Monday is Here

Source: property of Stormberry

After the weekend, this is the routine: wake up early again, do the morning exercise, get ready for work, jump into he car, drive to the office - oh fuck, I forgot the Company had closed off some parking spots to organize the inauguration of some grass spots -, go to the office, fill my bottle of water, get the coffee going and start the day with reading the news. (I'm still in the middle of that.)

Normally my day also includes jumping on YouTube, selecting some music list and put it on for the day. Today, however, I just put my headphones on, but I had no music. Sometimes I like to check some news that come with videos, and it's not funny to have to stop Guns'n'Roses to listen to a piece of news. Anyway, as I was minding my own business, I heard my coworkers talk.

One of our major political parties had its former CFO and someone else sentenced for fraud relating the money that went through the campaing in the 2014 campaing. Mainly that they created all sorts of fake bills in order to cash more money from the Government. Obviously - because politics is full of vultures - many other politicians came forward denouncing... what has already been denounced and judged. This is kind of funny, because some of the people who came raging about this "indecency" belong to parties that have also been accused of similar crimes, or are currently accused of taking money from bribes and setting up a double financing system, into which money entered from obscure sources.

So, my coworkers are talking, and one of them - who supported a populist, far right, religious candidate - went on mockingly saying she was sure those of us who voted for the current Government must be regretting our vote. It's easy to say that from the losing end, but as someone who voted for this Government, based on the information we had at the time, no, I don't regret it. It's not the best, it's not ideal, but it is better than what we could have had with someone hell bent on getting rid of the rights of the LGBT+ community, who has used as shield and excuse for the rise of violence against this community. Someone who would have set back reproductive rights for women.

Little after, this same coleague is on the phone, angrily talking to her son because he took to school the wrong tracking suit. It was something about it being no longer good for him or something of the sort. As I listened on, I was wondering how could the kid take the wrong piece of clothing. Don't they discard the clothes that no longer fit them? Why do they keep clothes they can no longer use? And even if they do, why are they along with the clothes they use on daily basis? And why would the kid even put on something that no longer fits?

She has always been very overprotective of her child, to the point where she spends a large portion of her working day phoning her child, his school, her parents... More than a helicopter parent, she's a drone parent. I guess the kid has grown up thiking there are no responsabilities that would fall upon his shoulders, because his mother will always take care of everything. He can shrug off any of her berating, because in the end she will always do everything for him.

From here, I started tying things together. She believes she is doing an excelent job as a parent, by teaching her son how not to be responsible. At work, her priority is her son, so she often would seek the shortest way to deal with her assignments. She has no qualms about sneaking off from work early, as if there were no consequences for her ditching the job, which she does every single day. She's on the phone everyday with her mother, and yet her mother - whom she supports - complains that her other children love her better, because my coworker doesn't spend as much time with her as the other kids. Her mother seems oblivious of the fact that her other children have shorter work schedules and live with her, in apartments built in her backyard.

This strange, toxic circle of abuse makes me think about her political choices and comments as well. She thinks she's making a choice that personally  benefits her, and likes to act like she is in possession of insider information, that she has the contacts to take her to higher places. Truth is, she's being stringed along, exploited. She wants to believe she's better, shw knows better than the rest, that she's smart, even though her "smarts" are proven only by her hability to take advantage and sneak in. She gleefully witnesses the fall for fraud of members of a party, but willfully ignores the crimes of her own party, just the way she strives to look like the toughest mom on the teachers and the most dedicated one, while her child has grown irresponsible and unmanageable.

Another coworker and I believe her son might be gay. He just "pings" that way. If we are right, how will her mind spin and convolute her world view, her alleged inner information, her alleged high connections when they are tangled with an association that hates what her son might be?

This is my Monday and this is what mingles with my coffee today.

The End is Nigh

Property of Stormberry.

In my last post I wrote to you about a book, written by the father of a friend, which I didn't really like that much. The book, not the friend. Then, I've got a book from the same author - given to me by this friend - and I was over the moon. It was a book he had written (my friend's father, not my friend) about Rosa Luxemburg, a Polish socialist revolutionary, who lived in the turn of the century (like, the past turn of the century, from 1871 to 1919, or so), whom I like and whom I want to research a little more. Yes, I could have started by reading her letters (which I have... in German), or her books (I just realized I actually already have some of her books on my Kindle, because I could lay my paws on it for free...), BUT my friend had said his father had written about her, and I wanted to read that book. I actually pestered him for a while since I had to wait until the book actually hit stores here.

