A man can lose everything, but if he still has his soul, his heart, his mind, and a quiet place of solitude in which to reflect on all three, he will have everything he needs to regain what he has lost.
This a quote graphic generously created by Emma Holmes. Thank you Emma!
This gets to the heart of what’s important in life. Really like it. I find myself disappointed with the English language though. There seems to be no way to write this in a gender-inclusive way without it sounding awkward.
Thanks, Kit. 🙂
The way I see it: I’m a male and therefore my perspective, as a male, is just as valid as any other. I could attempt to water down my thought by making it gender-inclusive, or I could simply express myself as myself, as a male. If a female reads this and it resonates with her, it won’t resonate with her because she feels like a man. It will resonate with her because she feels what I was feeling when I expressed this as a man. The message becomes “gender-inclusive” on its own, without the need of language.
I think the whole writing to be gender-neutral thing is a bit overblown. As a writer, we should write from our hearts, true to ourselves. Not all my thoughts are going to be gender-inclusive. It’s like trying to make all clothing gender-inclusive… it just doesn’t work. Males and females have different body types, different shapes. Instead of succumbing to societal stigmas around gender equality, I feel that we should move beyond that, embrace who we are, and just write from our hearts. 🙂
hm I think it’s easy to say as a man that the ‘gender-neutral thing is a bit overblown’. Yes, you are obviously a white straight man and never had to deal with equality issues.
But to be fair, I find thoughts like the one above beautiful, and yet, they don’t speak to me as a woman at all. They exclude me, so I stop reading and move on to something else that doesn’t.
You could have just replaced the he and his with you. Done.
However, it’s your writing, and this blog is your house, so you do what ever feels right to you, which is how it should be.. 😉
I wasn’t speaking as a man, Conni, but as a writer. But speaking as a man I feel that by writing true to myself (i.e. not discarding my gender), I’m fighting for equality, not against it.
If I changed my thought to use ‘you’ instead of ‘he’ and ‘his’, I would sound like I was directing the thought at someone else, someone external to myself. I wasn’t. I was talking to myself, thinking something and then sharing that thought with others.
I actually find writing like this far more powerful. When I visit a female writers site and I see her using ‘she’ and ‘her’, I feel a sense of power coming from her and her writing leaves me feeling empowered as well. I don’t feel left out.