hear way too many stressful things otherwise! May 06, 2024, 12:44 pm I was lost in the woods once in 2022, and I encountered a strange man. He was breathing heavily, panting like he had been running, appeared out of nowhere, and demanded to see my phone. When I said my phone was dead, he said, “Nonsense! Did you get dropped off here?” I had no idea what to expect. He had an athletic build and frightened me. When he did not get the answer he wanted, he shouted in anger and vanished. This encounter scared the daylights out of me. It only drove me deeper into the forest to hide. I have no idea how I made it out alive. I was in there for days, surviving on occasional water sources I could find. Eventually I found myself at the edge of a highway! Had I ventured in the wrong direction away from it, I would be dead. I suspect encountering that man in the woods nearly led to my death. The easiest way out of the woods was from where he came. I went the other direction… And frighteningly enough, I remembered seeing him days prior on another road! Tonight is a cool feeling. I no longer feel sick. I feel the way I often do toward the end of the day: fully awake and aware. Unlike the first half of the day, which is frustratingly lethargic. The cool feeling has another aspect. Someone knocked on my door yesterday around dinnertime. I looked through my security app to see it was someone who has many times attempted to push open my front door and enter without permission for countless months. She knocked loudly for two minutes last night. So, why, you ask, do I have a cool feeling tonight? It is a cool feeling of being slightly creeped out and ensuring my door is secure a couple times in the last few hours. It is a cool feeling of wondering whether my home is secure. “How is this cool, Emily? How could this be cool?” Because it makes me feel like I am in a hideout, locked away from intruders. Like someone could attempt to enter at any moment, but alas, they cannot because I have a security bar with security cameras. Seeing a creepy artistic image of a distorted face in a peephole circle on online image search not long ago enhanced this cool feeling. Cool like chilly. Cool like chills up the spine. Cool like discomfort yet mild excitement. Most of me knows I am safe, but the more I think about it, I like the feeling of danger at times. When I was on the streets two years ago, I knew truly little safety. I knew only how to survive. I knew how to keep to the main streets and to pass through crowds without being seen. I knew what downtown Chicago looks like at night in-between the skyscrapers on foot: no one. That is all: no one. But me, wandering lost with no GPS signal, among powerful buildings that were empty of activity. Among towering landscapes of what was foreign to me. Chicago has a different view from the dazzling vertigo below the massive buildings. Especially when that view is from the perspective of prey, as I was at the time. Safety is so treasured now, but part of me misses the fear. Part of me misses the danger. Part of me is still back there, being menaced by a stranger late at night in Chicago, fleeing from him as he chased me for blocks. He gave up. I managed to lose him. But parts of me left with him: the innocence of knowing nothing could go wrong and my feelings of invulnerability. No, those went with him. Those could no longer stay. For I was no longer in my original hometown. I was on my own. I was on my own and scared. But at least I had that cool feeling. That cool feeling of chills and fear and danger. That cool feeling of knowing things might not be all right, but I might survive. Another day, another day, another night, another night. Into a future not shattered by circumstance. Into a sky not blighted by smog. That cool feeling will come again, but instead of fear, I will have love… Yes, love… And the cool feeling of love, the chill down my spine, is loving so completely that the fear is losing the person I become devoted to. Losing the hope that their warm embrace brings me. Wash away the cool feeling with a storm. Wash it all away with countless shelters and countless hospitals and countless cities wandering for a place of safety. A place not surrounded by people who wonder more so what I am than accepting the humanity within my heart. No, I do not always like this cool feeling. But tonight, in the security of my home in Seattle, I have a cool feeling. One in the sense of a horror movie, one in the way of imagination, rather than quite fully realized, like so many months ago… May 06, 2024, 11:19 pm

Chapter 12: Even These Words Will Not Do

I need to open myself to the muses. I need to write my soul. I need to scream with passion. I need to find something brighter than the thick clouds above allow. Something stands in the way. Something dark and sinister. It is everything that has happened over the last three years, going from success to a vagrant story. Going from a vagrant story to a shining future unblighted by dangerous circumstances. I have so many blocks in my mind from having to push forward for so long. I could not look back or what was in front of me would devour me. I need to unlock my past and write again. I need to overcome this repression. And I need to find a home within my home. I need to find a truth within my truth. It is not enough to bleed the truth. It is not enough to leak my soul out of my eyes into everything I see. I need to open my heart with a pry bar to see what is inside. So that you can see what I am made of. So that you can realize my surfaces are shallow. What is within me is an ocean depth beyond any words I can