The first third of the book I really liked. It's about Rosa's life and her circumstances. It does have a few things that make me cringe, like a notorious disregard of the use of commas and other puntuation signs, a profuse use of outdated, obscure terms nobody uses anymore... since the Middle Ages, a strange tendency to call Wrocław "Breslau", and never noticing that today is called Wrocław, among other strange things. Mr. Quesada's misogynistic views still came across regarding Ms. Luxemburg, but after reading his novel, I guess that was to be expected.

Then I passed the first third and... and I lost my cool. Strange things happened in the book, like a chapter finished with a page and a half of back-to-back quotes, pretty unrelated one to the next, and no reason as to why they needed to be included. To me it felt like an unfinished chapter, where he had dumped the pieces he wanted to develop, but then forgot about it and sent it out to print. Then the grammatic errors started to pile up, like separating the subject from the verb with a comma, when it had no need to be done that way, sentence connectors bracketed between commas, because HEY! Commas are trendy. Aaaaaand then came the graves error of all: crass mistakes about economical theory and economical interpretations. Like what? Like claiming that the "merchandise WAGE" has a price... when the mercandise is Labor and Wage is the price of it. Because, you know, you can't go to the market to buy a wage, but you can buy Labor by hiring someone, and you pay that Labor with a wage. Or claiming that Jean-Baptiste Say claimed the contrary to "production creates it's on market", when M. Say said that "the Supply creates it's on Demand", and Mr. Keynes proved him wrong.

And to think that this man's son is an economist that could review and correct his father's mistakes.

The book also includes circular chapters that go on and on and on about one single idea. Like a pile up of all the ways the same thing can be said. The piled idea? Imperialism is the extended Capitalism, and it needs wars to keep gobbling up more and more resources to keep the increasing production and profit creation. No less than four chapters are devoted to this one idea without adding anything to it. No historical frame, to facts, no nothing, just this one idea repeated over and over in different ways.

I'll finish the book, because maybe it will have a good ending, and because I want to extract as much of it as I can, but from what I read, I can no longer trust a single word. If the economical material in it it's flawed, how could I trust the rigurosity of the research behind the rest?

Property of Stormberry

Other than that, the days have a tinted, mulled quality to them. It's the last week of work before out mandatory vacations, and nobody wants to work, everybody wants to party and drink wine, or use the time to chat with friends at the office. Goodness yes, we all have stuff to do, of course, but we don't want to do it. The sun shines just the right way, the way we here call "Christmas Weather", and trade winds chill us all.

I haven't made my holiday shopping yet, which is so funny, because usually I'm already done and ready by this time. Ok, normally by this time I am in Europe, unpacked, wrapped in my winter gear and again confronted with the strange selection of veggies at the Hungarian supermarkets, and profusely planning all my errands and visiting my favorite places along with planning out all my visits to my friends.

This time around I'm staying put in Costa Rica because I have Grand Plans: I have to be here for when the building of my house starts! :-) House I am already calling House of Seven Gables. It will have five gablets and two gables, BUT it shall be officially considered as a house with seven gables. Because I say so. :-)  Cool, right? I also have to save some more money for it, of course, because there's not such a things as too many precautions, and so I want to be all prep'd up. It's so exciting! ^_^ I'm just so over the Moon with this.

So yes, I'm being a responsible adult and staying here for my beloved house. It feels so good to say that. ^_^

I've also had a couple of other successes this year, like I managed - after great obstacles and issues - to get the director lady of the Marketing Faculty to give me the green light with my thesis project. Not like she had anything to object to my topic, but because she was objecting things that she should have done previously. It didn't sit well with her when I pointed out - with evidence and sending a copy of the e-mail to her boss - that the things she was objecting where her responsability to fix. It took her until the last day of work at the University for her to finally give me the go. So next year I'll start my fourth thesis project.

I also managed to pass my B2d German course, which completes the B2 level - which is the highest middle level - and which means that next year I'm in for the C1, which enters in the advanced level. Not like I really feel like I know all that much German, mind you. So, in the light of that I'll take a couple of summer classes - I'm thinking about a class in German Literature and another in German Art and History - to practice. In this same line I've also started considering taking an intensive course of German in Germany through the Goethe Institute. This is still a raw idea, as I have to consider things like how my finances will be after the house building, maybe a trip to Europe in Spring that's still not fixed, the remaining vacation days I'll have left, how things will stand with my thesis by then, my workload, and how things will fare with my Accounting.

