language and communication

AMA with Ali Beiner. Wednesday 2/4 at 11:00 AM CT

Kainos host Alexander Beiner exploring cultural sensemaking around psychedelics, popular culture, philosophy, psychology, alternative economics, and spirituality.

Hi! A little about me. I'm a Wisconsinite. I am in my first year of retirement from teaching. I feel I have had lots of different experiences both in school and out of school. I am a cardiac arrest survivor from ventricular fibrillation  and had an 80% blockage angioplastied. Last year I had my first battery replacement. I am married and my husband has 1 year of retirement  in. We have 2 adult sons. The oldest is married and is a step dad. The youngest is not married yet. My parents are deceased and I have no siblings. My life has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs, right from my birth. I enjoy camping, gardening (though I am not a green thumb), family and my Chihuahua/ beagle, Snoopy. I am a person full of life experience contrast, one beingcontrasts such as being spiritual yet not church going. I hope  my experiences can help others. 😀

Monogamy v polyamory. Is monogamy better? Is poly better? Is there an overall norm for people, with exceptions? Is it totally pluralistic? Here are some points for monogamy, with some counter points, to convey some of my uncertainty but nevertheless leaning into what I’ve chosen:

• Point: I don’t know a single polyamorous couple that’s lasted more than a decade, whereas I know a ton of lifelong monogamous couples.
  • Counterpoint: many of the lifelong monogamous couples are not healthy relationships
    • Counter-counter-point: perhaps being in a lifelong commitment, even if the relationship isn’t ideal, is more healthy than being hyper-independent, especially as you get older. This runs right up against boundaries, how to know what to tolerate/love as is, when to leave, etc
• Point: The poly focus of attention tends to be the relationships themselves, often a kind of relational narcissism, rather than the relationship being a foundation for engaging the world in love (ironically). This is my version of the poly is impractical argument. Most of the people I meet practicing polyamory are constantly putting tons and tons and tons of life energy into their relational problems, and it seems like their relationships are often built around addressing these problems rather than enjoying life together. The fact that it takes so much time and energy points to something being a little off. Monogamous relating also takes energy but it usually seems less self-referential; they’re more often helping each other face and engage the world, rather than face and engage each other and their relationship.
  • potential counterpoint: You’re making a developmental point Jordan, not a mono/poly point. Most people practice poly from a Red ego-centric POV; most people practice sex from Red as well. If you practice from a genuine Green+ polyamory, this doesn’t happen.
• Point: Humans are largely monogamous; it’s instinctual
  • Counterpoint: How would we know if its cultural versus biological versus systemic versus psychological per person/family? it only takes a couple of generations of evolution to make massive physical changes, so even if it is biological, how could we know what’s possible for the future?
  • Counterpoint: people wanna fuck, especially dudes
  • Cheating, mistresses, polygamy, Sex at Dawn etc…
• Point: Many poly people avoid endings, boundaries, standards, and facing their own karma by just jumping from relationships to relationship. Sure monogamous people do too, but many of them end up getting married and that crucible forces them to face their stuff. Far fewer poly people get married, and when they do they can still use other relationships to avoid their shit
  • Counterpoint: we can use absolutely everything to avoid our shit.

there’s tons more, just want to get the convo started…

I need a new word. I’ve been using the word autistic as a description of a state experience where, when one is in such a state, they don’t recognize subtle passive cues from others. One example is when someone’s feeling a lot of unity they often fail to see bids for connection from someone who’s more codependently minded. I think it’s kinda lazy of me because I don’t think that factor speaks to the experience of an autistic person. Any ideas?

If I switch to neurodivergent is it better?

We need new gender categories, while preserving the distinctness of "man" and "woman". I don’t mind using different pronouns—I’m happy to love someone with whatever language they prefer.

But I’d like to propose that deconstructing traditional genders is not only unnecessary, it’s harmful.

Not necessary

• It’s not necessary because we’re free to create as many new genders as we’d like, while preserving the standard ones.

• This is the transcend and include approach, as far as I can tell. The current approaches I’ve seen are either all transcend (reject the historical categories) or all include (reject the creativity and proof-by-existence of new genders).

• I believe this will better honor the person who was misassigned a gender at birth, because their life experience is very different from someone who was assigned the gender they identify with. Eg: if I’m a trans-woman, I didn’t grow up with all the social pressures of being a woman, or going through a menstrual cycle, or whatever; I grew up feeling like a woman but getting the social pressures of being a man, going through the hormonal changes associated with male-body-ness. Which is a totally unique experience, that I will find more belonging and support from other people like me, not from trad-females.