write. Even these words will not do. My future contains volumes. And it is a conduit to the past. For what we are is from what we were. And where we will be is still a mystery. Nothing is enough to quell this. Nothing can sustain the fury of this soundless static piercing through all days gone by. And days gone by are to come again: in the turn of a phrase to form pages upon pages of memoirs to glorify the magnificence of being. Being alive and finding a reason to love again. Finding a hope that not all is lost to the fragments of my memory. There are countless ways to express yourself. Find the one that speaks your voice. Find a way to release your meaning into reality for others to witness. Without meaning, we have nothing. We would merely be pondering dust. And cosmic dust is from where we came. That nebula residue has no human context. Add your imprint upon the chaos of space around you. Do not be a mere receiver of what becomes your memories. Act to bring memories of note into being. There is no absolute truth to be found beyond eternal concepts formed while gestating into the present. Scream like a newborn once again. Scream like the first day upon this planet on which you found yourself. From birth to death, there is misery. But there is also a will to survive the test that is your indeterminate future. Every moment is another chance to overcome the mystifying nature of nothingness. From nothing comes all. To nothing returns all. But the span between is everything. Make it meaningful. Let the dust that came before become love unfathomable by any poet. By any bard. For your ending deserves a story preceding worthy of shocking redemption from all the fear that holds you from a life worth living. And a life worth living is enough. It makes all this enough to ride a century or less into the blissful epilogue of being. May 08, 2024, 9:55 am Who I was is not a tragedy. Do not denigrate the past. Every moment is mine. I own it all. Whether it uplifts me or throws me to the rocky shores, I will die for the truth. I will die for those who went quiet far too soon. My death does not need to come early, But I will not compromise on principles, To make it come late. May 08, 2024, 3:46 pm For all things, prescience. For all known, energy. For all truth, despair at the sight of disunity from the realization that all are isolated into intractable gray matter, Seeking connection. No healing but knowing that we are all sprinting to sudden dislocation from our origins, Into a fate unfulfilled except for when destiny calls. Will you answer? Will you find a way to recover from countless moments of hurt interspersed between moments of waking dreams shared with others? Gray matter pondering gray matter, A true division of minds, Seeking unity but finding that existence is each our own to travel alone. Passing ships in the night. The therapist cries for all that she helps, All that she cares, Still, ever still, The human condition always returns to suffering, Always returns to quiet contemplation of moments seeking connection with gray matter seeking gray matter. May 09, 2024, 10:25 am True Gender. Gender Identity. Some transphobic people denigrate the concept of gender identity through parody and questioning the very idea that gender is a distinct concept of identity. As a result, even the press guide for GLAAD says that “identifying as” is falling out of favor among the trans community. They recommend not using that phrase. A gay person does not identify as gay. They simply are gay. In that sense, I do not identify as a trans woman. I am a trans woman. But GLAAD does not offer an alternative to gender identity. I suggest True Gender. It is affirming. Assigned Gender is often untrue. True Gender affirms the reality of someone’s actual gender, either arrived at through transition or otherwise. I do not have a Gender Identity. I have a True Gender: female. May 09, 2024, 12:21 pm If you think end-to-end encryption works, you are unaware of all the agencies that require communication backdoors to any notable service that has it. Even if that were not the case, by virtue of sending messages to another person, no privacy is guaranteed. Anyone on the other end can share it out. The only way to deal in security in an effective way is to deal with people. May 09, 2024, 1:55 pm When someone saw the cover of my first book, Beyond Description, today, he interjected, “Is this book for children?” He must not know the meaning of the trans pride flag on the cover does not explicitly mean colors for babies. Sure, they use light blue and light pink for babies to label their gender with clothing. That must mean my first book’s primary audience is for infants who read way above their age level and love postmodern existential literature! May 10, 2024, 12:37 am I want to clarify for the record that I am not using a pseudonym or pen name for my Soul in Words book series. My full legal name is Emily Tiffany Joy. I publish everything under my real name. My writing process is organic. I often like to engage in stream of consciousness writing. It is often hard to tell when I do this because I draft, edit, and proof so much that the results look quite discernibly planned. Automatic writing is a form of brainstorming. I engage in this daily. But I only save a small portion of what I write for my books. Sometimes I use ancient mythology as a source of inspiration for my work. It becomes a metaphorical spiritual experience that further refines my focus as I write. Sometimes I plan what I write, but much of it is unplanned. What happens is that I have read my work so many times that my subconscious