However, if this comes true, I'm planning on picking Düsseldorf for studying, and a four-week plan somewhere in the Fall.

Property of Stormberry

But this are all plans for the future. Currently I want to live and enjoy this time of relaxed days, "mulled" as I called them earlier, because days do seem infused with the taste of mulled wine, even if it's not customary here. In case you wonder, we did have mulled wine or Glühwein to end our German class, because that was given. (And we had also Lebenkuchen too!)

I haven't been much at the city center, but last week I went once, and I liked it. It's not a pretty city, with low buildings, lots of dirt and crumbling places, narrow streets that can't cope with the amount of cars and busses crammed through them but I kinda like it.

This year - due to the self imposed budget constrictions, I decided to go for books for most of my gifts - and keep my gifts to the minimum. (A good thing about finally cutting some of my toxic relationships in my life is that I'm no longer obligued to scout for gifts for people I know won't appreciate them.) I'll concentrate on family and my closest friends, and that will be it. For that, I plan to make a few trips to San José city center, and wander around, checking shops and coffee shops and allowing myself to be seduced by the taste of a city that doesn't carry a tropical flavor, but that has warmth, and umph and some strange creativity. Where the garbed cosmopolitan vision of sadly pusher-uppers try to imprint upon a culture that will always, always prefer simple comfort and laid back attitude to over-processed confections.

Hey, these are we a nation that likes to lounge on a hammock, that do like skyscrappers and high tech... as long as we don't have to sweat for them, because we love our free time, and our free time means time to grab a beer with friends, laugh and be completely impulsive and spontaneous. Blame it on the fact that we have beaches 45 minutes away... we are used to the easy way of life and we really don't want to change. And these days, are Our Biggest and Easiest Days.

Things That Tilt My Head

Originally I was thinking about sharing my two cents on the topic of vaccines and the so-called anti-vaxxers, but then I decided to go personal again and share instead a tidbit about my life and the things that happen in it. Ain't like I'm an expert on vaccines anyway, nor do you read me for it, right? Well, if you read me, which aparently you do. And why there are so many people from Russia reading me? "Drugi", you have the wrong person. I'm not based in the USA, I do not represent their thinking, and I don't think I can give you any information for anything you may need. But that's beyond the point.

So, the thing is that at my job you can - technically - request a differenciated workschedule called "flexible schedule". This basically means that you request starting your workday at a different time, and so end it at a different time. You still put in the same 9:36 hours, but instead of doing it in the regular schedule (from 7:00h to 16:36h), you can start at 6:00h, 6:30h, or 7:30h. In our group only two people held that schedule, because our boss basically doesn't like it when people don't stay at the office all the way until 16:36h. Many years ago I had the 6:00-to-15:36 schedule, but they I had some moves in the company and was moved back to the 7:00-to-16:36.

The two people who have the flexible schedules - lets call them Ally and Ben - Ally has a schedule from 6:30-to-16:00, while Ben had the 6:00-to-15:36 schedule. Since I was on the 7:00-to-16:36, I noticed that each time the boss wasn't around, both Ally and Ben were leaving the office at 15:00, and sometimes even earlier. This has been going on for years. Now, this story is about Ben, so let's concentrate on him, shall we?

There are no particular reasons why Ben "should have a claim" to get the flexible schedule above other coworkers, so it was taken like, you know, he asked for it first or something. He does have elderly parents and one of them has dementia, so they have to take care of them and all that. But as far as I know, Ben has four older kids that don't work, a housewife wife and around seven siblings. Anyway, aparently, he gets the schedule and the "special treatment" because of his ailing relative. In this my general attitude is: "Not my circus, not my monkeys".

Ben and I had a fallout sometime by the end of last year, which has been so good to me. You see, Ben is the kind of person that's always on the lookout to get things out of others. Free rides, free meals, free snacks... it doesn't matter what it is, if he can get it for free, he will get it. He even goes as far as ask you for free stuff if you have once shared something with him. Let me give you an example: say one day you make too much coffee for yourself (I brew my own coffee in a French Press. Our group has a "coffee comitee", but there had been so much drama in it (involving Ben), that I rather not get myself into that and make my own coffee), so you offer it TO THE GROUP, if anyone wants the extra cup you made. Ben offers to take it. Then, the next day, Ben will tell you that your coffee was really, good, so would you please make an extra cup again for him? So yes, that's Ben.

