gender

Reality hits those who like to cherish illusions.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Reality of another person can be extremely hard to grasp and see, even though it is right in front of you. It is the impossibility of understanding feelings of the other, seeing the position where one may be and how one got there. Value of the other, feelings of the other can be denied, belittled and despised just because you can. Reality of someone who is despised as such. Christians like to repeat we are born equal, somehow it does not resonate in true life. Christianity, the religion, is an excuse to put people down since God is on side of those who have the right god. Even though people don’t practice faith they are born in to culture which 100% has roots to some religion and practices of religious ideas, stories, beliefs and traditions. We are as cultural beings bound to religion, faith, mysticism, rules, which tell us how to live and how we see our place in the world and among other people.
What are realities now that religious people see in society which is more open to difference but still is very violent towards many people. Society is sexually more open, at least in theory, in entertainment and in advertising, demanding equality, equal treatment of the sexes, open discussion is available demanding tolerance and freedom of expression and speech. Religions are not the most tolerant. Religious entities are not demanding end of violence quite the contrary. Religions make war possible. Hypocrisy flourishes. How easy it is to not look. When religion demands hiding of our nature, hiding of beauty because it is seen evil and corrupt, how divine and godly that religion actually is. In societies where sexual intercourse is a sin, a taboo which makes all sexual topics shameful, all which is banned happens in hiding. We are punished for our sins which usually are of sexual nature. We are punished for wanting, desiring, lusting, having dirty ideas and doing filthy acts. Touching can become illegal and scary. Touching is too much to take, not to speak of kissing.
As an artist I am used to seeing nudity and I think it is the most natural thing as is sex. Just to depict and see nakedness is not porn, female and male sexual organs as such are not pornography to me, sexual yes but anything can be sexual. Asshole is holy as Allen Ginsberg stated in his poem Howl. What a scandal that became, all what he wrote was against the comfort and mediocre American society held dear. Dear hypocrisy, dear silence, dear oblivion, dear order which cannot be broken because it is not proper. Violence is more tolerated than sex. Violence is normal, so normal people don’t necessarily see when they are being violent and accept bullying when someone is to be put in order, be punished for what one is, dares to be in public. Order which cannot be torn apart because it is too frightening, too much to handle.

 

Disappearance of a cat

Kuva | | Henna Timanttimetsä

 

To be afraid of falling off the edge, of being left outside, any kind of fear there may be that is terrifying and paralyzing. If one is not aware that being afraid is one of the most central issues to grab and learn to know why and what it is all about.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Fear for a woman and for a child is an everyday issue. We must be careful because there are dangers but we cannot live in fear. Danger is a sharp edge, falling down, sudden accident, a crash, an explosion, an attack, a stalker, a stranger, unknown, losing honor. Where are they those who threaten, what are they, those scary monsters, threatening future prospects, masked and armed enemies who hate? A black cloud, radiation, cancer, illness, losing one’s mind, losing friends, losing a job, losing hope, losing everything there is to lose. Fear in media fed to us is there for a reason, fear the emotion is dictating largely how we act and react, what we see and don’t see, how we feel and are allowed to feel. What happens next, what should we think and do. What are we afraid of and why, there is the safe inside space and the unsafe outside space, there is fear of life unlived, fear of death, fear of shame, being shamed and ashamed, fear of hurt, of losing, being forgotten and left aside, stomped down. There are so many ways to be afraid, how we keep silent, go with the crowd, tremble, stumble, stutter, shiver, feel frozen of fear, panic, scream, try to escape, run, go out of breath, don’t want to face the things that frighten us, how we show fear we must not show but we sweat, how we inflict fear, spread fear and terror, keep people in fear for their lives because everything is uncertain. To rule with fear is to bring horror for your people. One can be fearless when one is tired of being afraid, constant fearing does not make things change, to be brave and do whatever you think you can you should do, maybe little hesitant thinking what will others think, what will be thought of me when I do this, fear of being judged and abandoned, labelled, bullied. Can we smell fear?
 

 

What does it mean to have an ego?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Does it mean one can speak of oneself all the time, bring oneself forward because one understands one’s importance as a human being in a competitive world, to value and marvel all the wonderful things one has had the pleasure to do and become? All the wonderful things that can be labelled on that person things that make him or her. What are those things and who get impressed? What happens when those things are taken away, what happens to ego? To be self-centered can be about hiding one’s insecurity, that one is not able to compete in the competitive world where we are something only when we have excellence to present as visible proof. There is weakness in a hugely ballooned ego and it is fragile in unstable world filled with similar egos, similar ideas of what it means to be impressive, sizable and important. Big egos are fragile for criticism, afraid of losing and not winning, they attack and blacklist, stump on mud trying to defeat. Big ego is fragile for negative emotions to arise and take the better of the egoist which very often happen and so easily. There is hurt and offense.