actively plans the next writing without me even having to think about it. I grapple with intention often. I avoid intending in the chaos of the creative process. Then I determine what I intended from the results in the editing and proofing process. So much of what I write is from my soul and from my direct experiences in life. I am a nonfiction writer with a background in the study of oral history. I am unsatisfied until what I have written reads like real literature. As a result, I often only place a fraction of what I write into my books. That is how I reach the highest possible quality of expression for my readers. My books are not pure fact. They muse. They dream. They reveal truths through contemplation. No, they are not pure fact. But… They are pure authenticity. And that is more valuable than trivia. Every reader of my work is an honor to me. The fact that someone devotes hours to learning about my life is the highest compliment. I want to thank everyone who has read my books and to everyone who will read them in the future. You are why I write. You are who my books set out to empower. And you deserve the best life. You deserve a wonderful future lined with happiness and love. May 10, 2024, 2:13 am If I were posed the question: would I rather play games but never write a book, or be a prolific author but never play a game again, I would happily say goodbye to all of them, including games from companies such as Nintendo, Sony, Sega, Capcom, Valve, Tencent, Microsoft, Blizzard, Activision, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, Apple, Google, 2K, Ubisoft, Intercept, Iron Galaxy, Epic, Volley, Gameloft, Twitch, Mythical, Bungie, Warner Bros., Jam City, ArenaNet, Atari, Commodore, Bonfire, PlayQ, Insomniac, Nexon, Obsidian, Deck Nine, Pokémon International, Wizards of the Coast, Private Division, Raven, Naughty Dog, Zynga, PopCap, Bethesda, Id, Infinity Ward, Santa Monica, Devolver, Square Enix, Eidos, Konami, NetDragon, GameLoft, CD Project Red, Paradox, and Team17. That collective has wasted so many years of my early life. I would rather write! I would rather bring new worlds than simulate them! I would rather experience non-virtual reality! I no longer find any comfort in tapping a button to jump… I would rather use my legs. My actual legs! If I save a life, LET IT BE REAL. IF I DIE, LET IT BE REAL. IF I FIND LOVE, FOR GODDESS SAKE, LET IT BE REAL!!! May 11, 2024, 11:35 am

Chapter 13: Would You Fear Writing It All Down

When Franz Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis, and detailed the disturbing transformation of a human into an insect, what do you think his life was like? Was he a happy man? Was his life fulfilling? Or did his art imitate his life? Writings are often an indicator of the state of their life. But in a personal memoir, it is not just indicative. It is direct. Every line is a breath of truth within a life to the world. Every chapter chronicles a passage of history within the memory of the writer. Writing fiction is sometimes a vulnerable affair, as it shows what is in your mind. But writing your own life? Describing the core of your own being to anyone who reads it? That is so vulnerable. And that is the attraction. Bringing truth to bear is addicting. Standing by your principles is habit-forming. What I write is no less me than my genome determines my biological future. No less me than the sum of my experiences on Earth. I ask you: have you lived the life you intend to live? Would you fear writing it all down?? May 11, 2024, 11:50 am I stayed up till 5am. Then I woke up a few times until eventually I woke up totally around an hour ago, 4pm. I have not done this in years. I am still tired. I had a medication shot a few days ago. I receive it every six months. It is for my bipolar condition. This time the shot is making me feel awful and dazed. I am trying to figure out a solution. The shot lasts six months. It is convenient, but right now, it does not feel all that convenient. It is a persistent uncomfortable cloudy feeling. When nothing makes sense, Darkness comes. For within nothing exists possibility, And few things are more interesting than what you cannot see. May 12, 2024, 9:52 pm Long prior to my transition, sometimes I wanted sex but could not find it. Now? I could easily have it several times a day with different people but never do. What I used to want due to short supply I no longer need. I see no value in it. I am getting tired of having to reject people. I wish people would stop asking. And I pray no one ever starts taking, ever again. May 13, 2024, 12:35 am I might be moving to a new place in one or two weeks! I am viewing the unit on Wednesday! I cannot fully explain it, but I am feeling anxiety, stress, excitement, and on top of it, happiness, optimism, and mystification. The call I received a few hours ago instantly made it possible for me to have a move-in date of four days from now across Seattle. My head is spinning! This is so fast. My entire world is about to change… When I move, I am going to miss a lot of people. And some of them I will be thrilled to miss. I have lived here for a year and a half. I am almost certain I will cry a few times. Even though this is good news, it is still very emotional. I am loved where I live. I have a life here. I must start over… But… TO NEW BEGINNINGS TO NEW POSSIBILITIES TO FINDING A BOYFRIEND, MAYBE TO BEING NEAR A REAL UNIVERSITY TO SO MANY THINGS, CHEERS! May 13, 2024, 6:37 pm I took a couple of weeks off from singing. I just came back to it a few days ago. I am so much better at singing now! I am starting to be able to sing Acapella with