Harmful

• It’s harmful because the people who want acceptance into the traditional category are never going to get it. Eg: If i’m a trans-woman, I was assigned male at birth, and I probably have some male parts and hormones and stuff, so when I try to identify as a woman and join in those discussions and groups that are for women I’m likely to always feel outside, different, and to a certain group of cis-women, threatening.

• This further divides society and polarizes certain populations against including the reality of the trans-experience, which then polarizes the trans-supporters, which begets the vicious cycle.

• Sex differentiation started around 1.2 billion years, so the male-female experience has ancient roots that are in our bodies and impacting us every single second. Denying this altogether is destroying massive chesterotn fences— denies tons of wisdom that is passed down not only culturally over the past 200,000 years, but instinctually for a billion.

What about bathrooms and sports?

Instead we can just have single stall bathrooms and locker-rooms. Or trad-male, trad-female, and a third for whoever of whatever gender, which is much larger than the trad lockerrooms and bathrooms. We can have a third category of sports—all gender. We’re creative, we’re growing, we have plenty of people to populate them and who will want to win, why stick with a binary?

I’m sure I’m missing something, and I apologize to the new-gendered people who I’m sure I’ve insulted or missed somehow. But, leaning in to potentially contentious convo…

Love and play are our natural states of being. Underneath everything is love.

If I can’t feel the love, I know there’s something I’m not including in my experience.

I must be slightly dissociated if I can’t access some touch of gratitude, love, awe, or flow.

There must be something, maybe some pain or grief or anger, something that’s not always easy to feel, that’s calling my attention but I’m not listening to.

So, I tune into my embodiment practice, my support network or simply sit down and try to cry/scream/shake to access myself again.

And when I return to that free flowing and everlasting source of love, that’s where I parent from.

Full commitment to love, play, and nourishment.

My daughter too needs this. When she’s clingy, not able to do any independent play, when she gets easily frustrated or not making eye contact, when she’s starting to hit or throw things or grab stuff from others, there’s usually something that hasn’t been felt. She also needs her support network. Someone who can listen to her.

The listening usually starts through me setting a limit or her experiencing something small but there’s a very large reaction to it. It’s usually not about that thing, but she needs something to help her cry. So I keep placing my limit if I notice that’s what she needs to cry. Or I keep returning our attention to that ball which didn’t fit in the right place (of course, I expect some frustration to be expressed when something doesn’t fit - so here’s always some discernment happening from my side).

After a large big cry in my arms, she returns to play.

Having seen this so many times, I realize this is our natural state of being, this is the action we choose once we’re in alignment with love.

Play

This is how she learns. This is how she lives. This is her ultimate focus of existence. And when all is settled and good, she plays.

If I can’t make time to play with her, if I can’t access the love for life and follow her invitation to see something anew, then something fundamental is missing from my life. Then I’m too serious, too adult, and have lost touch with my fundamental nature, which also is play.

Diapers can be thrown on the wall or placed on your head. If we can use towels to dry ourselves after a bath, we can also experiment with other clothes. We can wash dishes by splashing water from one bowl to another. We can hit the eggs on the counter five times very hard and they crack that way too!

A parent stuck in their role as an authority might look at me and think I’m ridiculous and teaching my daughter to be disrespectful. But at the end of the day, our family goes to sleep with smiles and laughter after a day full of exploration and discoveries, with hearts so full that tomorrow we will continue to play. In that way, it’s a regenerative practice.

The times when I’m attached to outcomes, overbooked with commitments, or deprioritize self-nourishment, I’m not inclined to play, and it’s a negative feedback loop. My daughter feels disconnected, and everything feels harder.

Housekeeping doesn’t feel hard when your toddler runs with giggles to the trash can to throw something away. It feels hard when your toddler is screaming for your attention because you’re ignoring them, so attached to making it clean so you can be with them without the kitchen screaming at you that it needs to be cleaned (this is especially true for women who have diffuse awareness). When I’m connected to love, I invite her to lead us in how to clean the kitchen. Or I clean the kitchen in the silliest way, placing her in the sink while I’m doing dishes, playing with a lot of soap, or giving her the sponge to be in charge of scrubbing.

And she’s not a bad kid for throwing a diaper on the wall, it’s just an invitation for either of us to return to play and love.

Yes, it might look wild. And it is, most of the time. It’s wildly fun. It’s wildly creative. It’s wildly enlivening. It’s wild love. And it only happens when I’m able to really be there, connected to myself, all the opportunities of life and the everflowing current of love.