{"id":492,"date":"2025-07-28T12:39:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T19:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/28\/same-difference\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T12:39:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T19:39:14","slug":"same-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/28\/same-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"same difference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"474\" height=\"237\" data-attachment-id=\"491\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/img_0375\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0375.jpg?fit=474%2C237&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"474,237\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"img_0375\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0375.jpg?fit=474%2C237&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0375.jpg?resize=474%2C237&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"wp-image-491\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0375.jpg?w=474&amp;ssl=1 474w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0375.jpg?resize=300%2C150&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a society where differences are recognized and celebrated, our experience of community is an experience of collective difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a society where samenesses are recognized and celebrated, our experience of community is an experience of collective sameness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a society that celebrates differences, everyone being different is a given. No one pops out. All are included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a society that celebrates sameness, everyone being the same is a given. The differences pop out. Some are centered. Some are different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What type of society do you live in? What type of society would you like to live in? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you take comfort in sameness? Do you take comfort in difference? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do our differences connect us or divide us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is all worthy of consideration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a society where differences are recognized and celebrated, our experience of community is an experience of collective difference. In a society where samenesses are recognized and celebrated, our experience of community is an experience of collective sameness. In a society that celebrates differences, everyone being different is a given. No one pops out. All &#8230; <a title=\"same difference\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/28\/same-difference\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about same difference\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,14,16,15,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-didactics","category-neurodiversity","category-poem","category-politics","category-reflection"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paor1p-7W","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":632,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/10\/attentional-disengagement\/","url_meta":{"origin":492,"position":0},"title":"Attentional Disengagement","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"September 10, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Thesis: the attentional disengagement family of predispositions is a healthy and strategic set of adaptations within a species or community with strong tendencies to cooperate. In a species adapted to function through tight coordination, the coordinated activity can become prioritized, causing those engaged to lose sight of the emergent reason\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;chronicle&quot;","block_context":{"text":"chronicle","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/chronicle\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":428,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/27\/its-not-a-condition-its-a-predisposition\/","url_meta":{"origin":492,"position":1},"title":"It&#8217;s not a condition \u2013 it&#8217;s a predisposition","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"June 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Me: It's not a condition \u2013 it's a predisposition. Friend: What is? My particular nervous system processes my experience through language. I have experiences, and some part of me chews and chews and chews and digests and then out comes a word (this didn\u2019t start as a scatological reference, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;chronicle&quot;","block_context":{"text":"chronicle","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/chronicle\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-7.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-7.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-7.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-7.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-7.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":647,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/25\/why-we-do-what-we-do-my-mothers-crone-ceremony\/","url_meta":{"origin":492,"position":2},"title":"why we do what we do: my mother&#8217;s crone ceremony","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"September 25, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been very emotional for me to reemerge from the darkness of lockdown to return to building community through music-making. In my conversations with folks, it becomes clear that a younger generation of families don't know about some of the ways we connected before, and don't necessarily remember many of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;chronicle&quot;","block_context":{"text":"chronicle","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/chronicle\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0515-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0515-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0515-scaled.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0515-scaled.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0515-scaled.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0515-scaled.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":458,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/21\/neurodiversity-journey-recognition\/","url_meta":{"origin":492,"position":3},"title":"neurodiversity journey: recognition","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"July 21, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;chronicle&quot;","block_context":{"text":"chronicle","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/chronicle\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3F080A78-FE43-42DF-9B29-38214F5F8927.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3F080A78-FE43-42DF-9B29-38214F5F8927.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3F080A78-FE43-42DF-9B29-38214F5F8927.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3F080A78-FE43-42DF-9B29-38214F5F8927.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3F080A78-FE43-42DF-9B29-38214F5F8927.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3F080A78-FE43-42DF-9B29-38214F5F8927.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":494,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/28\/emotional-processing\/","url_meta":{"origin":492,"position":4},"title":"Emotional processing","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"July 28, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"A recent conversation about emotional processing with my neurodiverse community got me thinking about putting language to my experience of my emotional ecosystem. I have realized for a long time that my emotions work differently from many people that I interact with, and it's only recently that I have had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;chronicle&quot;","block_context":{"text":"chronicle","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/chronicle\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0376.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0376.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0376.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0376.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0376.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0376.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":500,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/29\/connection-attraction-hyperfocus-community\/","url_meta":{"origin":492,"position":5},"title":"connection\/attraction\/hyperfocus\/community","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"July 29, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve been thinking for some time about certain dynamics and patterns in the spaces I move through, and having a difficult time finding the right framing to bring these ideas up in conversations with colleagues. I decided to see what the pattern-recognition community had to say. The result was quite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;didactics&quot;","block_context":{"text":"didactics","link":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/category\/didactics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0380.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0380.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0380.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/img_0380.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}