The fallout was inconsecuential, really, basically about some tought times we were having at the office. I was dealing with it by keeping to myself, but he was dealing by wallowing in everybody's mysery. He wanted me to share and tell him how awful I felt, and would not take my no for an answer.  When I finally raised my voice and told him to fuck the fuck off, he took offense and stopped talking to me ever since. It was divine. He never again came begging for food or any other thing.

Source: Google.com
Goethe Zentrum

So, the thing is that, as you know, I'm taking German lessons after work. Not everyday, but still. I was going to one of the languages centers Goethe Institute has here, for about two years, with a rather convenient schedule. Then, for this period I had to switch centers (still with the Goethe!) and that meant not only a different schedule, but a longer conmute time. In the light of that, I talked to my boss and explained him that I needed the flexible schedule, specifically the 6:00-to-15:36 one. While the schedule change was approved (it's approved by semester), I asked him permission to leave early the days I had classes.

I didn't mean to, but I overheard when my boss told Ben that he would have to take the 6:30-to-16:00 schedule (the same Ally has), because he was giving me the 6:00-to-15:36 one. No, so far I know, there's no rule forbidding more than one person from having the same schedule, as it is proven now by Ally and Ben having the same schedule. He simply accepted. To be honest, this got me thinking that my boss wasn't buying that story of him having to tend to his ailing relative.

Anyway, comes the new semester, and I still have to wait for my schedule switch to be approved (it was being handled like a new request), and Ben is already in his 6:30-to-16:00, when out of the blue he comes to talk to me, like we are intimate or something, and asks me if I could GIVE HIM three of my five days with the 6:00-to-15:36 schedule, because it ain't like I need them anyway, only one or two days for classes. He claimed he talked about it with the boss, and it was the boss that told him to ask me for the switch. Allegedly, he needed to be home early to put his ailing relative in bed, and this relative needed to be in bed by 16:00, so all the cleaning and tending had to happen earlier. (Conmute to where we live takes around 35 minutes in the afternoon...)

I was inclined - out of the hardly ever seen goodness of my heart, to give him one, max two days of my schedule, out of consideration for his family, which he seemed to resent because he wanted three days... but would take anything. I did had a nagging feeling, so I consulted with friends, and it turns out we could not swap schedules, or we risked having them taken away. I told him so the next day, and that he should be careful (aiming at his routinely escapades). He played the victim and then proceeded to lie in my face about how he was so hard working, and he always stayed longer, and maybe even leaving the office 5 minutes early. Like I have never seen him leave an hour before he should. Like I have not been a witness to him never making it to his actual end-of-workday hour.

It seems that he whined to the boss, so the next semester I'll get the 6:30-to-16:00 and he gets the 6:00-to-15:36, which is no biggie for me, because then again I'll ask weekly permits to attend classes, if I have to. However, after this I have found myself paying attention to Ben, to what he does, and I've realized that - for someone so devoted to his family that he needs a special schedule to attend them - he spends way too much time on the phone tending other personal businesses, pertaining to some lawsuits, car sales, property sales and other business making, that have nothing to do with taking care of a person with dementia, nor what he has been hired here to do. And he isn't even being subtle about it. As compensation for having his "rightful schedule" taken away, he has been taken to resource to more permits, and what appears to be bogus meetings outside the building, in order to cover up for leaving home early - tricks he has learned with Ally.

I mind my own business - circus, monkeys and all that - but really, Ben's behavior is as subtle as a tarantula on a while wall. This makes me wonder why did he even bother bitching about the schedule when he's not going to change his behavior and will keep escaping from the office earlier. When it has become clear that the boss isn't buying his story about the doting son.

This is when I wonder if shamelessness really knows no limits.

Hidden Resentments

People tend to keep certain cards quite close to their vest, whether to the best or worse. These are cards we don't share for different reasons, but mostly because we feel they would do more damage than good. But it is so? What motivate us to keep for ourselves negative opinions or believes we have of others, instead of sharing them and clearing the air between us?

