an elaboration and more mental floss, part 1

I wanted to expand on what I wrote earlier, specifically on the dichotomy between masculine and feminine.

This:
I am feminine:
I am a life-giver;
I am a creator;
I am soft and gentile;
I am a nurturer;
I gather when needed;
I am a woman with a man's body, but I do not let that define me.

I am masculine:
I am a life-taker;
I am a destroyer;
I am hard;
I am a protector;
I hunt when needed;
I have a penis, but i do not let it define me.

(This is Part 1 - gender roles in general.. part 2 is more about me)

First of all, the traits I listed are some that are stereotypically (and some consider arbitrarily) assigned to each gender. None of the traits I listed are negative when taken in context. The best example of the context I'm thinking of them is from an old Role Playing Game system by a company called White Wolf.

In the mythology for their story "Werewolf: The Apocalypse", the highest beings were a triad that were called The Wyld, The Weaver, and the Wyrm. The Wyld was pure, unrestrained creative energy, and places like a jungle or rain forest were places where it's influence shone through the most. Next, there's The Weaver, which is a force of organization and order, and it is best seen in a major city like NYC; roads in a crisscross pattern, blocks and buildings clean and crisp. Last, but certainly no less important, is the Wyrm. It's job is to destroy, in order for there to be more for the Wyld to create from and an end for the next beginning to spring from. They worked in beautiful harmony for aeons, in a symphony of creation, life and death, in order for everything to run smoothly. The game itself is set after the Wyrm has fallen to madness, whether by some random bit of corruption on it's own or if the Weaver tried to order death and threw it out of balance, but that is outside the realm of my post.

Where it relates to my discussion is that we are the perpetuators as well as the recipients of that type of cycle in order for life to continue. We create, we organize things in our minds, we kill them in order to continue living until we ourselves die. Again, it's a beautiful symphony. To demean any one part of it is to demean the whole. To degrade it is to spit upon the very process by which you are sitting here reading my words on your screen. Life is given by nature, whether you believe the hand of the divine is involved or not. We learn about how things are ordered. Plants and animals die in order to sustain us. We grow and learn our place in the circle of life (and no, I will spare you the joke and Elton John lyrics ^_^), until it is our turn to pass, and in turn fertilize plants for other animals to eat. It's when any of them are out of balance that things go wrong. If the Wyld within us goes unchecked, growth is rampant and cancerous, which hurts life as a whole. When the Weaver goes into overdrive, there's stagnation because creativity is bound and ordered, and it dies. If it's the Wyrm that falls to madness, it's pointless, all-consuming entropy and the nothing can survive.

That is why I say it's a beautiful thing when I say that as a masculine being, I hunt, destroy and take life. (Which, technically, *I* don't.. I benefit from others who do it for me.) I do my best to keep myself in balance in order to perpetuate and better my life and the lives of those around me.

Some people try to erase the differences in an attempt to increase equality between the sexes. This is erroneous, it negates some of the most beautiful things about each gender and it diminishes us as a species. I see masculine and feminine traits as a beautiful yin-yang, complimenting and us, both within ourselves and with friends, family and lovers.