Entries from 2022

One of the most useful skills I've chosen to develop in my own life is that of empathy. This is an exploration of how we can invest in and strengthen that skill, and how it can unlock tremendous improvements in life - both within ourselves, and around us.

It is a glimpse into play as a way to befriend our imaginations; and imagination as a way to befriend everyone - and everything - else.

Perspective is a very powerful thing. It is also not something that our culture and world teach us to pay much attention to. Indeed, it is very easy to forget that "our perspective" even exists at all! Sometimes, if we have an experience of privilege, we can believe that our perspective is the "default" or universally shared by everyone; if we have an experience of marginalization or oppression, we may be told that our perspective isn't real or doesn't matter.

I think a lot about the wisdom and sentiment behind Audre Lorde's famous observation that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." It's a crucial insight, for those of us seeking better ways to exist, but it is after all more of a starting point than an answer unto itself.

There are two questions that this oft-recited quote raises in my own mind. First, how can we recognize which of the tools we wield are problematic? And secondly, what are our other options?

I am hardly alone in exploring these questions, to be clear; but what follows is a look into my process of trying to answer them.

I am very fortunate and privileged to have enough financial security to live in a house with a decent-sized yard. It's a nice little corner lot in a quiet neighborhood. but it stands out.

Unlike every other home in the area, my yard is not a nicely-kept, routinely-mowed lawn, surrounded with a neat hedge or flower arrangements.

This is an exploration of why I refuse to change that.

I'm writing this on the evening of December 3rd, 2022 - on what is referred to as "International Day of Persons with Disabilities." If, like me, you prefer identity-first language for such things, you may also have a renaming of this in your head - my own is "International Disabled People's Day" - but regardless of how we phrase the notion, it seems like a useful moment in which to articulate something I've been thinking about for a while now.

I've got a lot to say about who usually creates digital technology - particularly software - and how that's a problem. But more importantly, I've got some thoughts about how to change that.

I didn't expect to write anything today.

Honestly, I didn't expect to do much of anything at all.

Trans Day of Remembrance is a hard one for me, every single year. It's a sobering reminder of how close I've come to having a candle lit for myself.

But it's also a reminder of why I live the way I do - loudly, fiercely, insistently. So I wrote some things.

On April 28th, 2019, I wrote what I have come to think of as the most important love letter of my life. It was, by volume, mostly exposition - storytelling context, establishing the circumstances and setting the scene - and concluded with a short but poignant declaration of love for myself.

This, here, is also a love letter. It will begin, as is my way, with some exposition; and it will conclude with the heart of what I want to say.

I couldn't resist the title of this post. I'll take a moment to explain it properly, because it is a silly computer programming joke, but the thing I'm trying to say here really has very little to do with programming or even computers in general - I promise. If it helps, just think of this as having the alternate title: "True or False is a bad way to think about things." You can even skip to the section with that heading if you like!

I recently exited a career of just over twenty years in software development. I've been fascinated with programming ever since I was very young; and while there's plenty of stories to explore from that aspect of my life, like I said, I'm not really here to talk about programming or computers or digital technology. But it is a very long-running part of my life, and many ideas from software have deeply wormed their way into my brain in the form of analogies and ways I conceptualize my own life and experiences.

I spend a lot of time thinking. About everything.

Sometimes, that includes thinking about myself - who I am, how I wound up where I am in life, and where I want to go next. This is a story about myself, and how much things have changed because of how I've chosen to think about me.

Sometimes there's really no point in trying to summarize anything; only the actual story will do.

This is one of those moments in my life.

It's taken a lot of downtime, of explicit rest and recovery, to reach a point where I'm even ready to try to say any of this. There will be more to follow, I'm almost certain, and no matter how long this entry gets, it can't even begin to scratch the surface of the non-stop storm of thoughts, feelings, and realizations that has characterized the past few months of my life.

I haven't used this space for anything in a while - and that, quite honestly, has been very intentional. It also relates directly to the subject of this actual post.

It's been about three and a half years now since I realized I needed to radically rethink my ideas about who I am as a person, and since I made a commitment to pursue my own authenticity, wherever that ended up leading.

I won't mince words: it's been a tough road. In that span of time, I've learned that I'm trans, femme, non-binary, autistic, invisibly disabled, that I carry deep psychological as well as physiological trauma, and that there are plenty of forces in this world that desperately want me not to live a life of happiness, joy, and fulfillment as my true self.