{"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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"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":542,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/02\/different-specialties\/","url_meta":{"origin":492,"position":5},"title":"different specialties","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"August 2, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"A shout out to all my relations, especially the ones who have called me out for the ways I have spoken of we, (or written of we, more precisely, as written and spoken are mostly the same for me\u2013I feel safer, mostly, in writing, but they are mostly the same\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\/08\/IMG_0385.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0385.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0385.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0385.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0385.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_0385.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"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}]}}