There's this group of people where everybody is really friendly towards each other. I've always assumed they were really good friends, and on the surface it looked so. However, as I've got to know them better, often having conversations on a one-on-one basis, it turned out that none of them really liked the others, always having rather important objections about the rest. Curiously, all of them resented the others because they felt all the others imposed on them, minimized their jobs, all of them assumed the others thought in a negative manner of them, an often they thought the others lied or made up excuses to get out of some commitments, tasks or so. So why they kept meeting and making plans together?

Perhaps sometimes we feel it's strategic to remain in the supposed good graces of others, maybe because we don't want to lose our belonging to a given group, specially if being alone in a given environment means we would be exposed to harsh conditions, or because belonging to a given group mean we have access to benefits we otherwise won't have, or just because we've been in a given group so long that we don't want to be without them anymore. In these cases, perhaps, we make a pro-con analysis and we come up with the decision that we are better if we continue suffering the bad because the good is better. We convince ourselves that we are making a commitment by bravely enduring what bothers us of others. But are these analysis always correct? Are we really making the measurement, or are we pondering with already a result decided and fixing our measurements in order to fit that measurement?

I think that often that's what we do, and in some occasions - specially when we talk about relationships - our actual friends do tell us about the shitty situation we are in, and yet we convince ourselves that still, things are not as bleak as our friends tell us. Even though they are.

The thing is that separation, breakup, is hard. It's always hard, no matter how much you prepare for it. We are willing to put up with a lot of things that only fuel our further accumulated, unreleased, unspoken resentment because truth it that we are not brave enough to walk away from a sickening situation. We seek validation in others, try to convince ourselves that though something is already insufferable for us, if others see it as something manageable, then we should manage it too. But if you are the one living and suffering a given situation, shouldn't you empower yourself  to put a stop on it?

There's a magical measure we should always keep in sight: if you catch yourself always complaining about something or someone, then it's time to take that something or someone out of your life. Hard as it is, but nothing and no one is worthy of sacrificing your happiness so you won't be alone or you could reap benefits you won't even enjoy.

Yes, it's hard, and it goes out for everything: your family, your relationships, your job, your projects, your hobbies, your friends... Some of them would be harder for us, some of them maybe easier, but none of them would be painless. That's the true bravely, not pulling up with shit because we "don't walk away from hardship" or "you are not a quitter" or "maybe it would change". Walking away is a form of hardship, which you face in order to make things better. Quitting something that no longer works doesn't make you a quitter, because you are not quitting yourself, you are not quitting your happiness, you are not quitting your integrity: you are standing next to it.

You can change yourself, but you can't expect others to change for you. And you also have to be realistic with yourself: there are things of yourself you can change, but there are things you can't or shouldn't, because they are who you are. No one should ever renounce for anyone or anything to those things that make them who they are. There's no job, no relationship, no family member, no group, no "opportunity" worth denying who you are and what you believe in. No commitment should ever be made on the grounds of sacrificing those features that make up your personality. Commitments should always be respectful of your core elements.

No, we can't live without hidden resentments, I believe. When I started working in the public sector, way back in 2001, I learned that hypocrisy is an important element of the working environment. Little by little I learned to halt my natural tendency to be brutally sincere, and learned to lie, or hide the truth as much as I could, in order to get on with the program. The six months I spent in Hungary in 2012 put me back to my factory setting, and unable to be hypocritical, life at the office became quite hard. In these years that have passed, I began reclaiming those old acquired skills, slowly re-learning the obscure art of pretending to be pleased and pleasant while wishing people dead. I'm far, I know, from the master level of being able to be friendly and pleasant while stabbing people on the back - skill I don't think I'll ever be able to master - but as I walk down the path of this necessary evil, I realize hidden resentments lurk in a dark place of our souls, and they are not good for us. We choose to live with them, for whatever reason we have, but as they rot our spirits, shouldn't we, at least, try and hold as few of them as possible?

Last week the dams opened for me, and I let out resentments I had been holding in my chest for many years. This week - today, actually - they were talked over and a door closed behind me. I won't lie, it was damned hard because with this admission, with this releasing I released also something very, very precious in my life. I'm mourning a sensible loss now. Tomorrow, to mark this change in my life and perhaps find a symbolic milestone, I'll cut my hair. I still don't know how much, how short, but I want to have this symbol, to remind myself now that life goes on just like hair keeps growing, and that this is a new chapter in my life, a new begining and that chances are there for the taking. The loss will be felt, fuck, I'm not made of ice and stone, no matter how much I wish I were, but must keep my head held up high and keep on.