The most egotist thing to do is to do all for the benefit of oneself only, to pursue and stand for things that bring good and profit for one and few only. This is a caricature which is very real. It is a very immature type of person for whom excellence is something one is born with, god given. How many of us are egotists, narcissists, disregarding interests of other people and any other being around? By the look of it, by experience, such outlook on life is fairly common, incapability and unwillingness to take others into consideration. What does it take to grow to be considering instead of a bully? Is it the bad thing that decent people deny from themselves ever having, consideration and compassion because it is costly, time-consuming, humbling and anti-hierarchical? Is ego something the bold people possess, ruthless and greedy ones, isn’t that ego as a hollow construction, a show off and scare? We talk as we know ego. We talk it is the positive empowering pedestal, a sign of self-respect maybe, a sign of disrespect if one is a woman, arrogant and cocky. Someone who knows what one wants and is must have a strong ego among all those egos. Ego has a dark shadow, it is gendered already for children. It is the negative which is not encouraged for girls to have and a girl who shows bossy is punished for doing the same what boys ’naturally’ express. The word ego clings to something grand, becoming and making oneself and has the clang of the worst of mankind: self-absorbed, self-centered, endless self-love, violent battle that has no end other than dead-end. When we are selfless are we without ego, without dignity and awareness and acknowledging self-worth? To be able to fight for dignity and self-worth to know what one can do is essential.

How much is it good to have an ego? Is that the right question at all, the amount of ego in us and what we do when we have self-confidence and belief in one’s capabilities. As an artist it is essential the belief in oneself. Nobody else does that for you. How essential it is to have a strong ego, not be blinded by it but have it as a force. Is it the same as large ego to have strong ego? There is no one telling me what to do, how to do what I do. I either manage it or I do not. I work as long as it takes to make the idea come true. How much does my ego effect on why I do, what I do, how I do and what kind of place I occupy for myself to be able to do the things I value? One must value oneself to find one’s passion, follow one’s interests regardless of what people around think of them and of me.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434827/individual-cowardice-killing-american-culture?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=5728623d04d3012df78b5195&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter ”I’ve often found myself thinking of William Butler Yeats’s classic poem, “The Second Coming.” In it, Yeats ponders societal collapse, writing: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” In our nation, the center didn’t even try to hold. The “reasonable” people made the easy choice to go with the flow of cultural upheaval.”

 

Come play with me

Kuva | | Henna Timanttimetsä

I heard the little bird sing.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

 

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Facial expression

| Henna Timanttimetsä
How close can you get to another person? How close to someone is it possible to be, is there a limit of closeness when there is no space in between? When will you suffocate for being so close that you cannot breath?
What do you know of anyone? How well do you know yourself?

Finding honor

| Henna Timanttimetsä
When we find honor via other people through what they are and mean to us we see other people as extensions to us, parts of us that are elementary but controllable ones. When what other people represent as wholes or just parts that fill the whole of you how whole are you?  When to bring honor is master-subject relationship, tyranny, ownership of slaves kind of relationship, what kind of honor is there and how easily it can be put to dirt. Honor which is taken away and put to dirt must be cleaned, revenged, suffered for and for many people honor is found only through suffering, hurt and pain. To have no honor is a stigma and people with no honor for whom that state is given which is strongly dictated by society and community are usually lost people. When property is source of honor and that property does everything that is expected of it honor is very short-lived and easily lost, pride is to have that relationship with property unchanged, property following plan that is given for it because there is no other way to live. To dishonor is to break something that should not be broken all happening in life must happen within rules that are deemed codes for living unchangeable, solid and holy. When there is an institution which has all power to give life and take it, it has taken place of god, doing work that has been taken from god, thinking this position is given by god for a reason and this power cannot be questioned, taken away or rebelled against because it is good and righteousness. When children rebel against their parents it is mostly seen as dishonoring and bad behavior, bad judgement and wrong against an institution. Our relationship to our parents is juggling between whether to do what they want or what we want, when we become aware of power we have over our own lives and bodies and often parents see those bodies they have given life to as their possessions.
Family and parents are those who in many parts of the world have absolute authority over their children especially girls. Though it is common still everywhere that parents guide their children in the direction chosen by the parents themselves pressuring career choice in making money, status and name, having grandchildren, making money to buy a standard of living, doing things that parents see proper to do in life and as honorable things to do continuing ready-made paths of living and way of life in which certain objects and signs of success belong. To fail is to do the opposite. It is to disagree, disapprove and that alone can be disrespect too much to take. To honor is to be honorable in the eyes of the rest, of those who are comparing and to whom we compare, why else honor would exist as strongly as it does. We feel deeply ashamed and can be shamed in front of other people when we do what is seen shameful, disrespectful in a community braking rules and traditions, hierarchy and authority jeopardized. To disrespect is to take power and find power of oneself, to understand that there is no honor in doing only what is expected of you. Of course there is disrespect which has no honor and that is disrespecting human rights, disrespecting dignity, disrespecting authority to self and anyone’s autonomy to know what one can do in life. How to find dignity when it is almost undignified and a burden to be born a girl? When dignity is to do what you are told to do and nothing else.

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2016/02/29/3754753/pakistan-honor/ ”Rafia Asim of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan told ThinkProgress last year that her organization receives information about an average of 30 “honor killings” a month across just over one third of the country’s districts.”

Kuva | | Henna Timanttimetsä