literature

i, advocate

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If you’ve been following my neurodiversity journey–as I articulate the experience of a person with autism, ADHD, aphantasia, and proprioception hyposensitivity from the inside, along with the other ways i share myself–and you’ve found that the insights I’ve shared connect with your experience, or contextualize something you suspected, realize that sharing these insights is one of the ways I care for my community.

And realize that, as a person with no degrees or qualifications as an advocate other than my lived experience and my inborn gifts, what I share makes no sense in the context of capitalism.

If you find that a person like me is a valuable part of the community, and worthy of support, realize that, within the context of 21st century American capitalism, there’s not much support for people like me, or for the people I advocate for, who often don’t have the gift for articulation that I share with my community.

I could institutionalize myself: pursue an advanced degree that legitimizes my advocacy in the context of capitalism, and in doing so, would need to unplug myself from the community that I move through, and in doing so, become another victim of capitalism – saddled with huge debt, and most likely unable to find an official advocacy position that would pay off that debt in my lifetime.

I choose, instead, to move through my community in the ways I’ve been moving, because my community moves me to do so, and that’s how I show up. That’s how I care.

If you find this valuable, I’m asking to be allowed to continue advocating for your sensory and cognitive gifts, to continue recontextualizing valuable predispositions that have been pathologized. I’m asking to be adopted. I’m asking for your care. I’m asking for your support.

In asking for your support, I’m not asking to be the CEO of Spotify, or Starbucks, or Paramount+, or Ridwell, or any of the other services that folks find valuable and subscribe to. I’m asking for just enough care to be allowed to live and continue to do the work that I do. If you subscribe to even a little bit of the philosophy I share, consider subscribing to me, so I can continue caring for my community in the ways that I do.

Thanks for all you do, and thank you for being you.

give to ryk

the care economy

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give to ryk

The care economy is an emerging model for supporting people, things, and processes we’d like to see more of in the world. It is about recognizing the things in our experience that bring us joy, that give us a [wow] or a [yes], and responding to these moments in a supportive way. It’s actually just, well, practicing care, and that’s not new at all. But the language of commerce is transactional, rather than responsive.

I recognize that I love the work that I do with people so much that I would offer it for free if I was supported–if all of my needs were met. But traditional models don’t allow for that type of responsiveness. I would like to try to move toward a more responsive system, built on trust. Why not?

People who know me can decide if they trust the work I do, and they can choose to support me so that I can do that work, or not. In doing so, they are allowing me to be more myself, and guiding me toward their own needs. I’m the product, in a sense, but since our relationship is based on trust, I’m allowed to do the work I believe, adjusting to the needs that arise, as they align with those who trust me.

This simple shift makes the difference between the transactional and the responsive. But it’s kind of vulnerable and scary. I have to trust those that are responding. Will I be supported? Will enough people believe in the work? If I am being truly responsive to their needs, then perhaps. I think it’s worth a try.

I see a difference between commitment and obligation. Commitment is a responsive engagement, where we meet the needs of the moment as it arises. Obligation can keep us stuck supporting processes that actually hinder our ability to respond to the moment.

So, I see a possibility emerging to do things in a more responsive way, and in seeing how obligation often thwarts connection, I would like to avoid transactions that create a sense of obligation, and nurture ones that give one a sense of [wow] or [yes].

So, think about our interactions in the spaces we share. If our conversations seem to be taking us in good directions, let’s continue the conversation. If helping to support me gives you a sense of [wow] or [yes], then you are participating in the care economy. Thank you for recognizing your own power to support, and if our goals align, thank you for your support.

give to ryk

neurodiversity journey: recognition

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Now that I am coming to understand my own neurodivergence, from the inside, (my punch card is getting full! It’s pretty clear I have autistic traits, in addition to ADHD, aphantasia, and proprioception hyposensitivity. Hurray!), I understand some of my differences as gifts. My inner blindness reroutes my visual processing through my language system–words are literally my way of visualizing. So whereas someone who visualizes might just enjoy the picture in their mind, I must make words, and I must share them for my inner world to become real. And although I do not have access to visual memory, I have a strong inner sense of space: I can feel inside myself places I’ve been, and tell you about the contents of those spaces–so if I point, and you can’t see what I’m pointing at, I’m pointing at something inside of myself, relative to my position in that space. I can smell these spaces, and tell you about those smells, and my reaction to them.

I share my language, from within the heart of my sensory and cognitive differences, exactly because people like RFKjr are spreading a dangerous lie: that autism is a disease, it is on the rise, and that it can be cured. And by association, because there is no magic data point that defines autism specifically and definitively (we are instead compiling lists of “tendencies” and comparing them lists of “norms”) people with other sensory and cognitive differences are in danger of being subjected to this cure as well.

Imagine: we could be living in a world free of Beethovens, free of VanGoghs, free of Newtons and Robin Williamses, free of Dogens and Temple Grandins and Einsteins, free of Soyen Shakus and Ryokans and Yayoi Kusamas, free of Greta Thunbergs and Hannah Gadsbys and Emily Dickinsons, free of Darwins and Joyces and Yeatses and Wittgensteins and Hans Christian Andersens and Susan Boyles and Blaise Pascals and Darryl Hannahs. Free of quirky-but-gifted people who connect directly with those they love, and are all around us, and always have been.

Humanity is not a collection of individuals: no individual ever did anything–we are a social species who has been so successful because we are so varied and so cooperative. People with sensory and cognitive differences are not diseased. In the vast, collective human body, we are specialists. Sometimes our specialties have us engaged in processing experience in ways that make us seem hard to understand and asocial, when in fact we are solving problems others are not even aware exist. Our affect appears flat because our nervous systems are wired for something else besides satisfying others’ need for affirmation through tone and facial expressions–we are wired to respond to a different set of impulses. We are the ones whose acute hearing warns the community of danger; we are the obsessives who figure out how to get nourishment out of a plant that is toxic until it is beaten and soaked and rinsed and soaked and mixed with ashes and soaked and rinsed and dried and cooked; we are the ones who create new language for the inner world of those who cannot speak, and in doing so make them human, acceptable, and hopefully valued in the community of humanity.

Hopefully you’ll connect with some of this language–it will remind you of something you already know. Hopefully you recognize that a world free of autistic traits would be a dismal place indeed. Hopefully some of this language will land with you, and hopefully you will spread it–it is open source and free to use, and it was created by observing you in action.

Thanks for listening. Having heard, warn the community of danger, in all of the ways you know how.

May all beings recognize their true nature.

Every day is neurodiversity awareness day.