Saturday, October 12, 2024
When I was a kid, one of the absolute worst things I could be was "weak."
Not because I personally had much issue with it - or much choice in the matter, generally - but because that was something that would invariably invite the harshest, most emotionally violent punishment and rejection from the people around me, both young and old.
Despite being a girl, I was supposed to become a Strong Young Man, someday, or so their story went; and as such, it was somehow imperative that anything resembling "weakness" be purged from my existence - using any form of harm necessary. To many of the adults in my world, it was considered something of a moral imperative to do this to me. To most of my peers, it was a part of their own process of becoming the people their parents wanted them to be - and, therefore, a violence they readily and willingly passed on to me, in an attempt to stay on the "right side" of their own upbringings and elders.
I am now in my late 30s, and disabled.
There are a few things that I am profoundly, deeply, and intensely grateful for, in my life today - which, make no mistake, is often remarkably difficult and fraught with brutal daily struggles. But I think, at this moment in my life, the thing I cherish the most is my weakness.
Read the rest of The Priceless Gift of Weakness...
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
What on earth could men's fashion, ancient Roman conquest, the fact that I speak English, and global climate change possibly all have in common?
I want to go on a whirlwind tour of about two thousand years of human history, focusing primarily on events on the continent of Europe, but also their larger, and more wide-spread ramifications across the entire planet. As I've written about before, I love to ask "why" a lot - about pretty much everything. That has led me to explore a huge range of social, political, and cultural phenomena. I also have a deep love for patterns - ways in which similarity can appear, even in contexts that are extremely different. The combination of these factors creates a non-stop drive in my brain to find connected causes of very disparate phenomena.
In other words, this is a trip through time, where I want to point out a particular set of patterns of human behavior that are very rarely recognized as being intertwined. I want to share why (and how) I have come to the opinion that an enormous number of contemporary issues in our world boil down to people feeling insecure, and then creating larger and larger social and cultural patterns in reaction to that. This is a history of the very concept of "whiteness" and how it has affected the entire world, through a specific emotional lens.
Read the rest of A Brief History of White Insecurity, Part 1...
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Long ago, sometime early in my teenage years, I developed a fairly unusual habit. As it turned out, that habit became a significant part of my life - it directly contributed to much of my success during my career, it helped me reckon with some truly horrific experiences and set in motion a profound process of healing and recovery, and it has led to a kind of perception and understanding of a surprisingly large swath of the current state of the world as a whole.
It began as a way to understand things going wrong in computer programs. I've loved programming ever since I first learned of it as a young child; but as anyone who's spent much time around computers and software knows, things go wrong a lot. These problems - "bugs" as they're commonly known - are ubiquitous. Sometimes, they're easy to figure out and fix. Other times, they're elusive, mysterious, almost even seeming defiant in their refusal to be properly addressed. And so, as a young programmer, I learned the importance of how to dig deeply into what's going on, in search of genuine understanding, and in turn, of ways to truly address the root causes of undesired outcomes.
After a lifetime of making this skill a regular part of my everyday approach to life, I can summarize it very simply: keep asking why.
Read the rest of Why...
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Ever been asked "where do you think you'll be in five years?"
I've never gotten that right. Not once. But today I want to talk about my favorite example of me getting it entirely wrong, and how that turned out to be a really good thing.
The truth is, I spent a decade and a half of my adult life struggling - and failing - to cope with my own mind.
Read the rest of How to Change Your Mind...
Monday, October 9, 2023
Life can change in some fascinating ways sometimes.
I started this entire project - the whole idea of Starship Gender - in early 2019. By late 2021, I was struggling with continuing to use the "Starship Gender" name, because the whole concept of gender was increasingly feeling like a massive lie I wanted to escape from.
And now, almost two years after that, I've reached an interesting verdict. I like the name, and I'm keeping it.
But the idea of gender itself can go rot in a hole.
Read the rest of Grand Theft Starship...
Thursday, April 20, 2023
Content Warning: pet loss, relationship abuse, various illness, processing grief.
This is not an entry I was expecting to write.
But sometimes, memories take a while to surface. Sometimes, we need a while before we can let go of certain kinds of pain.
I met Thor in September of 2014. He was a large, black and white mottled Alaskan Malamute - 54 kilos (120 pounds) of excited, energetic, loving dog. Standing on his hind legs, he could put his front paws on my shoulders and look me in the eyes. We loved to "dance," even though we could only to it sparingly to avoid hurting his hips and back (not to mention terrifying other people who weren't as keen on waltzing with a woof).
Read the rest of Rest Well, Buddy Fuzz...
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
Read the rest of Three Months of SwitchBoard...
Sunday, February 19, 2023
I'd like to take some time to lay out the ideas I have for the SwitchBoard project. This is a specific idea that arose as part of the Disability-Driven Development concept. It's also a concrete step towards the more radical, long-term vision I explored in Peeking Into a Future. The path from "here to there" is long, uncertain, and complicated - so I want to dig into what exactly I'm doing, and how I think it will help us get there.
Read the rest of The SwitchBoard Strategy...
Wednesday, February 15, 2023
One of the more common day-to-day struggles of my life, as someone who is both autistic and invisibly disabled, involves coping with my very tiny pool of executive function. This is a fancy phrase to describe a mundane problem: I find it extremely hard to do things.
In order to continue surviving, let alone actually having any kind of life, I've needed to learn how to deal with this. Fortunately, even though "accomplishing things" is often a struggle for me, thinking about things is a skill I essentially cannot turn off. So, true to form, I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to cope with not being able to do things. This is a collection of some of those thoughts.
Read the rest of Eternal Futility and Executive Function...
Monday, January 30, 2023
I've spent a lot of time, over the years, thinking about how to help people connect, interact, and form community - especially in digital spaces on the Internet. I've participated in many kinds of communities, and been a part of shaping a few as well. This is a collection of some of the things I've learned along the way.
Read the rest of Cultivating Community...