lyrics in front of me! I just did about six songs back-to-back in duet. I can feel the muscles of my throat quite worked out. I need to stop for now or it will strain, but I suspect singing is like body building. May 15, 2024, 7:43 am The last of the verification papers done today in person. If it approves, I sign tomorrow and move in the day after that. The place is amazing! That trip across the city by train was worth it, but I am so exhausted! May 15, 2024, 2:17 pm My dreams are often impersonal and unreal in a way that is unsatisfying. I wish they were like when I was young. They were vivid back then. I wonder if the level of dream realism becomes lower with age… May 16, 2024, 4:14 am I just received my queen size portable air mattress with built-in inflator. I did not hear back about the new place today, so I will know tomorrow. Where I live right now is furnished by the building. Where I am moving to is unfurnished. Hence the stop gap solution of a comfortable air mattress. It was inexpensive and will come in handy for if I have guests after I acquire a more traditional bed down the line. May 16, 2024, 7:12 pm If birds can sing, so can I. May 18, 2024, 11:01 am “Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; so on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.” From Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, published in 1863. For long ago, I once thought that “passing ships in the night” referred to a therapist’s relationship to their clients. But I was mistaken. A therapist forms a long-lasting bond through months of intense interactions with their clients. A passing ship in the night is someone you meet only for a fleeting time and part without ever seeing them again. As would be ships in the night, meeting in the middle of an expanse of the ocean, a chance meeting… I saw my friendships this way for quite some time while I was traveling multiple cities. I would sometimes say goodbye to people with the bittersweet phrase, “We are passing ships in the night, and I bless you on your travels.” It was a lonely approach to friendships. I kept people at a distance because I was afraid of getting hurt. I was afraid of forming lasting bonds that would one day break. I looked into people’s souls and did not want them looking into mine. I was friends with several people who would do empath work. I learned some of their ways and integrated it into my existing psychology education. For what a psychic does is an unwitting Carl Jung style therapy when done right. It is spiritual psychology, and many of Carl Jung’s studies led to personality psychology and many other branches of psychology. Carl Jung worked directly with Sigmund Freud. When I was in various hospitals, I would give “psychic readings,” in which I did no such thing. In fact, I engaged in psychoanalysis mixed with impromptu social work style advice. But because what I did was under the auspices of a psychic, everyone in the hospitals cheered me on. Once I explained to a social worker in one of the hospitals that the psychic approach would allow him to do social work for his friends even without using his license, so long as he refused all compensation, he agreed such an approach was clever and worked. Especially since with no compensation exchanged, there would exist truly little if any conflict of interest. I am not a psychic. I know what cold reading and warm reading are. I have been trained in skepticism based on the rigors of science. I was a fan of the late James Randi and the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast for a decade. I took it very seriously. However, I realized there is more to this world than science. There is more to this world than a disinterested clinical gaze. For in this life, if we do not live with our souls, if we do not experience the subjective, we are lost to an objective delusion and rarely experience life as it really is. “A passing ship in the night,” that is all I was for most of 2022. For all the friends I made along the way, I parted with them after we bonded, without even committing their names to memory. I believed in karma. I still do. I believe that if I help everyone I can, the nature of reality becomes overwhelming with positive energy. The good I do does not always come back to me, but certainly, if in the web of collective memory, all my interactions have a beneficent nature, I am better off than any other way. Carl Jung was a genius. He knew many languages and read more than most people will in several lifetimes. I admire him, more so than Freud. He integrated the most useful aspects of the Occult into rigorous forms of psychology that are still used to this day. No, I am not a psychic. But I can read people, just as most astute people can. And I can help people. I can usually find a way to improve someone’s life, and that is all that really matters. “If I live for others, I will discover that by bringing them joy, I will have lived for myself all along!” From my first book, Beyond Description. And refusing compensation is standard. The only exchange is mutual love and respect. The only exchange is one of mutual benefit. For the only way to get better, truly get better, is to help others do the same. May 20, 2024, 7:39 am Access to childhood memories is complicated for me. While I had a mostly good early life, several factors make it difficult to appreciate and harder to reflect on objectively. Gender dysphoria in the 1980s in a conservative city like Fort Wayne, Indiana, with a Catholic family, made my gender transition impossible until adulthood. No one even knew what was going on in my mind, least of all me. All