#inktober52, #inktober, "Half"

"Half" is an interesting word.  We learned in math class that half means 2 equal parts, but that's not what many people actually want.  They want more than equal, at least more than that person.  That's how they can know they're better than the person who got less.

We can't give away everything donated to the food giveaway as there might not be enough of something for everyone to get an item.  Old ladies will claw each other's eyes out if "She got a pineapple!  I want a pineapple!"  So sorry, that was the last one.  I could cut it in half so you each have some...  "NO!  I want that one!  So much for Solomon's solutions to problem resolution.  An old woman's greed means she gets less goodies but you can't tell her that.  And if I were to find another pineapple for the whiner 10 other women will screech they want pineapples too.  Nope.  No pineapples for anybody.  We'll give them to the shelter or compost them.  The old ladies are happy because they never knew we had any pineapples in the first place.

I think our desire for fairness is built into our DNA.  Monkeys scream like old ladies at a food giveaway if one monkey gets more treats than another.  Children identify equal with laser precision when it comes to cake.  Yet there are an awful lot of people who really think their half ought to be bigger.

I've always had a hard time understanding why some think they're losing if another gets something.  Someone else's success makes them feel bad, and the worst people try to sabotage that success.  It would be more sensible to learn from that person's achievement.  What did they do to bring about this happy result?  Apply that to your own situation so you'll succeed too.  If one artist sells a lot of paintings, that means there is an audience for your paintings, or books, or whatever it is you do.  Someone else's success builds a road for you to ride on.

Success isn't cake.  There's only so much cake.  Success is unlimited like love -- though I realize some people think if this person loves that one then that's love they aren't getting.  I can love a lot of people in different ways.  I don't have to center it all on one person for it to count.

I watched Jordan Klepper video of a woman at a Trump rally who said gay people wanted too much.  "You mean equal?" Jordan asked.  The woman agreed, yes, equal.  "And that's just too much?"  "Yeah."  Well, how do you argue with that?  Someone else told me gay marriage hurt her marriage.  "How?", I asked nicely.  She didn't have an answer.  She just felt like someone else having what she had meant what she had was devalued.

I'm not all kumbaya about this (though it would be superb if everyone loved everyone else and helped everyone else to succeed).  I'm just talking practical sense.  Take your half of what you're due.  Marriages work when the partners each feels they're getting their share of the benefits and the chores.  Good workers do their part and get raises and promotions in a healthy work environment.  Helping someone may come back to you at a later time by someone helping you.  Half a slice of cheesecake with a friend is wonderful.  Call it karma or whatever you like, equal can be great.

"Equality"

My brother and I drank tea together while Rachel Maddow exposed nefarious things far right Republicans are doing to make women barefoot and pregnant.  The topic of relationships between men and women and power was a natural result, and Rachel got muted while Bro and I bemoaned our past and present states of love and lovelessness.

It seems to me that every female needs a brother and every male needs a sister.  Otherwise, how are we supposed to decipher the idiocy of the other gender?  It’s not like you can actually have that kind of honesty with your lover.  He/she thinks stuff that will never be fully understood without a sibling’s explanation.

Bro wanted to know why women ask him questions if they really don’t want to actually know the answer.  Explanation: women are asking leading questions to see what you're going to say.  They want to know if you are serious, reliable, or other desirable traits.  They aren't fact collecting the way men collect facts.  It's a major area for misunderstanding and answering "wrong".

For my part, I told Bro about my ex complaining I “emasculated” him by renovating a house.  My ex overpaid for it, needed to sell it, and we agreed to remodel the attic to get a better price.  Since he was the lazy, that meant I remodeled the house, but in so doing made him feel bad.  Bro’s explanation?  My ex was inferior stock and needed to be weaned from our potential gene pool.  I should be glad I gained useful skills.

I’m not really sure how this helps me in future dating other than being pretty clear that every man in my life needs to know how to use a hammer, but at least it provides me with an achievable goal, and it does give me some insight into the male mind.

The fact is that men and women are different.  I like pink.  I feel like the world tells me I’m not supposed to like pink anymore because that makes me weak, and I don’t understand why anyone else would care about my color preferences.  If men liked pink too, that would make too much pink in the world.  It’s better that they pick something else, so combined, our world becomes more colorful and wonderful.

I’ve always liked the yin/yang symbol.  Separate but equal, two halves of the whole, swimming around each other like matched fish.  Together, they radiate the energy of a sun, which is enough to power a solar system.  It’s the ideal of what relationships and our world can be.

As for politics, the old guys are going to figure out someday that women aren’t going to give up shoes or contraceptives.