I'm Not My Gender!

St. Patrick's Day, one of my favorite holidays, even if it's not a holiday observed here. Well, my favorite holiday of all is Halloween, and that's not observed here either, but that has never stopped me, has it? I'd be delighted to write to you about St. Patrick's Day and how much I love it, and how I like to prepare for it (except that this year I realized only after I was in the car, on the way to the office, clad all in maroon, not in green. I did change later on to green, so not all was lost!), but what drives me to the keyboard of my netbook is something else entirely. Today I felt insulted by a sexist comment.

It all happened during lunch time. At the office we have a microwave for our area, in which all of us heat our food, and then proceed to go wherever we choose to go to eat. I normally don't eat with my coworkers because when I eat with someone is a friend of mine from days past, and when I'm not, I take the opportunity to have some moments with a book. I'm currently reading "Chesapeake 1880", which has great parts and others rather poorly done. Anyway, as sometimes happen, when I went to heat my meal someone's meal was already in the microwave. No biggie, I put my food in the queue and then went to the bathroom, expecting for the microwave to be free when I was done. Indeed the program had ended when I came back, but the owner of the food contained had not removed the food. I opened the oven to remove it and place it on top of the microwave, but the damned thing was too hot to hold. I did try but it was too hot and I knew I wouldn't be able to touch it. So I asked who the owner of the container was, so that person would remove the scalding container. The owner wasn't far from there - could have actually removed the container in time, since he was in distance to hear the beep.

"Here," he said handing me some paper napkins "take it out."

"No," I said moving out of the way "it's too hot for me to touch."

And here comes The Comment. My coworker actually said: "Too hot? You are a woman! You should be used to! I bet your mother-"

I didn't let him continue.

"I'm a person like anyone else, and I resist heat just like any other person."

"You are a woman," he insisted "what kind of woman are you? Sure your mother could handle that!" (He has never seen my mother, nor has ever heard of her, mind you.)

Honestly, I found the comment insulting, the sheer idea that just because I'm a woman I should be trained for the kitchen, unlike my male counterparts, who need not to deal with any kitchen task, nor need to be trained to endure heat on the hands. I did tell him that his comment was sexist and I found it insulting, with those words, the words "sexist" and "insulting" included in the message, and he simply insisted, as if he were right in his assertion and my being insulted were nothing but some stupid words from an ignorant woman who forgets where is her place in society. I deigned him not to any more of my attention.

Now, I'd like to make something clear: I'm not being picky or delicate, my not being fighty or radical-feminist, I'm being honest, and I am entitled to feel insulted when someone thinks that just because I happen to have been born female I'm less or different by default from my male counterparts regarding anything other than my particular function in the reproductive scheme. First and foremost, I'm a person. The 4% of my chromosomes do not define me entirely. The fact that - reproductively speaking, I'm a "life carrier" instead of a "life impregnator" do not define me. I'm a person, a mind, a soul a spirit, and my body, its shape, its form, its age, its gender are but the vessel my mind uses to move around the world. Yes, quite a great vessel, which I love, and comes with a lot of perks, like senses and sensations and all sorts of things to experiment with, but neither of those qualities are what makes me, me. I'm not automatically happier because I'm a brunet, I'm not automatically a sharp shooter because my eyes are dark. I'm not smarter because I'm not too tall, I'm not automatically temperamental because my skin is Creole or I'm half Latin. I don't automatically know how to handle babies because I'm a woman. I do not automatically know how to cook because I'm a woman. No, I'm who and what I am because I'm a person and I've grown into who I am through a sequence of choices based on what I've lived and what I've learned from my experiences. Not because I'm a woman, or Christian, or half-Hungarian or 5-foot-4.

I'm no different from any other person of the world. We are all different, but neither of us is this way or that way "because we have been born this or that". We are who we are because of our decisions, not because the fatalistic view some still ascribe to because for them it's much easier to imagine all the same, treat them the same, ignore them the same, instead of taking the time to know each person for whom they are, and understand that you can't box people up because of whatever a given chromosome has made them to be.

Let's stop generalizing, let's start knowing each other. Let's stop insulting, let's start understanding. We are not our chromosomes, we are not our ethnicity, we are not our religion, we are who we have chosen to be, and I've chosen to be a Person. Treat me so.