I knew was that I did not fit in, and people were often worried about me without knowing why. My family survived the effects of various mental illnesses. I do not want to detail such things to preserve their privacy, but it marred my early childhood in the process. My young author’s book during grade school raised a lot of eyebrows because it was about a funeral that did not actually happen. It made my school friend cry. Various abuses happened to me, but to invoke them as stories here would be a disservice to my family. I love them even if many of them do not accept me. I love them despite all that happened. All that led to my journey beyond my hometown and beyond all that I knew throughout my life up until the age of thirty-eight. I could not have predicted my future even in my wildest dreams or darkest nightmares. But today I can say with confidence that the only form such a prediction could take is within a dream of redemption. An awe-inspiring dream of transformation and actualization. From Royal Oak to Fort Wayne to Indianapolis to Evansville to Chicago to Portland to Albany to Spokane to Seattle, my destination was always my journey. And I journey still. Still into an unknown future. Still into dreams unsatisfied. For I seek ever more a new horizon beyond my current one. Ever seeking a more realized me. A more realized truth within all that I know to this day. I embrace the now. I embrace all I have lived with undoubted certainty. For every step I take, I only look back to document the path I took for you to reflect on yours. For all that I write is to help others. I write to save myself. And if I save myself, perhaps, you may save yourself, too. May 20, 2024, 10:11 am

Chapter 14: Mystery Is What Makes the Future

I do not know where I will be. And I cannot predict it, For mystery is what makes the future. And I seek realization. I seek a truth less fathomed. Every path is one unnumbered, Because the options are immeasurable. If I could take it all back, Never in a million years, Never in a split second, Never even in a hypothetical. The life I have led is mine forever. And that is a comfort that can never be taken away. May 20, 2024, 10:29 am I still have not heard back about signing the lease for the new apartment. I was told I would hear back last Thursday. And that I would move in last Friday. I want to cry. It is Tuesday now, and my single polite email and later voicemail have not been returned. I am miserable. I had to tell the person who was going to help me move today to unreserve the car. She will need to reschedule if I in fact eventually hear back and sign the lease. This is like being in limbo, without the music and body bending. I feel tired like it is bedtime, but it is only 2:50 pm Pacific time. I know this new apartment will improve my life, but right now, not hearing back for almost a week is tormenting me. At least I still have my existing apartment. I do not like not knowing the future. I am waiting on countless uncertain events right now, and if I hold my breath at this point, I will faint. May 21, 2024, 2:53 pm The new therapist I began seeing, during our second session today, declared to me her political party affiliation. She said, “In my time, there were just men and women.” I had to further explain who I am in a way that made me disappointed in her. I understand she is in her seventies, and while she might be accurate in her personal historical account about gender ideas back then, it was highly inappropriate to mention to me during therapy. I am an independent. It has little to do with her specific party affiliation that I am canceling all future sessions with her. It is that she included her personal political party and contrary viewpoints into my therapy sessions and further had me defend my identity. She said, “I don’t have any problem with what you are.” She did not say she was supportive of me, just that she did not have a problem. She kept driving home that her state of Idaho is conservative, while my city of Seattle is liberal. “Not all of my party” was her defense for her party affiliation, and that is not a great position to take when I am trying to engage in therapy with an expert in psychology. I am not overtly political in most things, but when it comes to therapy, when she asserts a political stance, it is unprofessional and unethical. This is the first time I have ever encountered a professional therapist declaring her political affiliations during a therapy session with her client. It is beyond my imagination how she thought that would be okay. I should report this to the online clinic where she provides her services, but I will not, as I need to continue with the clinic where she works with someone else. I worry that if I do, it could create a negative record for the next therapist to read. This is an imperfect world. May 22, 2024, 10:56 am After waiting a week and completing more paperwork, I was supposed to hear back about the apartment this morning. I still have not heard back, and this business day is over. I have resorted to watching a streaming TV channel dedicated to weather for the last two hours. I do not know what else to do. I feel helpless. The commercials are the highlight of this weather channel. Does that mean I am bored? Maybe! I will let everyone know as soon as I hear back. Whether I get it or not, I will at least be relieved to finally have an answer. This is exhausting. My long white rice is nearly done cooking… May 23, 2024, 4:43 pm Water is both at once life sustaining and immeasurably dangerous. May 26, 2024, 4:17 am Today was a nightmare. But the day is almost over. Rather than