Treat the difficult people among us gently.
Every day, they are processing our projections.
They are not trying to be difficult–they are just working with the operating system they were born with.
Making peace with the world involves a certain cognitive load, as the brain struggles to create new pathways to connect with and resolve reality.
continue reading enlightenment requires a certain cognitive load
In learning about my sensory processing world (which should be uncontroversial, and just a normal part of getting old–I’m almost 60, and I feel like I’m just getting started), I’m learning that ‘spacial thinking’ is just not an accepted part of everyone’s operating system or language. In recognizing aphantasia (inner blindness to visual memory) as part of my sensory punchcard of blindnesses that open other windows, I’ve also recognized that I have a deep memory and skill information stored in my bodyandmind spatially. I can’t visualize my mother’s face, but I can imagine myself sitting in the skating rink in Klamath Falls OR in 1978 and point to all of the features there, relative to my position. I can imagine myself in my mother’s apartment and point to all of the rooms and some of the things (not all of the things: there are a lot of things in my mother’s apartment). I can’t see them, but I can point to them, spatially.
So anyway, this is just a quick note to say that some of us think spatially, and try to describe the world that we see spatially, and that in doing what is perfectly normal for me, some folks experience a cognitive load when conversing with or reading me. And some of these folks experience this cognitive load as “ryk being difficult.”
Pause for a moment, and imagine a whole lifetime of being told that you’re difficult, just because you’re trying to work with the operating system you’ve been given. And then consider giving a difficult person a big ol’ hug. I could use a big ol’ hug a lot of the time that I’m being asked to filter my experience through someone else’s operating system. It’s a whole process. Hugs all around.
Anyway, it’s notable and refreshing to be affirmed by examples of spatial thinking from history. Please give someone a hug, and enjoy the depth and breadth and height of this example of spatial thinking (or spatial feeling, actually, if thinking and feeling are different for you–they’re not for me).
continue reading How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
it’s not in belief that faith succeeds, but in being
moved by beings one sees are being moved
by faithful arcs: the sun and moon are proved
faithful in their arcs. are we agreeing?
on viewing the full moon, i see three moons.
should i attune myself so that I see a single moon, and continue seeing one moon?
or is my gift to see three moons, and continue seeing a multiplicity of moons?
or is my gift the gift of inner blindness, that doesn’t see a thing, but instead describes it?
RAG: I work in spaces where people are exploring creative activity in motion, such as singing, dancing, and playing instruments. I notice a subset of people who will experience frequent yawning, muscle contractions in various parts of the body, and the desire to stretch. What am i describing, and how can i contextualize this so…
To be an autistic person is to be a person with something valuable inside you but to rarely find the right environment where your value is recognized as valuable by people around you.
This is me, speaking from the heart of an autistic person.
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.
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.
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.
Neurodiversity is the new (different! better!) cognitive frame. Astrology, Enneagram, Meyers-Briggs, Chinese medicine, naturopathy, homeopathy: having passed through these modalities, none of them made me feel seen in the ways that they were implemented by the particular practitioners who applied them to me. To be fair, I may have met with unskilled practitioners. Your mileage…
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…