detail why my day was bad, I would rather contemplate the possibility of a better day tomorrow. I want to stay up at least an hour longer. And I want a full night of rest. The universe is giving me copious reasons to look forward to moving to a new place if I ever hear back. I am waiting on at least four major life events to happen. Most of them I have been waiting for over a year for. They are all due to happen any day now, which makes waiting incredibly stressful. And I have felt inconsolably stressed. But as I have said before, life has been far worse. I am grateful for all that I have and for the people I am close to in my life. They make all this worth it. They help to ease my worries. May 26, 2024, 7:56 pm I need to eat a burger or an ice cream sandwich, but not both. A man outside said to me, “You aren’t going to say hi to me?” I replied, “We have never said hi before.” His reply? “You have a bad memory.” Gaslighting me to small talk and possibly to flirt in an unwelcome way, that is not a way to get on my good side. He has more than once looked at me in a way that tells me he far too likes what he sees. I suspect he is in a gang. He has that aura about him. He loiters around the entrance of my building with a dozen other troublemakers. He fits into the decor of graffiti, addicts with tin foil and lighters, and tents on the sidewalk. For some reason, the building in which I live has the privilege of a small yet persistent encampment out front. I am told by building staff there is nothing they can do to disperse it. It is a storm cloud over my experience living here. I rarely leave my apartment because of it. May 28, 2024, 10:12 am I sit impatiently for news. I want my new apartment secured and ready for me to move. I want my consult for my gender reassignment surgery. Life needs to happen for a memoir to happen. Reminiscence can only take me so far. I need to resume my singing studies. And I need an answer on my disability case. So many of these things weigh on my mind as undecided features of my future. This is all I can think about right now. My phone notifications are unsatisfying. There are specific notifications I seek to arrive. Yet they have not come. My life is good, but it could be better. I am more than just hanging on these days. I have a firm foothold now, contrasting with the last three years of being thrown to the wind. Would I be wrong to pray? Would science forgive me? If I pray, it is to feminine energies. To a feminine deity. To positive virtues. To harmony overcoming chaos. To beauty and creativity overcoming strife and discord. For I seek solace in those ideals. Light and darkness. Real and illusion. Truth and sophistry. Reflections on my eyes. For what light reveals is deeper than any metaphor could ever hope to express. A crystalline prism falls to a stone floor. The glass does not break. The light does. From every color we could hope to see, into a sudden absence within perception. An explosion of vibrancy. And then nothing. Nothing but the sound of light shattered upon the ground. A rhythm echoes a fearless pattern of events outstretched before me. And I am the notes. I am the melody, and I let my life be the song. May 28, 2024, 12:35 pm I heard back. Memorial Day weekend delayed the office from processing the paperwork for my new apartment. He told me he would call me first thing tomorrow morning with news. Here is hoping! May 28, 2024, 3:19 pm I live in downtown Seattle, so I hear sirens all the time. When I first moved here, the frequent sirens scared me. Now I have gotten so used to them that the sirens relax me. May 29, 2024, 12:19 am This morning a neighbor tried to give me tight black hotpants with an alien on the front lower left and “I just need some space” printed on the posterior side. I grimaced because they amount to what I think is secondhand underwear. He went, “They are clean…” I still passed, politely saying, “They aren’t my style…” Which is true since I would never be caught dead walking around in hotpants. Especially not with an attempt at a witty saying on the backside. I am not built for super short pants! I consider them a fashion faux pas. May 29, 2024, 6:29 am I am further along in the leasing process but have not signed the lease yet. I am supposed to know before the end of today and sign the lease tomorrow. This would be ideal because it moves me right before the next month of rent is due. I am listening to an album of relaxing city sounds. For some reason that appeals more to me right now than rain sounds. I feel thoroughly overstimulated right now. I am waiting for an antianxiety supplement to take effect. I received a single bag of food delivered from a nearby food bank. It is helpful but not very much food. I have been delaying actual food shopping for quite some time now. I do not want to have to move a load of groceries between each apartment if I move. This means while I have food, it is becoming increasingly boring. And that is okay: quick oats, ramen, condensed soup, lunch meat, rice, crackers, vegetables, pasta, and tuna are holding me over. On the bright side, I am likely to move soon, and I would be all sorts of bored right now if it were not for that. Lately I have been far more impatient with the issues I face where I currently live because I see them as temporary now. Life changes create stress no matter whether good or bad. And having to wait on them creates more stress. The stress is worth it though. To feel free to safely walk around outside is worth the move. I look forward to brighter days ahead. May 29, 2024, 2:31 pm I am currently sitting in the first-floor commons area of my apartment building. A fire alarm went off building-wide for a long disturbing time. I could smell smoke in my apartment and saw it in the building hallway outside of my front door. It was alarming. I thought about it for a bit before walking down the stairs to determine the safety of the building. The attached building to my apartment building has a small fire. Two large fire trucks are in front. As far as I know, they have extinguished it, and it did not spread. But my question for them is why is there smoke up on my floor? Smoke rises! The alarms have subsided. I just ate convenience store pizza, and I am still alive. So, there is that to be happy about, I guess. For a subtle moment as I smelled smoke while lying in bed, an intrusive thought came to mind: I am going down with the ship! This is how it all ends! My brain is funny sometimes. Most of the time, actually. Rather than attend to exiting the building, I wanted to do research on how smoke inhalation works and if it can be lethal without being plainly visible. (The answer is, yes, it can be!) May 29, 2024, 8:47 pm

Chapter 15: We Will Make New Memories

I remember seeing a scene I cannot remember the source of where two people were escaping a house fire, and one of them went to rescue items from the home. The other person stopped them and said, “Don’t worry. We will make new memories.” Thinking about this moment just now made me cry. I have not survived a house fire, but my life itself ostensibly became one in 2021. I had to give up everything I knew to survive. I could not turn back to save anything. And I make new memories ever still. I have a new life now. What scares me is this new life I worked so hard for is about to change again away from all I find familiar over the last year and a half. And I will be so much happier because of it. So much of what we cherish in this life is not material. The most valuable features of life are the memories we share with others. And one comfort rings supreme: there are always new memories to be made. I cannot even begin to imagine where I will be in five years and what memories are yet to be formed. All I know is that I love everyone I am close to in my life. They create the moments that make this life worth living. And living is worth every memory that comes, good or bad. Looking back shows me that I have more blessings than anything else. And no fire can take that away from me. May 30, 2024, 8:02 am I got approved for the new apartment!! I just need to sign a few things. I am moving! May 30, 2024, 11:56 am The conclusion of this book signifies the completion of several life changing goals and successes in my real life, as this is a memoir happening in real time. I write each snippet online, and I transfer the best of what I write into my books with the actual dates and times that they were written at the end of each insertion. This allows for the sequence of events to be influenced by all who read it in real time in my life. That is how I wrote all three of my books. In part, my future is decided by these books. May 31, 2024, 10:17 pm Oh, to live a life, where all who I know outlives me! So I would never lose someone again, Never witness another funeral, Never cry to another story’s conclusion. I wish long life upon all who I know, A long healthy life, longer than mine. A selfish selfless intention. May I live for decades… And all who I know do the same, For at least a little longer than me. May my death take me suddenly from good health into the void, From consciousness to the veil of nothingness, Never knowing the cold embrace of hospitals, And hospice, and struggle, and slow disintegration. May my faculties fail suddenly and completely, Never having to say goodbye… to all who I know. To all who I know, I wish love and happiness and a calm happy preemptive farewell… Decades from now, countless decades from now. To all who I know, Let me slip into eternal dreams before you, So that I may witness what comes after, And if as a ghost or a soul in the celestial clouds, I will watch over all of you, If nothingness is not a scientific destiny. What is meaning in the end, but a soliloquy of a life well lived? What music concludes this journey? What song will I sing without an embodied voice? What spectral fate may come? May I meet you in the afterlife, If that is what comes. Let what will be, be. Let what will come, come. Let what will end this story be sudden and joyous. To light unknown, to caverns unexplored, to horizons unflown, May my certain end lead me to sanctuary. Jun 02, 2024, 11:02 am Some experiences only happen once in life. Yet we often do not realize when they are gone forever, except in distant memory. A treasured song may never be heard again, even though we can summon it up in a few seconds online. We cannot know what is forever lost to us. Simply forgetting something exists is enough to exclude it from all future events forever. That is how experiences die off into long term memory. Context can bring it back, but so too can context be forgotten. We often take for granted what we consider a grasp of our life’s history. Yet each moment lived is added to a growing repository of memories that becomes increasingly hard to access and fully realize. This creates a duality of presence and absence. We battle to hold onto our past as the present ever marches into the future. It is easy to get lost in reminiscences. And the decay of memories is a beautiful thing that keeps the mind healthy. For I would never want a mind that could not forget sorrow. With that comes forgetting joy, but the beauty of joy is it begets itself. If you bring others joy, it returns to you over and over again. The decay of memories creates a single temporal life, ever growing and fading. A glimpse into context and circumstance can make previous memories flood back like a deluge. And that can overwhelm the soul. What is the essence of remembrance? What does it mean to re-experience the past? And so often we can get lost in that, and as a result, we lose perspective. If I had to forget anything, I would let go of the times I lived only for myself. I would embrace the memories of love for others instead. That is a reminiscence I can stand behind. Those are memories worth reliving. Jun 03, 2024, 8:27 am I finally heard back. I will sign the lease on Friday… All I can say is I am thrilled. I might need to wait a couple of weeks to be fully moved in, but as it appears now, I am in. A few squiggles on a few lines will land me the new apartment. This is better than I had hoped for. Time to take a nap. I need it. This is too much excitement. Jun 03, 2024, 3:36 pm People die for so many beliefs. Beliefs are formed. They are not innate. Nature does not include belief. Beliefs are the result of directed cognition. They are either inherited or invented. And to be free of belief is impossible. Even the absence of a belief is a belief to the contrary. The human condition requires a set of consistent ideas for survival, and every person has their own set like a personal genetic code. When beliefs conflict, it creates stress until they are amended in some way. To do otherwise is an act of mysticism. Truth has no center. We all grasp at a fragment of it as we spiral to the conclusions of our lives. And belief forms a lattice upon which truth can be held. At certain moments in life, we think we have it all figured out. This illusion provides comfort away from the chaos that surrounds all thoughts. No one can escape fallibility. Imperfection is a core feature of the mind. But emotions guide us through so many storms. Our resilience comes from innate felt experience, not from a mere set of valued axioms. We are more than what we believe. The self transcends it. The refuge from thinking is feeling. Smiling, crying, laughing, yearning, loving, all beyond mere positions on life. For while beliefs divide us, emotions are universal. Emotions communicate what cannot be faithfully translated into words. That is the beauty of being human. The whole construct of language is a distraction from the mystery of being. From what lies beyond the precipice of consciousness. Your shadow contains more than you know. For what you know is not you. It is a semantic web we found ourselves in trying to survive our mortal forms. I cannot convey what I believe without betraying the beautiful stillness of silence and the unity with others through the struggle of being alive. My truth is not laid on a lattice of beliefs. It is upon the wisdom of empathy. It is on what I see reflected back at me when I gaze upon your eyes. Jun 04, 2024, 3:49 pm Tomorrow, I will sign the lease to move. Wednesday, I will meet to discuss future benefits. And in a couple of weeks later, I will see a surgeon for an SRS consult. I cannot begin to describe how unbelievable all this is after waiting over a year for these events to happen. I may search for a part time job in the new neighborhood where I will live as well. My life is going to change soon. I have been doing research on overexcitement. Why? Because I have been suffering from it lately. Ever since I heard about the new apartment, I have been happy, and my spirits have been uplifted. But with that comes excitement. And too much persistent excitement is uncomfortable. I will have more to say on all these things going forward. I just woke up, however. The caffeine has not yet kicked in. I just had a fit of yawning. My dreams last night were vivid yet not memorable. They were welcome. I am going to meditate today. I need to embrace my peaceful nature, now more than ever. So many journeys all at once started, I do not know where I will be, except happier, except fulfilled, except truly alive. Jun 06, 2024, 6:19 am I am both at once relieved and a little overwhelmed. I am not as overwhelmed as I was though before today. Now that my future is more certain, with the acquisition of the new apartment, and my stuff moving in a week in a half, I can feel certain about what is on the horizon. The remaining questions are to be answered on Wednesday and in two weeks from now. But those appointments are set in stone, and their results are assured, in one form or another. That was not the case with the new apartment. Now it is. I ordered a microwave and a table for my computer in advance of moving. Where I live now is furnished with those things, and I cannot have the ones included with this old apartment at my new place, which is unfurnished. The microwave is cute, compact, and red with retro appeal. And the table for the computer is self-assembling, sturdy, and 32” wide, more than enough for my needs. I am going to sleep very well tonight. I am exhausted. I wish I could cry out this stress. It would feel good right now. It would feel so good. I am beginning a new chapter in my life, and I need to say goodbye to the old chapter of waiting. For my waiting is all but over for some things. I look to the future. I look to a new part time job, a medical procedure, a benefits allotment, a certain move, and many other things that I do not even know I am waiting on yet. For my future is uncertain. The story of anxiously waiting is about to conclude and give way to a flurry of new life. A new life to smile again, yet again, more so than now… Jun 7, 2024, 5:46 pm